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

[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.

True. At least for me, going out in DC just isnt fun anymore. It feels like the same stuff you get in the suburban mega centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people were much realer, not as many country bumpkins from the middle of nowhere south or midwest coming here and thinking DC is Disneyland. A positive is it's safer

I guess this is supposed to be a jab at white people (which I understand is socially acceptable), but how do you think DC became Chocolate City? It was the "country bumpkins" moving up from the South. But they were Black.

[Anonymous]

The people who moved here in the 1990s (as I did) knew that DC had a serious crime problem and handled ourselves accordingly. The people who move here now think DC will be the same as Hartford or Omaha or Westchester or whatever whitebread area they come from and are shocked to find that DC still has big-city problems.

You can find these nitwits in the Popville comments section.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people who moved here in the 1990s (as I did) knew that DC had a serious crime problem and handled ourselves accordingly. The people who move here now think DC will be the same as Hartford or Omaha or Westchester or whatever whitebread area they come from and are shocked to find that DC still has big-city problems.

You can find these nitwits in the Popville comments section.

I am blown away by when/where I see people walking around with phones out and air pods in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

True. At least for me, going out in DC just isnt fun anymore. It feels like the same stuff you get in the suburban mega centers.

It might also be not fun any more because we are old.

[Anonymous]

Something you never saw in the 1990s east of 14th St. NW: People jogging. Now they are everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people who moved here in the 1990s (as I did) knew that DC had a serious crime problem and handled ourselves accordingly. The people who move here now think DC will be the same as Hartford or Omaha or Westchester or whatever whitebread area they come from and are shocked to find that DC still has big-city problems.

You can find these nitwits in the Popville comments section.

I am blown away by when/where I see people walking around with phones out and air pods in.

I'm very supportive of people normalizing safety. Maybe that's a "whitebread" cultural value that's worthy of ridicule by some, but I love it. I think it's odd to consider crime a badge of honor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people who moved here in the 1990s (as I did) knew that DC had a serious crime problem and handled ourselves accordingly. The people who move here now think DC will be the same as Hartford or Omaha or Westchester or whatever whitebread area they come from and are shocked to find that DC still has big-city problems.

You can find these nitwits in the Popville comments section.

I am blown away by when/where I see people walking around with phones out and air pods in.

I'm very supportive of people normalizing safety. Maybe that's a "whitebread" cultural value that's worthy of ridicule by some, but I love it. I think it's odd to consider crime a badge of honor.

I don’t think crime is a badge of honor at all. But unfortunately, as a female, I was raised to be aware of my surroundings, and have found myself in situations where that turned out to be necessary.

Wish it weren’t the case.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

Most of what you write is spot-on, but carjackings were definitely a thing in the 1980s and '90s. It got so bad that the DC Council passed emergency legislation in 1992 that installed manadatory minimums on carjacking:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1992/10/07/dc-council-passes-carjacking-laws/6079515d-5007-43a5-a7de-7c1924f562c4/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Something you never saw in the 1990s east of 14th St. NW: People jogging. Now they are everywhere.

Growing up in the VA burbs we knew to avoid 14th St and SE and SW [unless specifically going to the wharf] . Anacostia was a no.

Georgetown was a lot more interesting back then - better stores

There was more crime and no one purposefully moved to DC to live outside of the areas in NW and enjoy a decent standard of living or sending their kids to public school.

Everything in DC run by the DC government was a mess and at the least unreliable and at the worst fraud. Marion Barry was beloved but lots of fraud and nepotism during those years.

[Anonymous]

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.

I remember that. so when people say DC public schools are bad today I always think nah, they have seriously improved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was Chocolate City

No longer is

Yeah it’s more like Neopolitan ice cream or marble fudge swirl ice cream now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is a lot nicer today
Lower crime

Didn’t things get better in the later 90’s? Are we better or worse than that time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Something you never saw in the 1990s east of 14th St. NW: People jogging. Now they are everywhere.

You wouldn't really see anyone running east of 16th street unless they were running FROM someone or something. It wasn't considered safe to live there. Friend of mine lived in a big nice apartment building that straddled 17th and 16th, and going out the back door w/the convenience store vs the front big door was like stepping behind the veil.