Читать книгу Walking Washington, D.C. - Barbara J. Saffir - Страница 22
Оглавление6 GEORGETOWN SOUTHWEST: COVERT CUPCAKES
BOUNDARIES: O Street NW, just east of Wisconsin Avenue NW, Blues Alley, and just west of 37th Street NW
DISTANCE: 1.5 miles
DIFFICULTY: Moderate due to stairs
PARKING: Limited street parking; parking garages on M Street NW, K Street NW, and elsewhere
PUBLIC TRANSIT: D.C.’s Circulator bus and Metrobus D5 run along M Street NW to several Metro stations.
New money, old money, little money. Everyone flocks to Georgetown. The main difference is that some can afford to stay longer and exploit more of its many riches. But the best thing about Georgetown is free: its gorgeous, walkable streets. The entire neighborhood of Georgetown, with its Federal-style brick row houses and mash-up of mansions, became a protected historic district in 1950. Even though visitors won’t find many meaningful historical markers on the buildings, history thrives on every scenic street. If you squint your eyes and ignore the pricey electric Tesla automobiles (D.C.’s sole remaining new-car showroom), most streets almost look like they did in the 1800s—back when cupcakes first became popular.
Start at Georgetown Cupcake, 3301 M Street NW, to beat the line that sometimes forms there for the gooey-sweet goodies. The stars of TLC’s DC Cupcakes TV show, sisters Katherine Kallinis Berman and Sophie Kallinis LaMontagne, founded it in 2008.
Walk south on 33rd Street NW and turn right onto the brick and granite cobblestones of Cady’s Alley, where you’ll find food, furniture, and fashion boutiques in reinvented industrial buildings.
Turn right on 34th Street NW and then left on M Street NW, Georgetown’s main drag, with oodles of restaurants, bars, and retail therapy in historic row homes and commercial buildings. Turn right past Georgetown University’s Car Barn building to climb the 75 Exorcist Steps. This steep outdoor staircase became famous in the 1973 horror flick The Exorcist when Father Karras tumbled down it. The Exorcist’s author and screenwriter is Georgetown alumnus William Peter Blatty.
Follow the steps to 36th Street NW. Pass the Tombs restaurant and bar on the left, the Georgetown University hangout that inspired the movie St. Elmo’s Fire. Turn left on N Street NW and follow it across 37th Street NW to climb 48 stairs into Georgetown University, the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university. At the top, turn left into the Mark Lauinger Memorial Library. The granite-flecked concrete structure was designed in 1970 by John Carl Warnecke, who also designed President Kennedy’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery. The library’s vast collections, which are accessible to researchers, include the Russell J. Bowen Collection on Intelligence, Security and Covert Activities. CIA technical analyst Col. Russell J. Bowen donated most of this unparalleled collection in 1993. CIA directors William E. Colby and Richard Helms, who both lived in Georgetown, later donated papers. Exit the library and stay right on the diagonal brick sidewalk toward the O Street exit gate. On the left is Georgetown’s flagship building, Healy Hall. The massive granite building with a steeple-like clock tower was built in 1877.
Walk east on O Street NW to 34th Street NW. On the northwest corner is the four-story brick house where then-Congressman John F. Kennedy lived with his sister, Eunice, from 1949 to 1951, says Paul Kelsey Williams’ book, The Historic Homes of J.F.K. Henry Addison also lived there. He was mayor of Georgetown before it became part of Washington, D.C. On the northeast corner is the rambling, two-story brick mansion that Under Armour sports clothing founder Kevin Plank bought in 2013, Washingtonian magazine says. In 1996, Plank started his Baltimore-based company a block away in his grandmother’s three-story town house. His “new” eight-bedroom house, with a 34-foot ballroom and a heated lap pool, was also home to longtime ambassador David K. E. Bruce, who once worked for the OSS, America’s first modern-day spy agency.
Continue walking east on the cobblestone street with metal tracks from the defunct DC Transit streetcar system, which stopped running in 1962. On the right is the Bodisco House, famous as a federal period brick home and because Baron Alexandre de Bodisco, the 54-year-old Russian ambassador who owned it, married a 16-year-old, the Library of Congress says. Now it’s home to Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his Mozambique-born wife, Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira Heinz Kerry, heir to the ketchup fortune of her late husband, Republican Sen. Henry John Heinz III.
Turn right on 33rd Street NW and right again on N Street NW for the Kennedys’ former home one door down on the right. They lived in this three-story brick home with green shutters with Caroline and little “John-John” right before moving into the White House. (JFK’s pal Ben Bradlee moved next door after working as press attaché for the American Embassy in Paris and then for Newsweek, says Gregg Herken’s 2014 book, The Georgetown Set.)
