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DC - Now, vs. A Generation Ago - My, How Times Have Changed


Joe H

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You should have been around in the 80's when it wasn't even safe for the muggers.  Today, the idiots who leave their bags sitting on the table while dining outside for easy grabbing deserve to get their stuff stolen.  That being said I don't know of any incidents of this happening.

Parking is still a nightmare.  Kudos to DC parking enforcement  for making regular visits to the side streets to ensure residents can find a spot.  Sunday is the worst day for parking though, between the brunchers and those who attend the church on 8th street.  At least the brunchers bring money to the community.

I worked on 14th street a block from U in 1963.  At the Safeway.  14th and U, H street, N. E.-both of these areas had literal blocks which burnt to the ground in 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated.  I remember my roomate and I, in 1968, standing on the 15th floor roof of 710 Roeder road in Silver Spring and watching flames and smoke rise from  downtown Washington. I remembor sitting at a traffic light behind an armored personnel carrier at 8th and H, N. E.  On both sides of me were rubble. Where I once worked I couldn't go back to-it was dangerous.

It was also dangerous for those who lived there.

(Of course I also remember Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner on his guitar at the Ambassador Theatre in the late '60's.  I stood in the front row-there were no seats-and vividly remember getting hungry from all of the weed being smoked around me-in the ballroom.)

Today there's a renaissance for these areas that dates back to the '40's.  I applaud those who are homesteading, who-honestly-do not know what it was like from '68 into the early and mid '90's. (For anyone reading this-next time you go to Red Hen, step into the convenience store next door.  The cashier sits behind armored glass.)

To this day I cannot walk down H street or parts of 14th street without recalling the flames that once rose above them.

I am sure that a lot of "old time" Washingtonians like myself feel the same way.  It is good to see them come back.

Next is Anacostia where I was born...

D. C. today is coming full circle.

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Joe H, thank you so much for sharing!  I have only spent a total of 5 years in DC (2005-2008, then early 2013 through present day), but even in that short time it has changed drastically.  When we were here the first time, we lived at 16th and V NW, and it was just starting to hit its stride (in other words, you could still find a reasonably priced apartment, and there weren't high-rise buildings everywhere).  When we moved back in 2013, we got more space for the money in NE (in NoMa, a short walk from the western edge of H Street NE), which we never would have considered previously.  We fell in love with the eastern part of the city, and we just bought a house near Stadium-Armory in SE.  As we walk down the street, my husband muses that in 5 years, this neighborhood will look completely different.  Just wild.  We can't wait to see what the next years bring to DC.

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I worked on 14th street a block from U in 1963.  At the Safeway.  14th and U, H street, N. E.-both of these areas had literal blocks which burnt to the ground in 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated.  I remember my roomate and I, in 1968, standing on the 15th floor roof of 710 Roeder road in Silver Spring and watching flames and smoke rise from  downtown Washington. I remembor sitting at a traffic light behind an armored personnel carrier at 8th and H, N. E.  On both sides of me were rubble. Where I once worked I couldn't go back to-it was dangerous.

It was also dangerous for those who lived there.

(Of course I also remember Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner on his guitar at the Ambassador Theatre in the late '60's.  I stood in the front row-there were no seats-and vividly remember getting hungry from all of the weed being smoked around me-in the ballroom.)

Today there's a renaissance for these areas that dates back to the '40's.  I applaud those who are homesteading, who-honestly-do not know what it was like from '68 into the early and mid '90's. (For anyone reading this-next time you go to Red Hen, step into the convenience store next door.  The cashier sits behind armored glass.)

To this day I cannot walk down H street or parts of 14th street without recalling the flames that once rose above them.

I am sure that a lot of "old time" Washingtonians like myself feel the same way.  It is good to see them come back.

Next is Anacostia where I was born...

D. C. today is coming full circle.

Really interesting perspective, Joe H.  Thanks.  I suspect I'm a wee bit younger than you.  In the summer of '67 I was a young teenager and worked as a gopher and stock boy in a small business in Newark NJ.  It was the summer of urban riots.  The recent "events" of this year had me thinking back to those days.

Every day at lunch my dad and his partner and I would walk down the street to a luncheonette.  The business was located on the commercial strip where the riots were centered and that little walk went right through a couple of blocks where the riots were centered.  It was a terrible urban environment.  Just miserable conditions.  Then the riots hit.  Looting fires, death, shootings, etc.

For some unknown reasons their business wasn't looted, violated or burned down.  So after the riots ended we returned.   Conditions of course were far worse.

Anyway, DC is dramatically different from most cities.  Its a magnet for young people.  It experiences the opposite of brain drain...it experiences growth.  In fact consistent young people growth over all those decades.  Some settle in the burbs, some settle in the city.  Its very unique in that regard.  Few cities experience that.

I've been here long enough to see some of the remarkable changes.  Its a very vibrant city.

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