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D.C. was murder capital back in the 90's so imagine that.
All of DC east of Rock Creek Park was filled with hoods.
Logan Circle? Hood!
U street? Hood!
Dupont Circle? Sketchy!
Columbia Heights? HOOD!!
Eastern Market? Ghetto!!
All of Gerogia Ave? Hood!
All of 14th street? Hood!
DC was a city filled with nothing but drug dealers, bootleggers, hustlers, runners, dudes shooting at anything with a New York license plate, ya mean, old school DC.
Large parts of DC were very violent in the late 80's to mid 90's. I can recall being shot at leaving a few of the "urban" clubs in DC. And once leaving these two ho's townhouse near Union Station.
The Indie music club scene was better all around Georgetown. You could also smoke everywhere then!
I came to DC in the 90s not long after finishing grad school and doing shorts stints in a few other major cities including NYC. The lure then was what it is now for many 20 somethings: jobs in specialized areas like policy, govt and advocacy and a concentration of like-minded young professionals. The group house scene at the time made most of NW DC feel like an extension of college--- no lie here: I used to run into folks like Ann Coulture and Malcolm Gladwell at house parties in group houses in Cleveland Park, DuPont or Mt. Pleasant. Very few of us were thinking about luxury apartment or condo living at the time. I can recall spending many a Saturday with friends just drifting from house to house, party to party, as if we were on fraternity row.
There was an accessible edge to the typical young professional oriented nightlife that now seems missing. I hung with a mixed-raced group of friends at the time and we were regularly hitting wildly diverse places-- clubs, bars, live music spots (The Ritz, Republic Gardens, Club Zei, DC Space, Andalusian Dog, the Insect Club, the Bayou in Georgetown, amazingly the 9:30 and the Black Cat and even the dance/gay clubs where the stadium is now)
As for the bad: My car used to get broken into *routinely* in 90s era DC, open air drug markets were no joke at places like Meridian Hill, U Street and Logan Circle, and the hookers on 14th St and along K St was like something out of a movie....and good restaurants were few and far between.
Someone brought up that K Street was "Prostitution Paradise" 20 years ago. I believe that. I was walking along K Street Saturday night to go the Whole Foods at GWU. K Street today is kinda... sterile. That's the best way I can describe it. Still some homeless person in a spot or two but not much else.
Our version here in New York is obviously Times Square. Today it's Disneyland.
Yep, I remember the time when AU and GW graduate students could afford an apartment with only one roommate in Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, U Street area, Mount Pleasant etc. Not anymore.
If Malcolm Gladwell were a grad student today, he would be banished to the suburban fringe or to some sketchy neighborhood in Northeast DC. We have students enrolled at Catholic University, Howard, GW, and even Georgetown University who are living in the Silver Spring-Wheaton corridor because the housing costs are more reasonable. Students have worse commutes to classrooms than professionals to their day jobs. Longer commutes hurt the student's meager budget. Something wrong about this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RozCat
I came to DC in the 90s not long after finishing grad school and doing shorts stints in a few other major cities including NYC. The lure then was what it is now for many 20 somethings: jobs in specialized areas like policy, govt and advocacy and a concentration of like-minded young professionals. The group house scene at the time made most of NW DC feel like an extension of college--- no lie here: I used to run into folks like Ann Coulture and Malcolm Gladwell at house parties in group houses in Cleveland Park, DuPont or Mt. Pleasant. Very few of us were thinking about luxury apartment or condo living at the time. I can recall spending many a Saturday with friends just drifting from house to house, party to party, as if we were on fraternity row.
There was an accessible edge to the typical young professional oriented nightlife that now seems missing. I hung with a mixed-raced group of friends at the time and we were regularly hitting wildly diverse places-- clubs, bars, live music spots (The Ritz, Republic Gardens, Club Zei, DC Space, Andalusian Dog, the Insect Club, the Bayou in Georgetown, amazingly the 9:30 and the Black Cat and even the dance/gay clubs where the stadium is now)
As for the bad: My car used to get broken into *routinely* in 90s era DC, open air drug markets were no joke at places like Meridian Hill, U Street and Logan Circle, and the hookers on 14th St and along K St was like something out of a movie....and good restaurants were few and far between.
Yep, I remember the time when AU and GW graduate students could afford an apartment with only one roommate in Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, U Street area, Mount Pleasant etc. Not anymore.
And the first cab driver I had in DC remembers when he wouldn't have driven me to my first apartment on U street in the 90's because the block was too bad.
I'll split the rent in exchange for not being stabbed in the face for my metro card. Fair trade.
D.C. was murder capital back in the 90's so imagine that.
All of DC east of Rock Creek Park was filled with hoods.
Logan Circle? Hood!
U street? Hood!
Dupont Circle? Sketchy!
Columbia Heights? HOOD!!
Eastern Market? Ghetto!!
All of Gerogia Ave? Hood!
All of 14th street? Hood!
In the 80s and 90s Dupont Circle was really nice and had many more independent businesses. That neighborhood was never sketchy. East of 15th was where the hood began. Like today, there were very expensive restaurants and million dollar row houses in Dupont. Same with Kalorama right next to Dupont Circle and east of Rock Creek. Kalorama always had some of the most expensive real estate in the city.
Eastern Market was not hood. East of Lincoln Park was all hood though.
How were some NW neighborhoods along Connecticut and Wisconsin Avenue 20 years ago?
Like Woodley Park, or Cleveland Park or Tenleytown?
Always nice and very expensive, but fewer upscale cafes, more pubs and low-key neighborhood retail back then. A Sears & Roebuck department store and Hechingers dominated Tenleytown.
Near McLean Gardens was a huge Johnson's Garden Center, a GC Murphy's variety store, and Giant. There was an excellent old-school bakery next to the Zebra Room. I forget the name though.
To respond to your other comment, K street near GW or anywhere west of 14th Street was not a red light district. DC's highest office rents were always along K street. The red light district was along 9th street near the MLK library.
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