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Great Experiences in Georgetown | Getting Here | Planning Your Time | Quick Bites | Nearest Public Restroom | Georgetown Walk | Georgetown with Kids
At first glance, Washington’s oldest and wealthiest neighborhood may look genteel and staid, but don’t be fooled: this is a lively part of town. By day, Georgetown is D.C.’s top shopping destination, with everything from eclectic antiques and housewares to shoes and upscale jeans. By night, revelers along M Street and Wisconsin Avenue eat, drink, and make merry. This neighborhood was made for strolling with its historic tree-lined streets and views of the Potomac from waterfront parks. Although the coveted brick homes north of M Street are the province of Washington’s high society, the rest of the neighborhood offers ample entertainment for everyone.
Great Experiences in Georgetown
C&O Canal: Walk or bike along the path here, which offers bucolic scenery from the heart of Georgetown all the way to Maryland.
Dumbarton Oaks: Stroll through the 10 acres of formal gardens—Washington’s loveliest oasis.
M Street: Indulge in some serious designer retail therapy (or just window-shopping). Reward your willpower or great find with a great meal afterward—all on the same street.
Tudor Place: Step into Georgetown’s past with a visit to the grand home of the Custis-Peter family. On view are antiques from George and Martha Washington’s home at Mount Vernon and a 1919 Pierce Arrow roadster.
Washington Harbour and Waterfront Park: Come on a warm evening to enjoy sunset drinks while overlooking the Watergate, Kennedy Center, and Potomac River.
Getting Here
There’s no Metro stop in Georgetown, so you have to take a bus or taxi or walk to this part of Washington. It’s about a 15-minute walk from Dupont Circle or the Foggy Bottom Metro station. Perhaps the best transportation deal in Georgetown is the Circulator. For a buck you can ride from Union Station along Massachusetts Avenue and K Street to the heart of Georgetown. Or try the Georgetown Circulator route, which connects M Street to the Dupont Circle and Rosslyn Metro stops. The Circulator runs daily at varying hours (www.dccirculator.com).
Other options include the G2 Georgetown University Bus, which goes west from Dupont Circle along P Street, and the 34 and 36 Friendship Heights buses, which go south down Wisconsin Avenue and west down Pennsylvania Avenue toward Georgetown.
Planning Your Time
You can easily spend a pleasant day in Georgetown, partly because some sights (Tudor Place, Dumbarton Oaks, Oak Hill Cemetery, and Dumbarton House) are somewhat removed from the others and partly because the street scene, with its shops and people-watching, invites you to linger.
Georgetown is almost always crowded. It’s not car-friendly either, especially at night; driving and parking are always difficult. The wise take the Metro to Foggy Bottom or Dupont Circle and then walk 15 minutes from there, or take a bus or taxi.
Quick Bites
Ching Ching Cha.
If the crowds of Georgetown become overwhelming, step into Ching Ching Cha, a Chinese teahouse where tranquillity reigns supreme. In addition to tea, lunch and dinner may be ordered from a simple menu with light, healthful meals. | 1063 Wisconsin Ave. NW,
Georgetown | 20007 | 202/333–8288 | www.chingchingcha.com.
Wisey’s.
Wisey’s is the more central outpost of university favorite Wisemiller’s Delicatessen. There are a few tables in the small storefront. Healthy choices include panini, wraps, and salads, and smoothies and specialty teas are also available. | 1440 Wisconsin Ave. NW,
Georgetown | 20007 | 202/333–4122 | www.wiseystogo.com.
Nearest Public Restroom
A public restroom stands by the entrance to Montrose Park on R Street. In the shopping district, head to the Georgetown Park shopping mall on M just west of Wisconsin, and go down to the bottom-level food court.
