By Jess Moss

Many Georgetown students are unaware of the fact that when they wait in line to buy movie tickets at the Lowe's Theater on K Street, they stand in the belly of an old garbage incinerator. The smokestack of the old furnace is still visible through the glass ceiling of the building’s lobby. The symbol of Georgetown’s past serves as a reminder of the changes that have occurred in the area over the years.

One of the newest faces around Georgetown is Saxby's. The coffee shop opened in October, after landlord Nabeel Audeh decided not to renew Sugar’s Campus Store’s lease.

In the wake of a large public outcry against losing Sugar’s, Saxby’s immediately reached out to the neighborhood.

"Even though it's a franchise, it focuses on being more community oriented," says Saxby's manager Christina Salameh. "Part of our strategy is we have to know our customers and their drinks."

In order to introduce itself, Saxby’s held an open house- free coffee and food for a day. Now the shop employs a "seventy-seventy" policy. Saxby’s employees must know seventy percent of the regular customers' names or what drink they order.

"A lot of what people love about Saxby's is that they can come in and we know what's going on with their families," says Salameh.

Salameh says she thinks people thought Sugars would be around forever.

"Some of the older people come in and say, 'Wow, I can't believe Sugar's is gone,'" she says. "A man recently came in who hadn't been to Georgetown since his graduation. He was shocked when he saw that Sugar's wasn't there anymore because he said it represented one of the landmarks of Georgetown."

Georgetown Vice President for Public Affairs Dan Porterfield thinks Saxby's is a great addition to Georgetown.

"I do think that Saxby's is a tremendous new asset and it's not better or worse than Sugar's; it's different," he says. "It's nice to see so many students and faculty in there reading and enjoying a cup of coffee."

Porterfield, who went attended Georgetown from 1979-1983, said that the change from Sugar's to Saxby's is one of a number of positive changes in Georgetown. But these changes have also come at some cost.

"We've lost some good institutions like Dixie Liquors, like Second Story Books, and the movie theaters," says Porterfield.

The closure of Dixie Liquors came after over 50 years of the shop's business. Matt Donahue, who grew up in Georgetown and graduated from the university in 1959, says that the loss of Dixie will be a big change in Georgetown.

"They existed because of Georgetown University," he says.

Georgetown also used to be home to a number of independent theaters. The Biograph on M Street. The Key Theater on Wisconsin Avenue. The Georgetown. The Foundry. Offering themed movie features and independent films, the Biograph shut its doors in 1996. It is now a CVS. The Key Theater followed suit the next year. Gone were the showings of classic movies and the popular midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Instead, the building now houses Restoration Hardware and other businesses.

When the Foundry Theater closed in March 2002, Georgetown was left theater-less for the remainder of the year. It was the first time the neighborhood had been without a movie theater since movies began.

In November, 2002, an ad ran in the Washington Post that claimed "Not All Theaters Are Created Equal." The fourteen-screen Lowes Theaters that opened in the Georgetown Incinerator was the largest cinema in Washington at the time. The Lowes Theater seats 3000 people and offers screenings of current blockbusters. Gone are the days of independent Georgetown theaters.

The shift to a mainstream movie multi-plex reflected what some people felt was a growing focus on Georgetown. Washington City Paper writer Mark Jenkins wrote in 2002, "It still doesn't have a Metro Stop, and it’s far from the geographic center of D.C. But the neighborhood has become Washington's living downtown."

Developer Anthony Lanier and his company, EastBanc, Inc. have played a large role in the growth of Georgetown's business district. Lanier worked to bring upscale retailers, such as Pottery Barn and Sephora to M Street. He also created the Georgetown "design center." This project replaced the small sandwich shops and liquor stores near Key Bridge with a number of furniture and interior decoration stores.

Not everyone thinks these changes have drastically altered the area.

"I think the atmosphere is more or less the same in the neighborhood businesses," says Porterfield.

Others, such as Donahue, see recent changes as the next step in a long history of Georgetown’s development.

"I was born in the old Georgetown University hospital (presently LXR- 36th and Prospect) on December 30, 1939," he says. "I presently live [on] Prospect- you might say I have not gone too far in life. I went to Holy Trinity (36th & N) grade school for eight years. I graduated from GU in 1959. Yes, I have seen changes."

Donahue remembers a time when Georgetown students had maids clean their rooms regularly. Waiters served students in the dining hall. F. Scott's wasn't reserved for private parties; it wasn't there. Neither was Tombs. Nor 1789. In their places were a Chinese Laundry, the Hilltop Café, and another restaurant and bar called Tehaan's.

"When we were students at Georgetown we'd either go to Tehaan's or the Hilltop, and usually go back and forth between the two," says Donahue. "If you brought any liquor on campus they would expel you."

Donahue says that Georgetown is constantly evolving.

"All my life I've been told things are shifting away from Georgetown and it's reached its peak," he says. "Well, history has proved me right- it's still growing."