80’s/90’s DC vs 2020’s DC-Biggest Similarities, Biggest Differences?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mass Ave between like 11th Street NW and Union Station was entirely filled with either abandoned buildings or parking lots. Now it's condos and offices as far as the eye can see.

The liquor stores were closed on Sundays.

Yes but Union Station is suffering.

It was then, too. Had to be completely rehabilitated and reopened in 1988.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half the city looked bombed out. The difference between then and today is amazing.

I remember the giant hole that eventually became DC USA.

What was there before?

It was a streetcar garage, similar to the Car Barn that’s still in Georgetown - now condos I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half the city looked bombed out. The difference between then and today is amazing.

I remember the giant hole that eventually became DC USA.

Yep, and the Tivoli building went unused for decades. And the incredibly bad Giant at 14th and Meridian that was replaced by the incredibly bad new Giant.

Strangely, I felt safer living in Columbia Heights then than I do now.

That Giant is gone. Why did you feel safer in Columbia Heights than you do now? What has changed?

Back in the 90s, streets like Fairmont or Chapin were really dangerous.

+1 And further north, the only thing I ever heard about the Park View neighborhood back then was that there was a serial killer dismembering women and leaving their body parts in abandoned buildings. Now I have transplant friends who live there.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dcs-last-serial-killer-the-princeton-place-murders-20-years-later/2014/06/16/9038bba0-f028-11e3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the Black neighborhoods are white and ridiculously expensive now. But safer, too. Obviously.

(Cue sarcasm)

Kinda like Crestwood.

Was so violent before the racial demographics changed.

Eyeroll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trash gets picked up now!

LOL. That was my first thought. Marion Barry does not plow the snow in all but one or two neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half the city looked bombed out. The difference between then and today is amazing.

I remember the giant hole that eventually became DC USA.

What was there before?

It was a streetcar garage, similar to the Car Barn that’s still in Georgetown - now condos I think.

Isn't the Car Barn Georgetown University property?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is especially for longtime DC residents. What are the biggest similarities and differences between the 80’s/90’s DC and the 2020’s DC? I imagine the various Councils and the Mayors managed crime, housing, taxes and schools very differently than today, but what was similar and what is different?

I know this may seem hard to believe but there's a lot less crime today.

It is different crime today, though the carjackings are coming back in vogue.

14th Street was.....entertaining. There were some good jazz clubs that are long gone, sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the 1990s you did not go east of 13th Street in the CBD. The area around what is now the Verizon Center was a pedestrian mall (F Street was closed) that was filled with addicts, dealers and the homeless. On the Hill, no one went north of E Street on the NE side or south of G on the SE side or east of Lincoln Park. What is now Union Market was the Eckington warehouses where you could go get wholesale flowers. 8th Street SE had a lesbian bar called the Phase and a decent Salvadoran restaurant and the street was really rough to walk down. The city government was exclusively Chocolate City and Marion Barry controlled. City services were abysmal. Tony Williams did a LOT to improve the DC bureaucracy by getting rid of all the people who had gotten patronage jobs and did no work. The school system was so, so much worse. The schools did not start on time in the fall because DCPS was incapable of getting books out of warehouses and delivered to the schools. There were no crazy white progressive politicians on the Council like there are now.

Even though there was a lot of petty crime, and shootings among drug crews, carjackings were not a thing and violent juveniles were locked up more frequently. So there was not the overarching sense that juveniles could commit crime with total impunity like there is now. Also, while there were homeless people you did not have the tent culture that proliferates now.

+100 Tony Williams was amazing and the best mayor the city has ever had. The carjackers, tent cities, decline of Union Station and weed smoke EVERYWHERE adds a certain pervasive type of negativity to the city that did not exist in the past.

The stench of decay did exist in the past, but both Williams and Fenty worked hard to air DC out. Vince Gray was elected to waft it back in and the stench, now celebrated, pervaded everything once again by 2020.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half the city looked bombed out. The difference between then and today is amazing.

I remember the giant hole that eventually became DC USA.

What was there before?

Nothing since the riots in 1968.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half the city looked bombed out. The difference between then and today is amazing.

I remember the giant hole that eventually became DC USA.

What was there before?

It was a streetcar garage, similar to the Car Barn that’s still in Georgetown - now condos I think.

Isn't the Car Barn Georgetown University property?

PP here and you’re probably right. I think I mixed it up with the Capitol Hill car barn which is now condos. I actually went to the Georgetown car barn back in the day because my sister was considering it for her wedding reception location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whores walked up and down 14th St.

Now the whores run lobbying and law firms on 14th St.

Lol at this!

I'd add Marion Barry. Incredibly different from Marion Bowser!

That would be Muriel!

Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could drive anywhere in about 20 minutes

A lot more movie theaters

Taxi zones — fun times

Taxis have been replaced by Uber

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids had pink Metro fare cards that cost 15 cents a ride. And I never saw anyone jumping a turnstile. Not saying it didn’t happen but people really respected the system.

This is interesting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half the city looked bombed out. The difference between then and today is amazing.

I remember the giant hole that eventually became DC USA.

Yep, and the Tivoli building went unused for decades. And the incredibly bad Giant at 14th and Meridian that was replaced by the incredibly bad new Giant.

Strangely, I felt safer living in Columbia Heights then than I do now.

I’ve been in CH since 2000 and watched the transformation. That Giant was the absolute worst. I still feel pretty safe.

I lived in Adams Morgan in the early 90s and remember coming over to CH to go to the bigger post office on Irving. You always had to go with a friend who would keep the car running so you could quickly leave. That post office was super sketchy.

That’s crazy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The amount of good dive bars we used to have compared with now is striking. Crow Bar. Mr. Eagan's. The Townhouse Tavern coke den. Fox and Hounds before they cleaned it up and got rid of the good jukebox. Any number of places in Georgetown. We actually stopped into Post Pub the other night and it was great. Our server was about 80 and was not having any of our BS. Don't see that much here anymore.

It seems like restaurants have taken over