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Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
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Georgetown is a neighborhood located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River waterfront. Founded in 1751, the city of Georgetown substantially predated the establishment of the city of Washington and the District of Columbia. Georgetown retained its separate municipal status until 1871, when it was assimilated into the city of Washington. Today, the primary commercial corridors of Georgetown are M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, which contain high-end shops, bars, and restaurants.
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Encyclopedia
Georgetown is a neighborhood located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River waterfront. Founded in 1751, the city of Georgetown substantially predated the establishment of the city of Washington and the District of Columbia. Georgetown retained its separate municipal status until 1871, when it was assimilated into the city of Washington. Today, the primary commercial corridors of Georgetown are M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, which contain high-end shops, bars, and restaurants. Georgetown is home to the main campus of Georgetown University and the Old Stone House, the oldest standing building in Washington. The embassies of France, Mongolia, Sweden, Thailand, Venezuela, and Ukraine are located in Georgetown.
History
Early history
In 1632, English fur trader Henry Fleet first documented a Native American (Nacotchtank) village called Tohoga on the site of present-day Georgetown and established trade there. Georgetown was incorporated as a town and first regularly settled in 1751, when the area was part of the British colony of the Province of Maryland. Georgetown was located on land that was owned by George Gordon and George Beall.
Situated on the fall line, Georgetown was the farthest point upstream to which oceangoing boats could navigate the Potomac River. Gordon constructed a tobacco inspection house along the Potomac in approximately 1745. Tobacco was already being transferred from land to waterways at this location, when the inspection house was built. Warehouses, wharves, and other buildings were then constructed around the inspection house, and it quickly became a small community. It did not take long before Georgetown grew into a thriving port, facilitating trade and shipments of tobacco and other goods from colonial Maryland. One of the most prominent tobacco export businesses was Forrest, Stoddert and Murdock, which was formed in 1783 in Georgetown, by Uriah Forrest, Benjamin Stoddert, and John Murdock.
Georgetown was established in 1751 when the Maryland Legislature purchased of land for the town from Gordon and Beall at the price of £280. Since Georgetown was founded during the reign of George II of Great Britain, some speculate that the town was named after him. Another theory is that the town was named after its founders, George Gordon and George Beall.
Post-Revolution
The Maryland Legislature formally issued the town charter and incorporated the town in 1789. Robert Peter, who was among the first to establish a business (tobacco export) in the town, became Georgetown's first mayor in 1790.
Benjamin Stoddert was a major figure in early Georgetown history. Arriving there in 1783, having previously served as Secretary to the Board of War under the Articles of Confederation, he partnered with General Uriah Forrest to become an original proprietor of the Potomac Company. Stoddert purchased stock in the federal government under Hamilton's assumption-of-debt plan. He ultimately owned Halcyon House at the corner of 34th and Prospect Streets.
The terms of the land transfer to the federal government to create the national capital were worked out by Stoddert and other Potomac landowners at a dinner at Forrest's home in Georgetown on March 28, 1791. Stoddert bought land within the boundaries of the federal district, some of it at the request of Washington for the government and some on speculation. The speculative purchases were not, however, profitable and caused Stoddert much difficulty before his appointment as Secretary of the Navy to John Adams. Stoddert was rescued from his debts with the help of William Marbury, later of Marbury v. Madison fame, and also a Georgetown resident. The Forrest-Marbury House on M Street is currently the embassy of Ukraine.
Col. John Beatty established the first church in Georgetown, a Lutheran church on High Street. Stephen Bloomer Balch established a Presbyterian Church in 1784. In 1795, the Trinity Catholic Church was built, along with a parish school-house. St. John's Episcopal Church was built in 1803. Banks in Georgetown included the Farmers and Mechanics Bank, which was established in 1814. Other banks included the Bank of Washington, Patriotic Bank, Bank of the Metropolis, and the Union and Central Banks of Georgetown. Newspapers in Georgetown included the Republican Weekly Ledger, which was the first paper, started in 1790. The Sentinel was first published in 1796 by Green, English & Co. Charles C. Fulton began publishing the Potomac Advocate, which was started by Thomas Turner. Other newspapers in Georgetown included the Georgetown Courier and the Federal Republican. William B. Magruder, the first postmaster, was appointed on February 16, 1790, and in 1795, a custom house was established on Water Street. General James M. Lingan served as the first collector of the port.
