Reply to Anyone Remember Bethesda and Silver Spring in 2000?

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Anyone Remember Bethesda and Silver Spring in 2000?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My grandma settled in bethesda in the 50s… so yes I remember when it was nicer.[/quote]

I moved to Bethesda in 1964, as a 3 year old. I prefer the Bethesda of today, much more going on, lots of places to eat and shop. When I was a kid we had a Hot Shoppes and auto body shops in downtown Bethesda, plus the Strosniders/Bruce Variety shopping strip. It was pretty basic. [/quote]

+1. It had the sorts of places that people today would look down on today -- a sitdown Pizza Hut restaurant, Roy Rogers, Burger King, Baskin Robbins, McDonalds. When people say it was nicer at some point in the past, I have no idea what they miss about it.[/quote]

I disagree. I grew up in Bethesda from the mid-80s to the mid-2000s and thought it was great. I miss Louisiana Express, Rio Grande (Uncle Julio's in the new location, if it's even still there, isn't the same), Il Forno, Matuba. Tons of other great restaurants I'm not thinking of right now. I live in DC but still go to Bethesda frequently or my kids' activities, and I still enjoy it now, but it was great back then too. I am bummed out by the number of car dealerships in the downtown area. what a poor choice. They cause a lot of congestion. (Just last night, Arlington Rd. was down to one lane during rush hour because of a huge trucking delivering new cars.) Those were always on Rockville Pike when I was growing up; not sure why that changed. That downtown Bethesda retail space could be used for so many better things.

The obsession with crime on this post, when talking about any area, is just odd. Bethesda was not unsafe in the 80s/90s/2000s and is not unsafe now. [/quote]

The only two dealerships in downtown Bethesda that are more than just a storefront are the Mercedes and Honda dealerships, and both have been there forever and have a small footprint (they're not the eyesores you see in Tysons). If you've been around long enough to remember the restaurants you named, then you've been around long enough to know that the Mercedes dealership on Arlington Rd has always been there and sometimes has delivery trucks. I think the only new addition is the Volvo storefront across the street, which maybe has one or two cars on display.[/quote]

Comparing Tysons to Bethesda is pointless. They’re dissimilar places and Tysons isn’t trying to be Bethesda. A better comparison to Bethesda is the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington. Ballston used to be a wasteland 20 years ago and now has a lot of the same kind of retail and eateries that Bethesda has.

The overall point is that NoVA has been getting dramatically more investment in the past 10-20 years compared to MoCo and PG. I don’t think there’s any disputing this. [/quote]

Agree. I grew up in Bethesda and now live in Arlington. Arlington was not a desirable place to live when I was young. Arlington is MUCH nicer than it used to be and quite expensive. It definitely has better restaurants than Bethesda. It's also a lot bigger and has a lot more commercial business. [/quote]

This is not true at all. I have been curious about this, and one thing I've noticed is that houses in Bethesda and Arlington have both gone up approximately 10x in value since about the early 1980s. It's actually pretty interesting how it's true for both areas. I personally grew up in Bethesda, and it was not nice in the 1980s. You can look up pictures from then to confirm. [/quote]

Bethesda boosters keep moving the goalposts. The argument is about the past 20 years and the trajectory of NoVa compared to Silver Spring and Bethesda. Not how nice Bethesda has become since 1980 or 1960. I’m sure there is more to do in Bethesda than there was in 1913.[/quote]

Unfortunately, it's you NoVa people that move the goalposts. Of course it's relevant that housing appreciation of Bethesda and Arlington have been comparable since the 1980s. It basically shows that the argument that Bethesda was somehow nicer than Arlington in the 80s or 90s is nonsense -- they've always both had the same level of desirability driven by the fact that they relatively nice, inside-the-beltway suburbs.

Silver Spring has never been comparable to Bethesda or Arlington, so that's a total red herring that demonstrates the dishonesty of the NoVa boosters in this thread.[/quote]

Silver Spring has declined. That’s the point. It was a nice area and saw a bit of a boom with Discovery Channel and other development. Now it’s just decrepit. Same with other areas - look at White Flint / Rockville. Bethesda is nicer but it’s relative. Northern Virginia is just nicer and more vibrant. Many more jobs in that area. Stores are nice. I say this with sadness as I love MoCo and there are many wonderful things about it. But the county government has done a terrible job over the last few decades.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics