The Georgetown Metropolitan

Good morning Georgetown, and happy new year! Here’s the latest:

• Mid-block pedestrian crossing coming to M St. between Wisconsin Ave. and Potomac St. Should make crossing the street a lot easier and hopefully cut down on dangerous jaywalking.
• I was happy to participate in the inaugural Georgetown caroling! Join us next year!
• Permit finally issued for West Heating Plant construction.

I’m signing off for the year so that I can get Xmas shopping finally! Have a happy holiday and see you in 2023!

Well, it’s that time again. The Earth has made it around the sun again, and the Georgetown Metropolitan is adding another hashmark to the wall: this here publication is now 14 years old.

Fourteen’s an odd age. Squarely a teenager, but without any specific landmarks, like a driver’s license or a quinceaneras. It’s just one of those in between years. But next year really will bring some changes here! As I transition to my new role as ANC commissioner you’ll probably see some new features here. If anything it should get more informative as I get somewhat flooded with notices and events that I will pass along to you all.

But the meat and potatoes of the Georgetown Metropolitan will remain! Still plenty of Time Machine posts and other deep dives into obscure Georgetown history. And all the openings and closings I hear about will be reported here too. So please stay tuned!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Moroccan fans take to M St. to celebrate their monumental win over Portugal.
• New Water Street hotel gets final approval.

Back in October, I explored what an artificial intelligence might come up with when asked to draw Georgetown. The results were mixed! But as you may have heard, the same website that offered up AI-generated art is now offering an AI-generated text.

So I got to wondering, “Hey I might get a little busy with the new ANC position next year, maybe I could outsource the website to AI?”

So I gave the chat-bot a simple request: “Write an article in the style of the Georgetown Metropolitan where you discus why there used to be two different Gay Streets in Georgetown.” That’s just the very article I would write! So what did it come up with?

Well, let’s just say I’ll be still writing these myself for now. This is what it produced:

Georgetown residents may have noticed that there are two different streets named “Gay Street” in the neighborhood. This may seem like a confusing and unnecessary duplication, but the reason behind it dates back to the city’s history.

In the early 1800s, Georgetown was a bustling port town and the center of trade and commerce in the Washington, D.C. area. One of the main streets in the town was named “Gay Street” in honor of the family who owned much of the land in the area.

Continue reading →

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Although it was supposedly going to first open on Saturday, Yellow is already open. Check it out!
• Rare chance to buy a canal house.

3300 block of O St.

Today for Georgetown Time Machine, we’re visiting with a little girl who had just become a big sister. It was November, 62 years ago, and the girl had just got back from a walk with her dad, who was about to change jobs on top of everything.

If you haven’t guessed yet, the little girl is Caroline Kennedy, and her new little brother was John Jr. According to the text with the picture (from the Dec. 5 1960 Life magazine) “Caroline Kennedy peers out from her Georgetown home on the afternoon of her brother’s birth. Kennedy [her father] had just taken her for a walk and was about to tell her she had a little brother.”

The home she’s peering out of is 3307 N St. JFK lived here with his family while he was a senator and during his run for the presidency. In fact he gave impromptu press conferences on the steps of the home during those weeks between his successful election and his move to the White House.

Of course, tragedy befell the family and the nation. But for a little while they were just another young Georgetown family:

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Yellow opens this Saturday, and it looks delicious.
• I was feeling pretty confident, but just for the record the final election results were officially released and there were no surprises from the preliminary results. I am now officially commissioner-elect. Now the work begins!

Tudor Place