George Washington frequented Georgetown, including Suter's Tavern where he worked out many land deals from there to acquire land for the Federal City. In the 1790s, City Tavern, the Union Tavern, and the Columbian Inn opened and were popular throughout the 19th century. Of these taverns, only the City Tavern remains today, as a private social club (the City Tavern Club) located near the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street.
Thomas Jefferson lived for some time in Georgetown while he served as United States Secretary of State under President George Washington. Georgetown was home to Francis Scott Key who arrived as a young lawyer in 1808 and resided on M Street. Dr. William Beanes, a relative of Key, captured the rear guard of the British Army while it was burning Washington during the War of 1812. When the mass of the army retreated, they retrieved their imprisoned guard and took Dr. Beanes as a captive to their fleet near Baltimore. Key went to the fleet to request the release of Beanes, was held until the bombardment of Fort McHenry was completed, and gained the inspiration for "The Star-Spangled Banner".
By the 1820s, the Potomac River had become silted up and was not navigable up to Georgetown. Construction of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal began in July 1828, to link Georgetown to Harper's Ferry in West Virginia. The canal was completed on October 10, 1850, at a cost $77,041,586. The canal turned out not to be profitable, never living up to expectations with construction of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The Canal nonetheless provided an economic boost for Georgetown. In the 1820s and 1830s, Georgetown was an important shipping center. Tobacco and other goods were transferred between the canal and shipping on the Potomac River. As well, salt was imported from Europe, and sugar and molasses were imported from the West Indies. These shipping industries were later superseded by coal and flour industries, which flourished with the C & O Canal providing cheap power for mills and other industry.
African-American history
Georgetown historically had a large African-American population, including both slaves and free blacks. Slave labor was widely used in construction of new buildings in Washington, in addition to provide labor on tobacco plantations in Maryland and Virginia. Slave trading in Georgetown dates back as early as 1760, when John Beattie established his business on O Street and conducted business at other locations around Wisconsin Avenue. Slave trading continued until the mid-19th century, when it was banned. Other slave markets ("pens") were located in Georgetown, including one at McCandless' Tavern near M Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Congress abolished slavery in Washington and Georgetown on April 16, 1862. Many African Americans moved to Georgetown following the Civil War, establishing a thriving community.
In the late 18th and 19th centuries, African Americans comprised a substantial portion of Georgetown's population. The 1800 census reported the population in Georgetown at 5,120, which included 1,449 slaves and 227 free blacks. A testament to the African-American history that remains today is the Mount Zion United Methodist Church, which is the oldest African-American congregation in Washington. Prior to establishing the church, free blacks and slaves went to the Dumbarton Methodist Church where they were restricted to a hot, overcrowded balcony. The church was originally located in a small brick meetinghouse on 27th Street, but it was destroyed in the 1880s due to fire. The church was rebuilt on the present site. Mount Zion Cemetery offered free burials for Washington's earlier African-American population.
Post-Civil War
docked at the Georgetown waterfront, ca. 1865]]
After the American Revolution, Georgetown became an independent municipal government of the federal District of Columbia, along with the City of Washington, the City of Alexandria, and the newly created County of Washington and County of Alexandria (now Arlington County, Virginia). It was officially known as "Georgetown, D.C." In 1862, the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company began a horsecar line running along M Street in Georgetown and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, easing travel between the two cities. Georgetown's corporate charter, along with Washington's, was formally revoked by Congress effective June 1, 1871, at which point its governmental powers were vested within the District of Columbia. The streets in Georgetown were renamed in 1880 to conform to the street names in use in Washington.
By the late 1800s, flour milling and other industries in Georgetown were declining, in part due to the fact that the canals and other waterways continually silted up. Nathaniel Michler and S.T. Abert led efforts to dredge the channels and remove rocks around the Georgetown harbor, though these were temporary solutions and Congress showed little interest in the issue. An 1890 flood and expansion of the railroads brought destitution to the C&O Canal, and Georgetown became a depressed slum, with alleys choked by tiny dwellings lacking plumbing or electricity. Shipping trade vanished between the Civil War and World War I. As a result, many older homes were preserved relatively unchanged. Alexander Graham Bell's earliest switching office for the Bell System was located on a site just below the C&O Canal, and it remains in use as a phone facility to this day.
