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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I can tell you didn't live here in the 80s or 90s because if you did you would know that black people who have newly moved up from the south are called bamas, not country bumpkins

[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.

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?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weekly bus-pass cards and paper bus transfers, which were often used as currency (one bus transfer usually was good for one cigarette).

Pretty cool

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I can tell you didn't live here in the 80s or 90s because if you did you would know that black people who have newly moved up from the south are called bamas, not country bumpkins

LOL, this right here.

This is such a WOTP thread (which should not be surprising, but is).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

I remember that! It was so … blatant. Do hookers still do walk the streets anywhere in DC?

Yes, I’ve seen sex workers around 12th st nw

[Anonymous]

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

I’ve heard that said a lot

[Anonymous]

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.

[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.

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.

[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 lived around there in the mid-1990s and then again in the mid-2000s. I would say that the mid-90s were pretty scary. Like, every day was a new adventure in "what crime may happen today to me or in very close proximity to me?" Mid-2000s was amazing. When I visit the area these days (still have friends there), there's more of a concern about crime than mid-2000s, but it is definitely not like the 1990s.

Thank you. That puts things in perspective nicely.

[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.

I used to work a night shift job around there back in the late 90s. The only place open in that area (Thomas Circle) to get a snack was the CVS. It would be me and the hookers in line to check out. We weren't friends, but we recognized each other and we'd each joke how the other was "working" that night.

+1 I worked at the Peoples then CVS in Bethesda in the late 80s/early 90s. The only other 24-hour pharmacy was at Thomas Circle. If we were out of something and told customers late at night that they would have to go to Thomas Circle to get what they needed they looked at us like we had three heads.

Thank you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Weekly bus-pass cards and paper bus transfers, which were often used as currency (one bus transfer usually was good for one cigarette).

Student bus tokens!

Nice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

This. It kind of was bombed out. No one rebuilt after the riots decades earlier.

+1 I’m listening to a new podcast from The Atlantic called Holy Week that’s all about DC the week that MLK was shot. Fascinating so far.

Thanks

[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.

When you consider the crime, the increasingly dysfunctional DC government, the lawlessness, graffiti and trash not cleaned up, it's beginning to feel a little like "Barry Time" again.

[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.

Anthony Williams. Best. Washington DC. Mayor. Ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Anthony Williams. Best. Washington DC. Mayor. Ever.

And Matt Watson was the best auditor. These two cleaned up a lot of corruption.