First Johnson's, now Sullivan's! Who is the landlord behind this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PP is spot on.

Further - the Metro is not really an asset right now, to be honest. It has been attracting homeless folks and randoms - the Target smells like urine and tends to have sketchy folks in it on a regular basis adding to the dirty feel around that area.

People still aren’t ready to use the metro. And really - pre-Covid / was anyone saying “hey / let’s jump on the Red Line to Tenleytown for a night out!” / it never happened.

Our city needs day shelters. It has been using metro entrances, bust stops, big box store entrances. public libraries, and StarBucks and Grocery Store bathrooms for way too long to "house" and bathroom the homeless during the day. Does Friendship Place never open its doors or care to run a day shelter? They are so buzzy and supported in the neighborhood, yet the problems you mention above are persistent.

Our city needs public toilets.

Our city needs mental institutions and drug rehabilitation centers.

Yes. But it also needs to provide armed security. How many schools are within a half-mile of this location?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PP is spot on.

Further - the Metro is not really an asset right now, to be honest. It has been attracting homeless folks and randoms - the Target smells like urine and tends to have sketchy folks in it on a regular basis adding to the dirty feel around that area.

People still aren’t ready to use the metro. And really - pre-Covid / was anyone saying “hey / let’s jump on the Red Line to Tenleytown for a night out!” / it never happened.

Our city needs day shelters. It has been using metro entrances, bust stops, big box store entrances. public libraries, and StarBucks and Grocery Store bathrooms for way too long to "house" and bathroom the homeless during the day. Does Friendship Place never open its doors or care to run a day shelter? They are so buzzy and supported in the neighborhood, yet the problems you mention above are persistent.

Our city needs public toilets.

Our city needs mental institutions and drug rehabilitation centers.

No way this wasn’t a factor. The crime especially on that block just keeps getting more common and more blatant. We’ve been harassed while walking from the direction of the fire house to the store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

When I’ve visited Sullivan’s in person the last few months, I’ve asked each time what’s happening because the shelves were bare, etc - each time I was told that AU has made rents unaffordable but that Sullivan’s had already identified a number of possible new sites and would certainly end up re-opening there. I wish they’d actually told people they were in trouble…(more of) an effort probably would have been made if the community had known. Also, I know that our family as well as another on our street continued ordering from Sullivan’s for delivery throughout the pandemic.

You can order toys on Amazon. But Amazon can’t deliver the experience of a hot new neighborhood bistro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PP is spot on.

Further - the Metro is not really an asset right now, to be honest. It has been attracting homeless folks and randoms - the Target smells like urine and tends to have sketchy folks in it on a regular basis adding to the dirty feel around that area.

People still aren’t ready to use the metro. And really - pre-Covid / was anyone saying “hey / let’s jump on the Red Line to Tenleytown for a night out!” / it never happened.

Our city needs day shelters. It has been using metro entrances, bust stops, big box store entrances. public libraries, and StarBucks and Grocery Store bathrooms for way too long to "house" and bathroom the homeless during the day. Does Friendship Place never open its doors or care to run a day shelter? They are so buzzy and supported in the neighborhood, yet the problems you mention above are persistent.

Our city needs public toilets.

Our city needs mental institutions and drug rehabilitation centers.

No way this wasn’t a factor. The crime especially on that block just keeps getting more common and more blatant. We’ve been harassed while walking from the direction of the fire house to the store.

Has anyone tried to engage Mary Cheh on this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

This is exactly right. If Sullivan's had done a better business, they would have been able to withstand a rent increase. People didn't shop there (enough).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is up with Tenleytown? I know that it was not an AU tenant but apparently Tenleytown could not even support a Starbucks on a prime metro location.

Gastropub closed and just sitting boarded up vacant.

Kitty O'Shea's just vacant.

Young adults are the lifeblood of the bar and restaurant industry, and Tenleytown is about the last place young adults want to live in DC. College students alone can't support those businesses because half of them can't drink legally and the other half doesn't want to hang out in a dingy Irish pub when they could go to a bar that caters to their generation on U St or Adams Morgan.

I grew up in Tenleytown when regular people could still afford to live there, that's why places like Maggie's, Armand's, Round Table, and Babe's could exist. Now Tenley is a victim of its own success. The only people who can pay $1.5MM for a house there are overworked attorneys and DCUM's famous "if you have more than one drink you're an alcoholic, if you have more than 3 bites of food a day you're a fatty" housewives, neither of which have the time and inclination to frequent bars and restaurants, or at least the kind of restaurants that can exist in Tenleytown.