"From a pre-Civil War population of 6,798 whites, 1,358 free Negroes, and 577 slaves, Georgetown's population had grown to 17,300 but half these residents were poverty-stricken Negroes."
Early twentieth century
In 1915, the Buffalo Bridge (on Q Street) opened and connected this part of Georgetown with the rest of the city east of Rock Creek Park. Soon thereafter, new construction of large apartment buildings began on the edge of Georgetown. In the early 1920s, John Ihlder led efforts to take advantage of new zoning laws to get restrictions enacted on construction in Georgetown. A 1933 study by Horace Peaslee and Allied Architects laid out ideas for how Georgetown could be preserved.
The C & O Canal, then owned by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, formally ceased operations in March 1924. After severe flooding in 1936, B & O Railroad sold the canal to the National Park Service in October 1938. The waterfront area retained its industrial character in the first half of the 20th century. Georgetown was home to a lumber yard, a cement works, the Washington Flour mill, and a meat rendering plant, and its skyline was dominated by the smokestacks of a garbage incinerator and the twin stacks of the power generating plant for the old Capital Traction streetcar system, located at the foot of Wisconsin Avenue, which closed in 1935 and which was not razed until October 1968. In 1949, the city constructed the Whitehurst Freeway, an elevated highway above K Street, to allow motorists entering the District over the Key Bridge to bypass Georgetown entirely on their way downtown.
Legislators largely ignored concerns about historic preservation of Georgetown until 1950, when Public Law 808 was passed, establishing the historic district of "Old Georgetown." The law required that the United States Commission of Fine Arts be consulted on any alteration, demolition, or building construction within the historic district.
Gentrification
As the only existing town at the time, Georgetown was the fashion and cultural center of the newly-formed District of Columbia. As Washington grew, however, the center of social Washington moved east across Rock Creek to the new Victorian homes that sprang up around the city's traffic circles, and to the Gilded Age mansions along Massachusetts Avenue. While many "old families" stayed on in Georgetown, the neighborhood's population became poorer and more racially diverse by the early 20th century. Its demographics started to shift again when gentrification began during the 1930s, as a number of members of the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved into the area. By the 1950s, a wave of new post-war residents arrived. Many of these new residents were well-educated, from elite backgrounds and they took a keen interest in the neighborhood's historic nature. At about the same time, the Citizens Association of Georgetown was formed.
The area reached the height of fashionability when Georgetown resident John F. Kennedy was elected president. Kennedy lived in Georgetown in the 1950s as both a Congressman and a Senator. Parties hosted by his wife, Jackie, and many other Georgetown hostesses drew political elites away from downtown clubs and hotels or the upper 16th Street corridor. Kennedy went to his presidential inauguration from his townhouse at 3307 N Street in January 1961. Today Georgetown is one of the most affluent neighborhoods of Washington DC and home to many of the city's politicians and lobbyists. Current inhabitants include Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, past Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee, Washington Post Watergate reporter and current assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos, and Montana Senator Max Baucus, among others. High-end developments and gentrification have revitalized Georgetown's formerly blighted industrial waterfront. The District's old refuse incinerator and smokestack, preserved for years as an abandoned but historic landmark, was redeveloped in 2003 to become the most pronounced feature of a new Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
Geography
passes through Georgetown]]
Georgetown is bounded by the Potomac River on the south, Rock Creek to the east, Burleith and Glover Park to the north, with Georgetown University on the west end of the neighborhood. Much of Georgetown is surrounded by parkland and green space that serve as buffers from development in adjacent neighborhoods, and provide recreation. Rock Creek Park, the Oak Hill Cemetery, Montrose Park and Dumbarton Oaks are located along the north and east edge of Georgetown, east of Wisconsin Avenue. The neighborhood is situated on bluffs overlooking the Potomac River. As a result, there are some rather steep grades on streets running north-south. The famous "Exorcist steps" connecting M Street to Prospect Street were necessitated by the hilly terrain of the neighborhood.
