DC Going to Hell in a Handbasket

[Anonymous]

I don't know about anyone else, but I despair at what I see in DC. I have lived here for 30 plus years. I find the gentrification is bringing things to DC I don't need or like and pushing things out I used to enjoy. I actually enjoyed the grittier, dirtier feel that I exisited when I arrived in 1984. Downtown was certainly much more alive, with a varietyof shops, four department stores, bookshops everywhere. Now, it's all cookie cutter chain stores. Locals who have lived here forever are being pushed out and have to fight with the gentrifiers who want to take away their parking for bike lanes or complain about homegrown art forms like loud go go music. I guess maybe I'm like my old New Yorker friend who liked the pre-Giluiani, pre-Disneyfied New York.

Last night I took a very long walk from Mt. Pleasant to downtown and noticed so many missing places. It was sad. And you still cannot get good pizza in this town.

[Anonymous]

Yes, gentrification has brought some good things but there are many losses. I liked DC and my neighborhood before gentrification. I still like it now - but I miss the way it was.

[jsteele]

OP, I think you are about 5 years behind with this thread. The topic has been hashed out many times here. I think it is a bit tone deaf to complain about gentrification and bike lanes when the city is in the midst of a pandemic and enduring threats from insurrectionists.

Once the pandemic is behind us, the city will have the opportunity to rebuild. You should plan to play a constructive role in that process.

[Anonymous]

I was pleasantly surprised to read the content of this thread, as the title seemed like something negative was occurring to the town as a result of political instability.

Anyway, I was born and raised on Capitol Hill in Southeast DC. I live through the Barry years. I still live here. I had numerous bikes stolen and I’ve seen people get stabbed. I’m sorry you missed the gritty past. I don’t. My real estate is worth millions. My kids can now go to public school. I’m sure there’s still incompetence in the local government and in our local agencies, but it’s better than it was.

Dc is not a cool town. It never will be. I guess we had Fugazi and rare essence and the whole go go thing, but this town had so many issues. I like gentrification. There are good restaurants. 8th street se has restaurants and isn’t boarded up. Sht changes. I don’t get people being sad about it. No one has a right to live anywhere they can’t afford. It’s not “displacement” it’s just change. That’s harsh. Go move to Detroit if you want a crappy town with violence. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

I like more safety but not chain storification. I want the gentrification with the little stores. Is that possible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about anyone else, but I despair at what I see in DC. I have lived here for 30 plus years. I find the gentrification is bringing things to DC I don't need or like and pushing things out I used to enjoy. I actually enjoyed the grittier, dirtier feel that I exisited when I arrived in 1984. Downtown was certainly much more alive, with a varietyof shops, four department stores, bookshops everywhere. Now, it's all cookie cutter chain stores. Locals who have lived here forever are being pushed out and have to fight with the gentrifiers who want to take away their parking for bike lanes or complain about homegrown art forms like loud go go music. I guess maybe I'm like my old New Yorker friend who liked the pre-Giluiani, pre-Disneyfied New York.

Last night I took a very long walk from Mt. Pleasant to downtown and noticed so many missing places. It was sad. And you still cannot get good pizza in this town.

That was partly the result of the 1968 riots, which are not generally considered something to be nostalgic about.

As for department stores and bookshops, it's now 2021 and not 1984 everywhere, not just in DC.

[Anonymous]

FFS! Please shut up with your gritty authenticy. When is the last time you went to a go go club? - DC born and bred, have lived the gritty, gentrification is an unbridled good and you are literally tlking out of your a**

[Anonymous]

I’m sure there are plenty of “gritty” neighborhoods to hang out in.

[Anonymous]

I have also been here 30 years and will dispute that there is no good pizza - MUCH better options than in the past. I wish we had better Mexican options inside the city. . .

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:OP, I think you are about 5 years behind with this thread. The topic has been hashed out many times here. I think it is a bit tone deaf to complain about gentrification and bike lanes when the city is in the midst of a pandemic and enduring threats from insurrectionists.

Once the pandemic is behind us, the city will have the opportunity to rebuild. You should plan to play a constructive role in that process.

JSteele FTW.

[Anonymous]

I grew up here. OLD 930 club was a death trap if a fire broke out, city was geberally unsafe and most parts were beyond dull. Downtown was a ghoatown unless you were really jnto Lernees discount and 1/2 priced wig stores. This isnt old versus new Times Square. There is no "old" atimes Square in DC. Pls do not.romanticize. You want Fugazi? Start a band!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up here. OLD 930 club was a death trap if a fire broke out, city was geberally unsafe and most parts were beyond dull. Downtown was a ghoatown unless you were really jnto Lernees discount and 1/2 priced wig stores. This isnt old versus new Times Square. There is no "old" atimes Square in DC. Pls do not.romanticize. You want Fugazi? Start a band!

930 F St.

My first all ages show

[Anonymous]

Just move to Baltimore. Real gritty there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up here. OLD 930 club was a death trap if a fire broke out, city was geberally unsafe and most parts were beyond dull. Downtown was a ghoatown unless you were really jnto Lernees discount and 1/2 priced wig stores. This isnt old versus new Times Square. There is no "old" atimes Square in DC. Pls do not.romanticize. You want Fugazi? Start a band!

OMG, those wig shops! All over 7th St NW area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up here. OLD 930 club was a death trap if a fire broke out, city was geberally unsafe and most parts were beyond dull. Downtown was a ghoatown unless you were really jnto Lernees discount and 1/2 priced wig stores. This isnt old versus new Times Square. There is no "old" atimes Square in DC. Pls do not.romanticize. You want Fugazi? Start a band!

OMG, those wig shops! All over 7th St NW area.

This is what DC had going for it:
The record shop on Conn Avenue by Dupont
"Food for Thought"
Drinking Age--18
"the Compliment Guy"
Sunshine, hippie who rain the fruit stand by Dupont metro
Kramer Books (still there)
Old Georgetown Mall (better than new big box complex)
Tracks Nightclub
I'm racking my brain here...

Education was a morass, crime was high, downtown was a boring, almost physically depressing wasteland (yes, wig shops), no parks and rec though you could walk through cigarette littered traffic circles and get offered Boat as a pre-teen, MLK Library was skeevy, ....

There are plenty of gritty places OP can hit. I don't think OP realizes that gentrification was mostly driven by the gay + artists + small, locally owned business community in areas like Adams Morgan. They didn't push out a vibrant, black jazz scene or whatnot (I've hard this said). They actually revived it. 14th and 16th street looked like Beirut when I was a kid (not swinging Parisian Beirut, but mid Civil War). The winos on boarded up doorways. Oh my...! I always felt like I was walking the gauntlet to catch the bus. And one of my elementary school classmates was shot in the butt crossing Park Road on the way to school. Yeah, "the good old days"