This is hilarious - just shows you went to college at least 20 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is up with Tenleytown? I know that it was not an AU tenant but apparently Tenleytown could not even support a Starbucks on a prime metro location.

Gastropub closed and just sitting boarded up vacant.

Kitty O'Shea's just vacant.

Young adults are the lifeblood of the bar and restaurant industry, and Tenleytown is about the last place young adults want to live in DC. College students alone can't support those businesses because half of them can't drink legally and the other half doesn't want to hang out in a dingy Irish pub when they could go to a bar that caters to their generation on U St or Adams Morgan.

I grew up in Tenleytown when regular people could still afford to live there, that's why places like Maggie's, Armand's, Round Table, and Babe's could exist. Now Tenley is a victim of its own success. The only people who can pay $1.5MM for a house there are overworked attorneys and DCUM's famous "if you have more than one drink you're an alcoholic, if you have more than 3 bites of food a day you're a fatty" housewives, neither of which have the time and inclination to frequent bars and restaurants, or at least the kind of restaurants that can exist in Tenleytown.

I don't know that pining for two shitty pizza places is really the best argument, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

Creative singles and young professionals don’t care about Sullivan’s. If we’re going to attract vibrancy to Tenley aka DC Uptown, we need to rethink the existing paradigm.

Exactly! No more mom and pop. Bring on the density and Amazon express stores, maybe a Bank of America and maybe a Valero's to ciu terpoint the Wawa.

It's so weird that people think density=bland. Except for outliers like Navy Yard that were created from scratch a few years ago, the densest parts of DC are the ones with the most local character - U St, Capitol Hill, Petworth, etc. The parts of DC that are nothing but bland chain stores are the suburban parts like Tenleytown. More population in a smaller area means more people and more money to support more stores.

Okay explain Columbia Heights, DC's densest neighborhood that is nothing but "bland chain stores" up and down 14th Street? Hell, there's a mall stuffed with "bland chain stores." Zero local character.

So yes, density = bland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

Creative singles and young professionals don’t care about Sullivan’s. If we’re going to attract vibrancy to Tenley aka DC Uptown, we need to rethink the existing paradigm.

Exactly! No more mom and pop. Bring on the density and Amazon express stores, maybe a Bank of America and maybe a Valero's to ciu terpoint the Wawa.

It's so weird that people think density=bland. Except for outliers like Navy Yard that were created from scratch a few years ago, the densest parts of DC are the ones with the most local character - U St, Capitol Hill, Petworth, etc. The parts of DC that are nothing but bland chain stores are the suburban parts like Tenleytown. More population in a smaller area means more people and more money to support more stores.

Okay explain Columbia Heights, DC's densest neighborhood that is nothing but "bland chain stores" up and down 14th Street? Hell, there's a mall stuffed with "bland chain stores." Zero local character.

So yes, density = bland.

Yes, for real individuality and local character, you need to come to, oh, I don't know, maybe the Milestone Shopping Center in Germantown.

(No, not really.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

Creative singles and young professionals don’t care about Sullivan’s. If we’re going to attract vibrancy to Tenley aka DC Uptown, we need to rethink the existing paradigm.

Exactly! No more mom and pop. Bring on the density and Amazon express stores, maybe a Bank of America and maybe a Valero's to ciu terpoint the Wawa.

It's so weird that people think density=bland. Except for outliers like Navy Yard that were created from scratch a few years ago, the densest parts of DC are the ones with the most local character - U St, Capitol Hill, Petworth, etc. The parts of DC that are nothing but bland chain stores are the suburban parts like Tenleytown. More population in a smaller area means more people and more money to support more stores.

Okay explain Columbia Heights, DC's densest neighborhood that is nothing but "bland chain stores" up and down 14th Street? Hell, there's a mall stuffed with "bland chain stores." Zero local character.

So yes, density = bland.

Yes, for real individuality and local character, you need to come to, oh, I don't know, maybe the Milestone Shopping Center in Germantown.

(No, not really.)

There's probably more there than in Columbia Heights, unless you count Best Buy, Target and overpriced condos as "local character."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PP is spot on.

Further - the Metro is not really an asset right now, to be honest. It has been attracting homeless folks and randoms - the Target smells like urine and tends to have sketchy folks in it on a regular basis adding to the dirty feel around that area.