Georgetown Walk
Georgetown can be thought of in four sections: the shopping and nightlife area along M Street, the university, the historic residential neighborhoods, and the waterfront. The most popular and crowded area is the first, located mainly on M Street and Wisconsin Avenue. The C&O Canal is a sylvan spot for a bike ride, morning jog, or pleasant paddle, while the riverfront restaurants and parks at Washington Harbour let you enjoy the water views exertion-free. The neighborhood can be comfortably explored in an afternoon, though you may want to linger here.
M Street is a fitting introduction to the area that is known for its high-end clothing boutiques, antiques stores, and fancy furniture shops, now squeezing cheek-to-jowl with chain stores such as J. Crew and Banana Republic or cheap and chic H&M and Zara. Slightly out of place amid the modern shops and cafés, the 18th-century Old Stone House and garden on M Street are thought to be the oldest in the city.
A History of Georgetown
The area that would come to be known as George (after George II), then George Towne, and finally Georgetown was part of Maryland when it was settled in the early 1700s by Scottish immigrants, many of whom were attracted by the region’s tolerant religious climate.
Georgetown’s position—at the farthest point up the Potomac that’s accessible by ship—made it an ideal transit and inspection point for farmers who grew tobacco in Maryland’s interior. In 1789 the state granted the town a charter, but two years later Georgetown—along with Alexandria, its counterpart in Virginia—was included by George Washington in the Territory of Columbia, site of the new capital.
While Washington struggled, Georgetown thrived. Wealthy traders built their mansions on the hills overlooking the river; merchants and the working class lived in modest homes closer to the water’s edge.
In 1810 a third of Georgetown’s population was African-American—both free people and slaves. The Mt. Zion United Methodist Church on 29th Street is the oldest organized black congregation in the city, and when the church stood at 27th and P streets it was a stop on the Underground Railroad (the original building burned down in the mid-1800s).
Georgetown’s rich history and success instilled in all its residents a feeling of pride that persists today. When Georgetowners thought the dismal capital was dragging them down, they asked to be given back to Maryland, the way Alexandria was given back to Virginia in 1845.
Tobacco’s star eventually fell, and Georgetown became a milling center, using waterpower from the Potomac. When the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Canal was completed in 1850, the city intensified its milling operations and became the eastern end of a waterway that stretched 184 miles to the west.
The canal took up some of the slack when Georgetown’s harbor began to fill with silt and the port lost business to Alexandria and Baltimore, but the canal never became the success that George Washington had envisioned.
In the years that followed, Georgetown was a malodorous industrial district, a far cry from the fashionable spot it is today. Clustered near the water were a foundry, a fish market, paper and cotton mills, and a power station for the city’s streetcar system.
It still had its Georgian, Federal, and Victorian homes, though, and when the New Deal and World War II brought a flood of newcomers to Washington, Georgetown’s tree-shaded streets and handsome brick houses were rediscovered. Pushed out in the process were many of Georgetown’s renters, including many of its black residents.
Today, some of Washington’s most famous residents call Georgetown home, including former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, political pundit George Stephanopoulos, Senator (and 2004 presidential nominee) John Kerry, and New York Times op-ed doyenne Maureen Dowd, who lives in a townhouse where President Kennedy lived as a senator.
Residential Georgetown and GU
Leaving the throngs behind for now, 31st Street takes you north into the heart of residential Georgetown where impossibly small cottages stand side by side with rambling mansions. At Q Street, Tudor Place was once the home of Thomas Peter, son of Georgetown’s first mayor, and his wife, Martha Custis, Martha Washington’s granddaughter. A house tour lets you see many of Martha Washington’s Mount Vernon possessions, as well as a 1919 Pierce Arrow roadster.
Farther up 31st Street, Dumbarton Oaks (no relation to Dumbarton House) can rightfully claim to be one of the loveliest spots in Washington, D.C. The 10 acres of formal gardens and English parkland may inspire a romantic proposal or a game of hide-and-seek, and the well-placed benches offer quiet nooks to rest weary feet or have a tête-à-tête. The attached museum is also well worth a visit.
