Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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"

DC is dramatically better than it was 30 years ago.

Much much safer.

Much much better governance & schools.

Much much better food scene.

The biggest change to me is how many vibrant neighborhoods the city has now compared to when I arrived. Downtown DC used to be an absolute ghost town on evenings and weekends - to see a hockey or basketball game you had to drive 30 minutes from downtown and there was no baseball team and a lot of restaurants didn't even stay open on weekends. Any neighborhoods west of 16th Street NW were sketchy and lacking basic neighborhood amenities and were shedding population until the early oughts. The area around Nats stadium was mostly abandoned warehouses (though Trax was fun) and the SW Waterfront had more surface parking lots than anything else.

DC did used to have a bit of a bohemian vibe that it is now completely lacking - art house movie theaters, coffee shops (Food for Thought), some genuine dive bars and of course you really could get by in DC on very low income as housing was much much cheaper and of course gentrification is a real thing.

The old 9:30 club was a funky place with lots of character and I guess it was cool that you couldn't see the stage from about a third of the place but the new club is a vastly superior place to see a show.

But I'm also struck by how much hasn't changed - I lived in Columbia Heights and Mt Pleasant in the early 90's and both neighborhoods still have some of the same vibes they had 30 years ago and even some of the same businesses.

I really don't think you'd find very many people, of any race, when given an actual choice between DC circa 1990 and DC today who would chose 1990. There were some things about 1990 that were better (mostly related to affordability) but on balance DC is just so much nicer of a place than it was 30 years ago.

BTW the chain stores are an issue absolutely everywhere and compared to most places DC is blessed with diverse and interesting locally owned businesses.

Excellent post. I think I will copy and paste it any time someone trots out the tired argument that pre-revitalized DC was a better place than the city today.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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"

DC is dramatically better than it was 30 years ago.

Much much safer.

Much much better governance & schools.

Much much better food scene.

The biggest change to me is how many vibrant neighborhoods the city has now compared to when I arrived. Downtown DC used to be an absolute ghost town on evenings and weekends - to see a hockey or basketball game you had to drive 30 minutes from downtown and there was no baseball team and a lot of restaurants didn't even stay open on weekends. Any neighborhoods west of 16th Street NW were sketchy and lacking basic neighborhood amenities and were shedding population until the early oughts. The area around Nats stadium was mostly abandoned warehouses (though Trax was fun) and the SW Waterfront had more surface parking lots than anything else.

DC did used to have a bit of a bohemian vibe that it is now completely lacking - art house movie theaters, coffee shops (Food for Thought), some genuine dive bars and of course you really could get by in DC on very low income as housing was much much cheaper and of course gentrification is a real thing.

The old 9:30 club was a funky place with lots of character and I guess it was cool that you couldn't see the stage from about a third of the place but the new club is a vastly superior place to see a show.

But I'm also struck by how much hasn't changed - I lived in Columbia Heights and Mt Pleasant in the early 90's and both neighborhoods still have some of the same vibes they had 30 years ago and even some of the same businesses.

I really don't think you'd find very many people, of any race, when given an actual choice between DC circa 1990 and DC today who would chose 1990. There were some things about 1990 that were better (mostly related to affordability) but on balance DC is just so much nicer of a place than it was 30 years ago.

BTW the chain stores are an issue absolutely everywhere and compared to most places DC is blessed with diverse and interesting locally owned businesses.

Anonymous wrote:

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"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it. I miss department stores and bookstores too. Blame amazon, not gentrification. Everything looks like an Apple store now.

I blame a little bit of NIMBYism- The Georgetown Mall redevelopment was kind of a disaster. Not that the mall was that charming to begin with, but the big box stores that replaced it lack all character. My understanding is the initial redevelopment vision was resisted for good reasons, but what they got was worse than it originally could have been. I'm a big fan of NIMBYism (I think residents should have a say in their neighborhoods) but that effort failed. I think their hearts were in the right places, it just boomeranged on them. Otherwise agree with the above. Shop local OP!

The opposite of NIMBYism isn't residents (renters as well as owners) having no say in their neighborhoods. The opposite of NIMBYism is those residents actually saying YES to real possibilities, not just always always always NO.

Sorry, but over time I have become a fan of NIMBYs. Of course they should say yes to possibilities, but often neighborhood needs ARE run roughshod over by short sighted developers. NIMBYs are usually the best equipped to stay informed + advocate.

and yet they never do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it. I miss department stores and bookstores too. Blame amazon, not gentrification. Everything looks like an Apple store now.

I blame a little bit of NIMBYism- The Georgetown Mall redevelopment was kind of a disaster. Not that the mall was that charming to begin with, but the big box stores that replaced it lack all character. My understanding is the initial redevelopment vision was resisted for good reasons, but what they got was worse than it originally could have been. I'm a big fan of NIMBYism (I think residents should have a say in their neighborhoods) but that effort failed. I think their hearts were in the right places, it just boomeranged on them. Otherwise agree with the above. Shop local OP!

The opposite of NIMBYism isn't residents (renters as well as owners) having no say in their neighborhoods. The opposite of NIMBYism is those residents actually saying YES to real possibilities, not just always always always NO.

Sorry, but over time I have become a fan of NIMBYs. Of course they should say yes to possibilities, but often neighborhood needs ARE run roughshod over by short sighted developers. NIMBYs are usually the best equipped to stay informed + advocate.

Anonymous wrote:If you think DC is nothing but chains you clearly don't get out much.

Except for upper NW and EOTR, practically every neighborhood is packed with excellent non-chain options for eating, drinking, and shopping. In fact, I'd say DC has never had a better variety of independent businesses than right now. There might have been more in total numbers pre-68, but I guarantee you they were all the same old corner store, bar, deli, diner, italian, etc. Now we've got every cuisine imaginable in every price range. We've got neighborhood bars, cocktail lounges, tiki bars, bier halls, dance clubs, whiskey bars, rum bars, gin bars, craft beer bars, breweries, distilleries, anything you could possibly want with no need to ever visit a chain if you don't want to.

And if you really miss the grit and grime of pre-2000s DC, you can always join us over here in Ward 7 and 8 with barely a chain to be seen. You'll save a bundle on your mortgage too!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it. I miss department stores and bookstores too. Blame amazon, not gentrification. Everything looks like an Apple store now.

I blame a little bit of NIMBYism- The Georgetown Mall redevelopment was kind of a disaster. Not that the mall was that charming to begin with, but the big box stores that replaced it lack all character. My understanding is the initial redevelopment vision was resisted for good reasons, but what they got was worse than it originally could have been. I'm a big fan of NIMBYism (I think residents should have a say in their neighborhoods) but that effort failed. I think their hearts were in the right places, it just boomeranged on them. Otherwise agree with the above. Shop local OP!

The opposite of NIMBYism isn't residents (renters as well as owners) having no say in their neighborhoods. The opposite of NIMBYism is those residents actually saying YES to real possibilities, not just always always always NO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it. I miss department stores and bookstores too. Blame amazon, not gentrification. Everything looks like an Apple store now.

I blame a little bit of NIMBYism- The Georgetown Mall redevelopment was kind of a disaster. Not that the mall was that charming to begin with, but the big box stores that replaced it lack all character. My understanding is the initial redevelopment vision was resisted for good reasons, but what they got was worse than it originally could have been. I'm a big fan of NIMBYism (I think residents should have a say in their neighborhoods) but that effort failed. I think their hearts were in the right places, it just boomeranged on them. Otherwise agree with the above. Shop local OP!