Photo by Markrd5538.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
This week on Now and a Long Time Ago, GM walked down a block and a half from his house to check out 33rd and P. GM is still working out some kinks in his computer, so this week he’s trying out a new way to merge the old with the new, what do you think?
The full old shot is here, taken from the wonderful repository of old streetcar photos: Continue reading
Filed under Now and a Long Time Ago
Photo by tedeytan.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Dawgfanjeff.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Doscabeza.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
GU Stained Glass by GUCNDLS.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Just hours after taking the above photo of the idyllic southern Massachusetts coastline, GM found himself racing back to Washington in order to attend the June ANC meeting. This fact has no bearing on the meeting itself, but GM just felt you ought to know what sacrifices he makes to keep you informed.
That said, the ANC meeting last night was jam packed and more than justified GM’s sacrifice. Unfortunately, it ran rather long so GM is going to have to keep it short in order to avoid falling asleep at the wheel.
Streetcars
DDOT presented plans for the streetcar and how those plans would affect Georgetown. In DDOT’s ambitious 37 mile plan, the agency calls for a cross-town route to come into Georgetown along K St.
The ANC is generally supportive of the plans but is nervous about how the streetcar could affect traffic, parking, and the viewshed. The overall message from the DDOT representative is that it is way too early to really say what DDOT is going to decide for Georgetown, but he also added that it is likely that there will not be dedicated lanes and that no overhead wire will be used in Georgeown.
On that last point, though, the DDOT representative was a bit ambivalent. He showed up with an actual cross-sections of the proposed 3/8th inch overhead wire along with several images of what that wire would look like in action. He also discussed the council’s proposal to authorize overhead wires along H St. NE (areas outside of the L’Enfant Plan and Georgetown allow overhead wires already). You could argue that he was trying to soften up Georgetown to accept overhead wires, at least temporarily.
And surprisingly enough, it looks like the ANC may go along with that. They unanimously adopted a resolution that was split into two parts. The first part essentially said that the ANC supports streetcars on K St. so long as there are no dedicated lanes, no parking was removed, and any overhead wires are approved by the Commission of Fine Arts (there was also a request to consider what effect the possible removal of the Whitehurst would have on those plans).
Secondly, the ANC would not object to streetcars on Wisconsin Ave. (or M St., which was added to the resolution after the DDOT rep mentioned that streetcars could end up coming into Georgetown by M St. not k St.) again so long as there are no dedicated lanes and no removal of parking. For Wisconsin and M, however, the ANC put its foot down and said absolutely no overhead wires.
All in all, it was a good resolution for supporters of streetcars in and through Georgetown. Continue reading
Filed under ANC
The ANC will meet for it’s June meeting next Tuesday at 6:30 at Visitation. Looking at the agenda, you’d think the entire meeting will be dominated by liquor license renewals. But GM predicts little time will actually be spent on those issues. So what will they be talking about?
EastBanc’s Plans for Fillmore
GM has covered this, but for those just catching up: EastBanc has agreed to purchase the historic Fillmore School building at 1801 35th St. from the Corcoran (the ANC agenda mistakenly calls this the “Corcoran School”, which is a little confusing to history nuts like GM who know that the historic school building at 1219 28th St. was called the Corcoran School.)
EastBanc plans on converting the building into 15 condos and wants to construct rowhouses on the parking lot (GM estimates they want to build 16-20). EastBanc will come to the ANC to present their plans. When they presented similarly ambitious plans for the post office, they received a pretty warm reception from the ANC and the public. GM doesn’t imagine it will be much different this time.
Streetcars
DDOT was asked to send a rep to last month’s ANC meeting to discuss their streetcar plans for Georgetown. Unfortunately nobody came. They are back on the agenda next week, so hopefully someone will come. Continue reading
Peach Crepes by sonicwalker.
The ANC met for its May session last night. Heavy on liquor discussions and mercifully short on residential permit issues, the meeting was a lively one. But are you even reading this or are just thinking about how much you’d love some peach crepes right now?
About Those Crepes
Sometimes words said just cannot be unsaid. Exhibit A: Last month the proprietors of the new Crepe Amour restaurant on M St. described their restaurant as a “grab and go”-type restaurant while asking to get approval to remain open 24-7. There are probably few phrases that they would be worse off using than “grab and go” if they ever hope to get approval as an all-night dining option. For that reason, the owners were back this month desperately explaining all the ways in which they are neither grab nor go.
The commissioners weren’t buying it. They believe that if Crepe Amour is permitted to go to 24-7 operation, they will become Philly Pizza redux. While GM can sympathize with the fact that that part of Georgetown might be sensing a bit of deja vu all over again, he believes that there are fundamental differences. Most importantly, Crepe Amour is on M St. not a side street like Potomac. This is a key difference. The reason that Philly Pizza was such a problem was that it attracted drunk and loud revelers off of M St. who then congregated outside of the restaurant, which happened to also be the outside of a bunch of homes. The commissioners kept harping on the idea that Crepe Amour would “attract” only drunks. But so what? If a drunk student is going to walk back to the campus or their off-campus home through the lower West Village, they are going to do so regardless of whether they stop by for a crepe on M St. beforehand. Maybe 24 hour service is unacceptable for other reasons, but GM thinks the ANC is making an illogical comparison to Philly Pizza in this instance. Continue reading
Filed under ANC
Care of a comment to a Morning Metropolitan, GM became aware of the Wisconsin Ave. Streetcar Coalition. It’s a group of Wisconsin Ave.-based residents and others in the Washington area who support sustainable development and transportation. Their goal is to convince DDOT to make firmer plans to bring a streetcar to Wisconsin Ave.
Little background: Last fall DDOT announced an ambitious plan to bring streetcar lines all over the city.
Filed under Transit
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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