Reply to WaPo: H Street birth to death

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've been thinking this for a while.  H street was on the rise for many years, then it kind of plateaued and now its on the decline.  Its really quite sad and I don't see it rebounding.  Pot shops, mini marts and fast food take out counters don't make a neighborhood.  I do think competition from Navy Yard and the Warf contributed but crime is real.  The packs of people standing around intersections smoking pot don't make for a very appealing destination.  Whole Foods is the only thing holding it together.  [/quote]

Smoking pot on public space is illegal.  That would be an easy quality of life issue for DC to address, as it reflects lawlessness.[/quote]

I live two blocks from H and go there regularly. It's not the hellhole some people here think it is, and it's way better than it was 10 years ago, but no one is denying the problems. DC needs to enforce the marajuana laws. It's illegal to sell pot, but the "gifting" shops are doing exactly that. There were plans in 2022 to start to enforce the laws, but they were delayed (https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/dc-delays-inspecting-marijuana-gifting-shops-promises-crackdown-still-coming/) and I haven't heard anything lately.[/quote]

I disagree. It's definitely worse than 2013. Honestly it's even worse than when I moved here in 2003. It wasn't vibrant then, but there wasn't so much random violent crime either.[/quote]

There wasn't "random violent crime" in 2003 because H street was an open air drug market where people came to do heroine in 2003. You couldn't even take cabs to H Street in 2003 because cab drivers would throw you out of the cab. Most of the street was boarded up. If you honestly think it's worse now, you either have a poor memory or you were one of the people on heroine back then.

Also, H streets' development was uneven. In 2010, most of H street was very sketchy but there were a few blocks of lively nightlife (like 11th to 14th) and it was a destination for people so it felt safer because there were people around, businesses were open. The rest of the strip was boarded up or it was businesses like that big storage facility or that grocery store (Harvey's? I can't remember?).

Then the area close to Union Station blossomed when that development with the Giant went in. There were a cluster of restaurants and bars that went in around 4th and H around this time. Boundary Road was the big one (the Obamas went to dinner there at some point). Sidamo, Ethiopic, the place that was in Big Board before Big Board, then Big Board. That French place Le Grenier (now I think it's called Irregardless but similar concept). At this point, that close in part of H Street was the "nicest" part, and then you had nightlife at the other end, and in between was sketchy.

Then the Whole Foods went in and that shifted everything. You could actually walk from one end of H to the other without hitting a super sketchy block. The intersection at 8th and H remain questionable, but mostly people felt safe even with some crime and homelessness.

The difference between 2003 and 2017 or 2019 was night and day. Number of businesses, safety, nightlife. Total turnaround.

Since 2019 it's gotten worse, but the mainstays of that improvement are still there -- the grocery stores, a bunch of national chains that have held up find (Nando's Starbucks, Orange Theory Fitness). Some fancy places still doing well (Stable, Maketto, Fancy Radish). And a ton of new places.

But overall traffic in businesses is down, crime is up, and it's less pleasant overall. It needs to be addressed.

But the idea that it's worse now than 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, is just dumb. It is objectively better. There are problems, but it's objectively better.[/quote]

The restaurant scene doesn’t seem to be slowing down although it hasn’t grown the way you might have expected. Ubers now take the place of the taxis or shuttle you used to have to catch. I’d like to see more visible patroling on Friday and Saturday nights.

Is there anything that can be done to fill in the vacant storefronts? Are landlords just holding onto the buildings instead of renting? That should be discouraged through the tax code. [/quote]

It was odd that the article didn't mention new restaurants that have opened on H St NE recently. Hiraya most recently, (and it's amazing and delicious!), was boosted in Bon Appetit and Eater.

I live near H St, feel maaybe slightly more uncomfortable there than I used to, but it was also uncomfortable to go out there back when it was only a few restaurants (I remember trekking over to Granville Moores and Rock 'n Roll Hotel early on when it wasn't yet a thing to go there). There's also a lot of cannibalization as there are so many other neighborhood hot spots now; NOMA wasn't a thing back then.

That's not to say that crime, vandalism, and vagrancy aren't an issue that needs to be addressed - they do. I also feel more uncomfortable in lots of places in the city due to the same issues, just because I'm aware of the percentage increase in crime. I see many car jackings occurring on Capitol Hill too.[/quote]
It hasn’t gone downhill because it always sucked is quite the rationalization.[/quote]

It changed slightly over the years, it was always "edgy" so to speak. But H St is not unique in the trends happening all over the city, and it's fair to critique the article for not making any note of new restaurants opening recently, the Nike store that just opened, etc. [/quote]

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