The primary commercial corridors of Georgetown are M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, whose high fashion stores draw large numbers of tourists as well as local shoppers year-round. There is also the Washington Harbour complex on K Street, on the waterfront, featuring outdoor bars and restaurants popular for viewing boat races. Between M and K Streets runs the historic Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, today plied only by tour boats; adjacent trails are popular with joggers or strollers.
Historic landmarks
 - Canal Square Building, 1054 31st Street, NW, former home of the Tabulating Machine Company, a direct precursor of IBM
- The City Tavern Club, built in 1796, is the oldest commercial structure in Washington, D.C.
- The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, begun in 1829.
- Dumbarton Oaks, 3101 R Street, NW, former home of John C. Calhoun, U.S. vice president, where the United Nations charter was outlined in 1944.
- Evermay, built in 1801 and restored by F. Lammot Belin
- The Forrest-Marbury House, 3350 M Street, NW, where George Washington met with local landowners to acquire the District of Columbia. Currently the Embassy of the Ukraine.
- Georgetown Lutheran Church was the first church in Georgetown, dates back to 1769. The current church structure, the fourth on the site, was built in 1914.
- Georgetown Presbyterian Church was established in 1780 by Reverend Stephen Bloomer Balch. Formerly located on Bridge Street (M Street), the current church building was constructed in 1881 on P Street.
- Healy Hall on Georgetown's campus, built in Flemish Romanesque style from 1877 to 1879 was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
- Mount Zion United Methodist Church and Mount Zion Cemetery
- The Oak Hill Cemetery, a gift of William Wilson Corcoran whose Gothic chapel and gates were designed by James Renwick, is the resting place of Abraham Lincoln's son Willie and other figures.
- The Old Stone House, built in 1765, located on M Street is the oldest original structure in Washington, D.C.
- Tudor Place and Dumbarton Court
Transportation
Georgetown's transportation importance was defined by its location just below the fall line of the Potomac River. The Aqueduct Bridge (and later, the Francis Scott Key Bridge) connected Georgetown with Virginia. Before the Aqueduct Bridge was built, a ferry service owned by John Mason connected Georgetown to Virginia. In 1788, a bridge was constructed over Rock Creek to connect Bridge Street (M Street) with the Federal City.
Georgetown was located at the juncture of the Alexandria Canal and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The C&O Canal, begun in Georgetown in 1829, reached Cumberland, Maryland in 1851, and operated until 1924. Wisconsin Avenue is on the alignment of the tobacco hogshead rolling road from rural Maryland, and the Federal Customs House was located on 31st Street (now utilized as the post office). The city's oldest bridge, the sandstone bridge which carries Wisconsin Avenue over the C&O Canal, and which dates to 1831, was reopened to traffic on May 16, 2007, after a $3.5 million restoration. It is the only remaining bridge of five constructed in Georgetown by the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company.
Several streetcar line and interurban railways interchanged passengers in Georgetown. The station was located in front of the stone wall on Canal Road (currently occupied by a gas station) adjacent to the "Exorcist steps", and the former D.C. Transit car barn at the end of the Key Bridge. Four suburban Virginia lines, connecting through Rosslyn, Virginia, provided links from the D.C. streetcar network to Mount Vernon, Falls Church, Great Falls, Fairfax, Vienna, Leesburg, and Purcellville. Streetcar operations in Washington, D.C. ended January 28, 1962. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad built a branch line from Silver Spring, Maryland to Water Street in Georgetown in an abortive attempt to construct a southern connection to Alexandria, Virginia. It served as an industrial line to a General Services Administration power plant on K Street (now razed) until at least 1982. The abandoned right-of-way has since been converted into the Capital Crescent Trail – a rails-to-trails route – and the power plant into a condo.
There is no Metro station in Georgetown. The planners of the Metro never seriously considered locating a station in the neighborhood, primarily due to the engineering issues presented by the extremely steep grade from the Potomac River (under which the subway tunnel would run) to the center of Georgetown. Some Georgetown residents concerned about outsiders entering their wealthy neighborhood wrote letters against a station, but no serious plans for a station were ever drafted in the first place. Since the Metro's opening, there have been occasional discussions about adding an additional subway line and tunnel under the Potomac to service the area. Three stations are located roughly one mile (1.6 km) from the center of Georgetown: Rosslyn (across the Key Bridge in Arlington), Foggy Bottom-GWU, and Dupont Circle. Georgetown is served by the 30-series, D-Series, and G2 Metrobuses, as well as the DC Circulator.
