Anonymous
Post 07/06/2025 14:32     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Downtown?


Yeah, that struck me too. If you asked anyone where they were going and they said "downtown DC", you'd just give them a blank stare because that is a meaningless statement.


I've lived in the DMV and worked in DC for over 20 years and "downtown DC" is not "a meaningless statement." People refer to "downtown" all the time. It refers to the parts of DC that people tend to work in. As opposed to, oh, say, Palisades, or Adams Morgan, or VanNess or U Street, or Anacostia, or Kingman Park, or Cleveland Park or whatever. This DC website even has "downtown" listed as a neighborhood. Penn Quarter is downtown. Judiciary Square is downtown. Foggy Bottom is downtown. https://washington.org/dc-neighborhoods
Anonymous
Post 07/06/2025 13:33     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Kids being irresponsible with fireworks on the 4th of July?

Where’s my fainting couch?
Anonymous
Post 07/06/2025 13:31     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Downtown?


Yeah, that struck me too. If you asked anyone where they were going and they said "downtown DC", you'd just give them a blank stare because that is a meaningless statement.


I grew up in Cleveland Park and I think of "downtown" as that boring business district south of Dupont, north of the White House. Like K street but not the Georgetown part of it. The area south of Tabard Inn. 16th st south of the circle in intersects, etc. That boring area.

The Mall is the Mall, not downtown.


I grew up in Capitol Hill and agree with this. The Mall is the cut off of the downtown area.

(even Google Maps agrees with us, fwiw!)
Anonymous
Post 07/06/2025 13:26     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Navy Yard has unfortunately been the epicenter of dangerous teen nonsense recently.

(“Downtown” is the area around K Street, btw.)
Anonymous
Post 07/06/2025 12:41     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My young adult son got home last night saying it was a lot - people lighting off fireworks in the street so driving was hard and dangerous.


I mean.

I drove home around 11. It WAS hard and dangerous. It’s a night where you need to drive really carefully! And the smoke was very thick and impacted visibility - I think it was a bad year for that because of the weather. Tons of pedestrians, of course.

But the closest thing I saw to “fireworks in the street” was just people setting them off on residential streets to be away from buildings/vegetation with informal traffic control. It’s illegal and I wish they wouldn’t. But it wasn’t chaos.


I think you probably experienced the same thing. My son didn’t describe it as chaos and he wasn’t frightened. He didn’t think the people setting off fireworks on residential streets were doing anything terrible, just that he had to keep making turns to avoid driving down streets with fireworks going off in the middle of them, and that it was really smoky. That all sounds different than what happened with kids pointing fireworks at people.
Anonymous
Post 07/06/2025 12:34     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:There was a social media post called “Take over DMV.” OCMD was a $hit show. Check TikTok for videos


OP here. This is what one of my tutoring students said on Saturday when we were talking about our holiday. That is sounded like the same kinda crap.
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 16:55     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Downtown?


Yeah, that struck me too. If you asked anyone where they were going and they said "downtown DC", you'd just give them a blank stare because that is a meaningless statement.


I grew up in Cleveland Park and I think of "downtown" as that boring business district south of Dupont, north of the White House. Like K street but not the Georgetown part of it. The area south of Tabard Inn. 16th st south of the circle in intersects, etc. That boring area.

The Mall is the Mall, not downtown.
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 16:51     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:I was at Navy Yard last night and it was insane. Soooo many boys running around on e-bikes shooting Roman candles at each other and at cars. The thing that infuriated was that the cops didn’t do anything. They just waited until someone got hurt or a fire was started and then called in the fire department. Wtf. It was definitely dangerous and they wouldn’t do anything. Were they told to stand down?

It definitely sounded like a war zone. I heard some very loud booms ( sounded like mortars) and I never saw a firework emerge.


Why would they do anything? They have been taught that interfering with a certain segment of society brings nothing but trouble and misery.
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 16:29     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
I was at Navy Yard last night and it was insane. Soooo many boys running around on e-bikes shooting Roman candles at each other and at cars. The thing that infuriated was that the cops didn’t do anything. They just waited until someone got hurt or a fire was started and then called in the fire department. Wtf. It was definitely dangerous and they wouldn’t do anything. Were they told to stand down?

It definitely sounded like a war zone. I heard some very loud booms ( sounded like mortars) and I never saw a firework emerge.
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 16:22     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How do I get a supervisor when I visit DC?

New poster here
That's a weird question. OP said right in her post that she was there because she was volunteering at an event. It's pretty common to have someone in charge (a supervisor) at events with volunteers.


Typically called a coordinator when volunteering.


Maybe, but surely you could figure out what OP meant.


My understanding was that her work asked for volunteers either for work or for a work sponsored volunteer event, so supervisors made sense to me.
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 16:20     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:This was Navy Yard around Half Street.


I live in DC and I would never call that downtown. Downtown to me is around K st and maybe Penn Quarter.


To me downtown is gallery place through to Penn quarter. I work near the White House and do tell people I work downtown. I think of navy yard as navy yard.
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 16:17     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
There was a social media post called “Take over DMV.” OCMD was a $hit show. Check TikTok for videos
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 14:01     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Downtown?


Yeah, that struck me too. If you asked anyone where they were going and they said "downtown DC", you'd just give them a blank stare because that is a meaningless statement.


Last night was the 4th. People would understand that the person went to see the fireworks at the mall and then hung out somewhere in DC proper. This isn’t hard and I don’t think the difference between K street or Penn Quarter matters for the first round of story telling. If the listener wanted to know, they would say, oh where exactly were you?
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 13:49     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Downtown?


Yeah, that struck me too. If you asked anyone where they were going and they said "downtown DC", you'd just give them a blank stare because that is a meaningless statement.


We’ve said “downtown” for decades. Are you new here?


Downtown means K St. Are YOU new here?


Third generation Washingtonian, actually. What about you?
Anonymous
Post 07/05/2025 13:36     Subject: Downtown was insane tonight
No one says Northern NY. There is western NY, though.