Reply to R.I.P. Pursuit Wine Bar. Another innocent victim and casualty of DC’s out of control crime

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The reason that DC businesses are closing isn’t so much because of crime but because they need more customers.  More density and vibrancy will bring more customers.[/quote]

People start avoiding places when there's a huge increase in crime. Eventually, people even start moving away. I've been surprised by the number of long-time acquaintances (including people from here) I've talked to recently who have started looking into moving elsewhere.

I agree that it's probably a combination of factors, but crime seems to be one of the biggest issues dragging the city down at this point.[/quote]

H Street resident here and yes, it's a confluence of factors, but I'm not sure you understand the interplay.

ALL of this links back to Covid. People stayed home during Covid because they had to. Businesses were closed. As things reopened, crowds didn't come back at the same levels. Prices absolutely went up, for various reasons, and that dampened enthusiasm for returning to prior levels. Also some businesses didn't survive the shit down, and fewer places overall made H less of a destination. All of this happened independent of the crime issues.

But the crime issues worsened during this time. When everything closed, we saw big increases in vagrancy and loitering along H. Without more people out and about, this contributed to a sense of unease. Panhandling increased. Crime was going up in the city all over, but the shuttered businesses and more of a sense of lawlessness I think really encouraged crime on a H.

And then of course the crime, panhandling, and vagrancy has an impact on businesses, and it spirals down. It's been very frustrating to watch.[/quote]

I’m a DC native.  As I’ve watched my city change —irreparably, one of the things I’ve wondered over the last two decades or so is : Then what?  Much of the Old DC, that included Southern-ish neighborhoods with row houses and family owned businesses got swept away in the name of growth and “progress”.  As new people moved in, the city changed to accommodate them and their needs — as cities do.  Expensive bars and chi chi multi-family condos proliferated.  Many of the people they existed to serve though, had zero ties to the city— beyond jobs that they viewed as personal stepping stones. Transients hung out with other transients, patronized the newer business, and easily moved in when the environments that had changed to accommodate their needs no longer did so.

That’s where we are now, and the changes on H St are a microcosm that highlights all of this. People like me will no longer come there to support other businesses and provide the safety of street traffic as we wait for our Horace and Dickey’s orders.  And the newbies — both businesses and residents — will leave when their needs are no longer met.

So, yeah, the downward spiral is frustrating to watch, quite predictable, and even sadder for those of us who miss the kinds of neighborhoods and communities and the sense of safety that they engendered that preceded the “progress”.  [/quote]

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