Education
Georgetown University
The main campus of Georgetown University is located on the western edge of the Georgetown neighborhood. Father John Carroll founded Georgetown University as a Jesuit private university in 1789, though its roots extend back to 1634. Although the school struggled financially in its early years, Georgetown expanded into a branched university after the American Civil War under the leadership of university president Patrick Francis Healy. , the university has students and students on the main campus.
The main campus is just over 100 acres (0.4 km²) in area and includes 58 buildings, student residences capable of accommodating 80 percent of undergraduates, various athletic facilities, and the medical school. Most buildings employ collegiate Gothic architecture and Georgian brick architecture. Campus green areas include fountains, a cemetery, large clusters of flowers, groves of trees, and open quadrangles. The main campus has traditionally centered on Dahlgren Quadrangle, although Red Square has replaced it as the focus of student life. Healy Hall, built in Flemish Romanesque style from 1877 to 1879, is the architectural gem of Georgetown's campus, and is a National Historic Landmark.
Primary and secondary education
Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries the concentration of wealth in Georgetown sparked the growth of many university-preparatory schools in and around the neighborhood. One of the first schools was the Columbian Academy on N Street, which was established in 1781 with Reverend Stephen Balch serving as the headmaster.
Private schools currently located in Georgetown include Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, while nearby is the eponymous Georgetown Day School. Georgetown Preparatory School, while founded in Georgetown, moved in 1915 to its present location several miles north of Georgetown in Montgomery County.
District of Columbia Public Schools operates area public schools, including Hyde Elementary School on O Street. Hardy Middle School and Wilson High School both serve Georgetown.
Popular culture
Several movies have been filmed in Georgetown, including 1973 horror film The Exorcist, which was set in the neighborhood and partially filmed there. In the movie's climactic scene, the protagonist is hurled down the 75-step staircase at the end of 36th Street NW, which connects Prospect Street with M Street below. The staircase has come to be known as the "Exorcist steps". A false front was built onto the house at the top of the steps so that the bedroom windows would immediately overlook the steps. The real structure has considerable set-back.
In 1976, All the President's Men showed Georgetown’s skyline in the distance as an aerial shot eventually focuses in on the Watergate. During the making of the film, sandwiches were ordered from the Booeymonger, a Georgetown institution. Bob Woodward, Ben Bradlee, and Katharine Graham, all portrayed in the film, lived in Georgetown at the time.
The 1985 Brat Pack film St. Elmo's Fire was set in Georgetown, though the campus fraternity row portions were filmed at the University of Maryland campus in College Park. (Like most Jesuit colleges, Georgetown University does not recognize fraternities or sororities, though several exist.)
The 1987 film No Way Out featured a Georgetown Metro stop as a plot device, even though no such station exists; the subway station shots were filmed in Baltimore, Maryland. Chase scenes for the film were shot on the Whitehurst Freeway. Other films with scenes in Georgetown are The Man with One Red Shoe (1985, an early Tom Hanks film), Chances Are (1989), Timecop (1993), True Lies (1993), Dave (1993), The Jackal (1996, private homes), Dick (1998, C&O Canal), Election (1999), Minority Report (2001),The Recruit (2003), The Girl Next Door (2004), Wedding Crashers (2005), Transformers (2007), and Burn After Reading (2008).
The television series The West Wing occasionally filmed scenes in and around Georgetown.
Further reading
- , from the Georgetown Partnership.
- Griffith, Gary. "" at
- King, Leroy O. 100 Years of Capital Traction - The Story of Streetcars in the Nations Capital, Taylor Publishing Company, Dallas, Texas, Third printing, 1989, ISBN 0-9600938-1-8.
- , from the Washington Post, by Andrew Stephen, July 16, 2006
-
- , National Park Service.
External links
- (neighborhood newspaper)
- (neighborhood magazine)
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