To the east, Montrose Park entertains kids, dogs, and picnickers with wide lawns, tennis courts, and a playground. The funerary obelisks, crosses, and gravestones of Oak Hill Cemetery mark the final resting place for actor, playwright, and diplomat John H. Payne and William Corcoran, founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. A short detour east on Q Street, Dumbarton House is a distinctive example of Federal-era architecture and furnishings. One block farther along Q Street, Mount Zion Cemetery was featured in David Baldacci’s novel The Collectors.
Circling back, Wisconsin Avenue leads you downhill past a variety of small boutiques and cafés toward the intersection with M Street. Instead of following it the whole way, make a right on O Street, where you will find St. John’s Church, one of the oldest churches in the city. Thirty-third Street brings you down to N Street to see some of the finest Federal-era architecture in D.C. Cox’s Row is a group of five Federal houses, between 3339 and 3327 N Street, named after Colonel John Cox, a former mayor of Georgetown who built them in 1817.
N street gives way to Georgetown University. Founded in 1798, it is the oldest Jesuit school in the country. The imposing, Victorian Healy Hall at its entrance was named for Patrick Healy, the president of Georgetown University in 1873, who was the biracial son of a slave and white Irish slave-owner. About 12,000 students attend the university, known now as much for its perennially successful basketball team as for its fine programs in law, medicine, foreign service, and the liberal arts.
Turn left at 36th Street to return to M Street, perhaps via the undeniably spooky 75 steps that featured prominently in the horror movie The Exorcist. Find them past the old brick streetcar barn at No. 3600. Down on the western end of M Street, you’ll find the small Francis Scott Key Memorial Park, honoring the Washington attorney who penned the national anthem during the War of 1812.
M Street and the Waterfront
Walk back along M Street toward Washington Harbour, taking in the shops and restaurants along the way. The small Museum of Contemporary Art in Canal Square, a converted 1850s warehouse, is located here. You might be tempted to stop at Leopold’s Kafe & Konditorei at the end of Cady’s Alley, and linger on its shady terrace. A short detour down Wisconsin Avenue will take you to Grace Episcopal Church where many 19th-century residents prayed.
Georgetown’s C&O Canal links the Potomac with the Ohio River. A sandy red path along the bank makes for a scenic walk or bike ride—look out for great blue herons and turtles lounging in the sun. Every summer the National Park Service offers rides on mule-drawn canal boats. Two miles west of the Key Bridge along the canal towpath, Fletcher’s Boat House rents kayaks, canoes, and bikes. You can also follow the canal through the heart of Georgetown, running parallel with M Street. As you connect with Thomas Jefferson Street, note the Georgetown Masonic Museum on Thomas Jefferson Street, which harks back to the area’s past as a working-class city populated by tradespeople, laborers, and merchants. You might want to stop for tea and cake at the fun and funky Baked and Wired on the same street. Head south on 31st Street toward the Potomac to take a rest on a bench under the trees in the Georgetown Waterfront Park.
Following the Potomac east to K Street between 30th and 31st streets you will find Washington Harbour, a riverfront development specializing in restaurants and bars with scenic views of the river, the Watergate complex, and the Kennedy Center. Boat trips to Mount Vernon, the National Harbor, and Alexandria leave from here, offering a waterfront perspective of the city’s monuments.
If you have dallied and evening approaches, you’ll be in good company. By night the hungry, the thirsty, and the ready-to-party pound the pavement on this side of D.C. You’ll find Vietnamese, Thai, Middle Eastern, and Ethiopian restaurants here, as well as burgers and fries at a variety of grubby pubs. After hours, college students and recent graduates overrun the bars, but a few lounges do cater to a more mature, upscale crowd.
Georgetown with Kids
Georgetown may not seem like the most kid-friendly part of D.C., but with nice weather the Waterfront Park and C&O Canal offer pleasant walks and picnic opportunities. If your toddlers and young children need a playground fix, north of M Street at 27th, you’ll find the Rose Park “Tot Lot,” complete with climbing frames and sandpit. Montrose Park to the north also has a playground.
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