Reverse direction on N Street NW for a brick town house with a red-orange door on the left at 3255. This is where Herman Wouk “began the narrative writing of The Winds of War, and (conducted) extensive research for War and Remembrance,” says the author’s website. Wouk, who celebrated his 100th birthday in May 2015, wasn’t the only hot-shot wordsmith in the neighborhood. Fellow Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis, who wrote Main Street and Arrowsmith, lived at 3028 Q Street NW in the 1920s. And Pulitzer Prize winner Larry McMurtry taught at American and George Mason universities and owned a bookstore in Georgetown called Booked Up from 1971 to 1993. The author of Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, and Terms of Endearment still runs the fine and scholarly bookshop—online and in his hometown of Archer City, Texas.
Turn left on Potomac Street NW and right on O Street NW for the tan and white St. John’s Episcopal Church on the right, where President Thomas Jefferson and Francis Scott Key once worshiped. Each spring since 1931, the church has sponsored its popular Georgetown House Tour to help support charities. Tickets include a self-guided tour of 8 to 10 coveted homes and gardens followed by tea sandwiches at the church. In the past, visitors have seen a stable cleverly converted into a home, abodes of current and former politicians, and a media honcho’s historic mansion, among others.
Continue on O Street NW and turn right on Wisconsin Avenue NW, Georgetown’s main north–south shopping street, with stores such as UGG Australia, in rehabbed row houses and commercial structures. Across Wisconsin Avenue NW is Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which was a 24-hour French bistro called Au Pied de Cochon until 2004. A brass wall plaque inside marks the table where Soviet spy Vitaly Yurchenko ordered his “last supper” before skipping out from the CIA in 1985. That same year CIA veteran Aldrich Hazen Ames traded secret documents for cash with the Soviets at Chadwicks, a nearby pub, which closed its K Street location in 2014.
Walk downhill on Wisconsin Avenue NW for Martin’s Tavern on the right. Founded in 1933, the pub often welcomed President Kennedy and hosted every president from Harry S. Truman (Booth 6) to George W. Bush (Table 12).
Continue down Wisconsin to cross M Street NW. One door down on the right at 3206 is the three-and-a-half-story building called the City Tavern Club. This private social club’s brick clubhouse is “a rare surviving example of a federal period tavern,” says the National Park Service. Built in 1796, it’s also one of D.C.’s oldest buildings. When it was a public inn, the club says it welcomed George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Continue south on Wisconsin Avenue NW and turn left into an alley for Blues Alley in a brick carriage house on the right. It calls itself “the nation’s oldest continuing jazz supper club.”
St. John’s Episcopal Church hosts the annual Georgetown House Tour.
POINTS OF INTEREST
Georgetown Cupcake 3301 M St. NW, 202-333-8448, georgetowncupcake.com
Exorcist Steps Between M and Prospect Streets NW at 36th Street NW, maps.georgetown.edu/exorciststeps
Georgetown University: Joseph Mark Lauinger Memorial Library’s Russell J. Bowen Collection on Intelligence, Security and Covert Activities 37th and N Streets NW, 202-687-7607, library.georgetown.edu/libraries/lauinger
(Private) former home of John F. Kennedy 1400 34th St. NW
(Private) former home of David K. E. Bruce 1405 34th St. NW
(Private) former home of Baron Alexandre de Bodisco 3322 O St. NW, loc.gov/pictures/item/dc0422 and lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/dc/dc0400/dc0422/data/dc0422data.pdf
(Private) former home of John F. Kennedy 3307 N St. NW
(Private) former home of Herman Wouk 3255 N St. NW
St. John’s Episcopal Church 3240 O St. NW, 202-338-1796, stjohnsgeorgetown.org and facebook.com/thegeorgetownhousetour
Five Guys Burgers and Fries 1335 Wisconsin Ave. NW, 202-337-0400, fiveguys.com
Martin’s Tavern 1264 Wisconsin Ave. NW, 202-333-7370, martinstavern.com
(Private) City Tavern Club 3206 M St. NW, 202-337-8770, citytavernclubdc.org
Blues Alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, 202-337-4141, bluesalley.com
ROUTE SUMMARY
1 Start at Georgetown Cupcake, 3301 M Street NW.
2 Walk south on 33rd Street NW.
3 Turn right into Cady’s Alley.
4 Turn right on 34th Street NW.
5 Turn left on M Street NW.
6 Walk about 1.5 blocks. After passing the Car Barn on the right, turn right to walk up the Exorcist Steps leading to 36th Street NW.
7 Turn left on N Street NW.
8 Continue across 37th Street NW to walk up the steps into Georgetown University.
9 At the top of the stairs, turn left into the Lauinger Library.
10 After exiting, stay right on the diagonal brick sidewalk to the O Street exit gate.
11 Walk east on O Street NW.
12 Turn right on 33rd Street NW.
13 Turn right on N Street NW and then reverse direction.
14 Turn left on Potomac Street NW.
15 Turn right on O Street NW.
16 Turn right on Wisconsin Avenue NW.
17 Turn left into Blues Alley.
CONNECTING THE WALKS
To reach three companion walks from Blues Alley: Head north on Wisconsin Avenue for Walk 5 (Georgetown North); head south on Wisconsin Avenue NW to the Potomac River for Walk 13 (Potomac River Panorama and Watergates); and head east on Blues Alley to 31st Street NW for Walk 7 (Georgetown Southeast).
