Among the first businesses in historic Georgetown were its inns and taverns. They not only offered food, drink and lodging, but were focal points of community life where political debate and civic meetings took place and business deals were made. The proclamation creating the City of Washington was issued in 1791 at historic Suter's Tavern, once a famous Georgetown gathering spot. President Washington and Thomas Jefferson often met there with city commissioners, landholders and Pierre L'Enfant in planning the federal city.
Georgetown's reputation for lively watering holes continues. Many of the buildings here on Wisconsin Avenue were originally private homes. Over the years they were converted to bars, restaurants and shops spurred by the city-wide historic preservation movement that began in the 1930s when Georgetown's charm and small town feel were rediscovered.
In 1933, William S. Martin and his son William G. Martin, a Georgetown University Hall of Famer who played three professional sports, founded Martin's Tavern behind you, the oldest family owned restaurant in Georgetown. Since its opening, the tavern has played host to presidents starting with Harry Truman, other politicians, journalists, sports figures, tourists and locals, and it continues to be a landmark on this corner. It has long been the site of intrigue
and romance; rumor has it that alleged Soviet spy Alger Hiss, who lived in Georgetown, and Soviet operative-turned U.S. informer, Elizabeth Bentley, met their contacts at Martin's in the 1930s and 1940s — and that in 1953 John F. Kennedy proposed to Jackie in booth number 3.
When Georgetown was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1967 it attracted fashionable shops, as well as restaurants and bars that soon grew to more than one hundred. Today, Georgetown has regained the social prominence that began in the early 1800s, and it is indeed a place to see and be seen.
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