Posts by Topher Mathews — Contributor
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An idea whose time has come ... 11 years later! DC implements tiered RPP.
The Washington Post recently reported that as part of his final effort to close the city’s budget gap, Adrian Fenty is considering doubling the fee for residential parking passes. This is not a bad idea, but a better one would be to raise RPP fees for the 2nd and 3rd car. We charge a laughably small fee for street parking: $15 a year. Only in the world of cars is it considered… Keep reading…
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Someone once bought a private alley in Georgetown
From 2002 through 2007, Rockville resident Kebreab Zere purchased a series of five tax lots in Georgetown that constituted an alley from 33rd Street NW to Potomac Street, between O Street and N Street. Keep reading…
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The “Call Your Mother” fight highlights the absurdity of Georgetown’s zoning
Last week, the owners of the popular bagel shop, Call Your Mother, appeared before the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) to request a variance to operate their shop at 3428 O Street NW, on the corner of O Street and 35th. While the ANC voted to approve the variance, and the Office of Planning also supported it, but some neighbors objected. Keep reading…
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Dumbarton Bridge has beautiful details and an interesting history
It’s easy to ignore a thing of beauty when you pass it every single day. It’s even easier to ignore it when you cruise over on top of it in a bus or car. The “it” in question is the Dumbarton Bridge, and today I want to stop and take in the bridge’s beauty and tell its interesting story. Keep reading…
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How the urban legend of Georgetown residents halting a Metro stop came to be
Let’s first get this out of the way: The reason there is no Metro stop in Georgetown is two-fold. First, there were technical difficulties from the hardness of the bedrock and the proximity of the river which meant a station would be infeasible. Second, at the time the Metro planners were laying out the system, Georgetown was not enough of a population or job center to justify working out a solution to the feasibility problem. Keep reading…
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A former ANC commissioner is fighting bus shelters in Georgetown
A former ANC commissioner is attempting to wage a war against the installation of a bus shelter in Georgetown. Grace Bateman, who served as Chair of the commission in the early 90s, is attempting to thwart the installation of a new bus shelter on 35th Street, across from Dent Place. Keep reading…
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Someone bought a private street in San Francisco. That once happened in Georgetown, too.
An small, unpaid property tax bill caused residents in a wealthy San Francisco neighborhood to lose control of the street they live on. But the way cities enforce property taxes can really harm homeowners, especially those with limited incomes. Keep reading…
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The story behind Georgetown’s street grid
If there is one thing that people love the most about Georgetown, it’s the small blocks filled with 18th and 19th century homes. But how exactly did it come to be that way? Much of the land that would eventually become Georgetown was originally granted to a Scotsman named Ninian Beall in 1703. Beall named this 705 acre plot of land the Rock of Dumbarton in a reference to his native… Keep reading…
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Housing atop Georgetown’s Safeway would have strengthened the neighborhood
Retail is struggling in upper Georgetown, and a big reason is because not all that many people live there. Safeway could have added housing when it redesigned its Wisconsin Avenue store, but says it didn’t because doing so would have delayed building. That was a lost opportunity. Keep reading…
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Modern Washingtonians have a mandate to remember black Georgetown
Most people know that Georgetown once had a large African American population that is, for the most part, not around anymore. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll find that in the 1930s, Georgetown was the first neighborhood in DC to undergo a process later known as gentrification. In fact, this process— and the role historic preservation played in it— is central to the history… Keep reading…