People still aren’t ready to use the metro. And really - pre-Covid / was anyone saying “hey / let’s jump on the Red Line to Tenleytown for a night out!” / it never happened.

Our city needs day shelters. It has been using metro entrances, bust stops, big box store entrances. public libraries, and StarBucks and Grocery Store bathrooms for way too long to "house" and bathroom the homeless during the day. Does Friendship Place never open its doors or care to run a day shelter? They are so buzzy and supported in the neighborhood, yet the problems you mention above are persistent.

Our city needs public toilets.

Our city needs mental institutions and drug rehabilitation centers.

Absolutely, and I'd be happy to start with a day component to homelessness, since they will never ever do the above .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

Creative singles and young professionals don’t care about Sullivan’s. If we’re going to attract vibrancy to Tenley aka DC Uptown, we need to rethink the existing paradigm.

Exactly! No more mom and pop. Bring on the density and Amazon express stores, maybe a Bank of America and maybe a Valero's to ciu terpoint the Wawa.

It's so weird that people think density=bland. Except for outliers like Navy Yard that were created from scratch a few years ago, the densest parts of DC are the ones with the most local character - U St, Capitol Hill, Petworth, etc. The parts of DC that are nothing but bland chain stores are the suburban parts like Tenleytown. More population in a smaller area means more people and more money to support more stores.

Okay explain Columbia Heights, DC's densest neighborhood that is nothing but "bland chain stores" up and down 14th Street? Hell, there's a mall stuffed with "bland chain stores." Zero local character.

So yes, density = bland.

Yes, for real individuality and local character, you need to come to, oh, I don't know, maybe the Milestone Shopping Center in Germantown.

(No, not really.)

There's probably more there than in Columbia Heights, unless you count Best Buy, Target and overpriced condos as "local character."

I feel like the ANC, Mayor, Cheh and GGW with complicit landlord like AU and developers are trying to turn Tenley into Columbia Heights. yes, it's sleepy, but Tenley has had character - Balduccis, Johnson, Sullivan's, Armand's , the hot pot place, to name but a few. I lived very close to Columbia Heights and worked there and watched the rushed "vibrant density" when metro came in. Apart from saving the facade of the Tivoli Theater I can't think of a.single improvement. And while it's gone down, there's still crime and trash . It's not horrible - Mt. pleasant itself is still artsy but hate the next street over Big Box vision for Tenley. yuck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

When I’ve visited Sullivan’s in person the last few months, I’ve asked each time what’s happening because the shelves were bare, etc - each time I was told that AU has made rents unaffordable but that Sullivan’s had already identified a number of possible new sites and would certainly end up re-opening there. I wish they’d actually told people they were in trouble…(more of) an effort probably would have been made if the community had known. Also, I know that our family as well as another on our street continued ordering from Sullivan’s for delivery throughout the pandemic.

You can order toys on Amazon. But Amazon can’t deliver the experience of a hot new neighborhood bistro.

Some people don’t want kids and that’s fair, but a rich urban environment that the urbanist and pro-density crowd promote should be inclusive of everyone, including kids. If you want to denude a city of kids, you won’t have a city for long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is up with Tenleytown? I know that it was not an AU tenant but apparently Tenleytown could not even support a Starbucks on a prime metro location.

Gastropub closed and just sitting boarded up vacant.

Kitty O'Shea's just vacant.

Young adults are the lifeblood of the bar and restaurant industry, and Tenleytown is about the last place young adults want to live in DC. College students alone can't support those businesses because half of them can't drink legally and the other half doesn't want to hang out in a dingy Irish pub when they could go to a bar that caters to their generation on U St or Adams Morgan.

I grew up in Tenleytown when regular people could still afford to live there, that's why places like Maggie's, Armand's, Round Table, and Babe's could exist. Now Tenley is a victim of its own success. The only people who can pay $1.5MM for a house there are overworked attorneys and DCUM's famous "if you have more than one drink you're an alcoholic, if you have more than 3 bites of food a day you're a fatty" housewives, neither of which have the time and inclination to frequent bars and restaurants, or at least the kind of restaurants that can exist in Tenleytown.

+1. Absolutely correct. Also, underaged college students could get served at Maggies, Armand's etc back in the day. A very different place now.

[Anonymous]

Balducci's = local neighborhood character?!