Severe downpours on Tuesday night that increased in intensity early on Wednesday morning provided Georgetown’s established merchants with a head-start on the pavement vendors. Still, the city’s tenacious itinerant traders were not about to miss out on a back-to-school windfall, which, this year, had come in fits and starts. We are in the last full week before the new academic year begins and this, quite simply, is the last opportunity for trading to ‘pick up.’
Up until a few days ago there had been a discernable delay in the appearance of shoppers in the sorts of numbers which the traders had anticipated. Georgetown last week was a sea of pavement vendors and established stores seemingly displaying little beyond school-related items. Except that the buyers