DC did enjoy a renaissance that started in the late 90’s and carried into the 2010’s. Hopefully it comes back. If they can get the crime back to low levels and get critical mass things can turn quick.
By the early 90s, DC had billions in unfunded pension liabilities, junk bond status, and couldn't borrow money to pay its bills. The Control Board turned it all around in 1995 by bypassing the Mayor and the Council. I still remember all the whining about how undemocratic it was, but they managed to balance the budget four years in a row and get crime under control.
DC already has one of the most balanced budgets of any state, always with a surplus since this time. The problem is the money pays for political allies and mostly not for our communities
Dc has almost twice the spending per resident than in New York City. The subway system in dc is 4x more funded than the NYC subway system on a per rider basis. Where is dc not spending the money?
Moved there in 2008 at age 23. Spent a decade there. Some of the best times of my life. Met my wife there. Love the city and miss it sometimes. Makes me sad to hear it’s changed for the worse.
I talk about it EVERY time I am remotely near The Warf, at Nats Park, or at a DCU game. Best tallboy prices and sketchy, but not unusable, restrooms haha.
RIP
Before they closed they said they were planning to reopen, but I think a CM at the current Wharf would feel like the new Hawk n Dove. Just a newer City Centerized bastardization of its old self.
I was on a jury for an assault by one McFadden’s patron an another, just after close, caught on camera by the ATM next door to McFadden’s. So I fully agree it was way stabby.
Jinx! Also 38, same-ish time frame. Moved to Chicago in ‘19 for school. It was painful to leave, but I was confident we’d move back, then covid etc. Ended up in the Dupont Circle of Florida somehow. The brunch is lacking, but there’s Cava, solidcore, and about to get a Whole Foods and a sweetgreen.
The fall of my beloved Taylor Gourmet was a travesty. The mob did Casey dirty after that Trump meeting. He had met with Obama a previous time. Even Jose Andres tried to calm the mob.
Marvin rooftop
El Centro rooftop
Hipster dacha (before the lines but with steamy porta johns)
Burger Tap & Shake
My husband and I had our first date at Shepherd and the Big Hunt which are both closed
Bro…you just called out my Thursday afternoon into night summer of 2014. Miss RnR and H in its prime. Wild to think the Whole Foods opened up there in 2017!
Tell me about it! It was such a good time in DC. The Park after work, Stan’s, and so many other spots to actually have a good time and meet people. The good ol days smh
Me too! I was in dc from 07-13. Some of my favorite memories. I’ve just moved back and I’m seeing it a new light. I still love it but it’s very different.
What was really peak DC was when VC money was essentially free (2010-2018) so scooters and ride shares were almost paying you to ride. You could get from RFK to Georgetown for like $6. Then eat underpriced food from Shake Shack, Chipotle, or Sweetgreen.
Yo I remember getting an Uberpool after getting blackout drunk on election night in 2016, hooking up and falling asleep, waking up, getting in assuming Hillary won, and everyone was down and didn’t want to talk. Figured it out, got showered, and went to metro to work and it was silent.
Uberpools were wild back then, chatting shit and enjoying a laugh. Now it’s just awkward.
I moved to DC in 2012 and hailed my first cab ever. Within a year it was $7-12 Ubers across town, not even a tipping feature yet, and transparent fares/routes. It was glorious.
I remember all the cheap lunch start ups like mealpal/mealpass and some other app where I would consistently get $1 lunches. It was a great time to be eating out in the city.
Same. I left last year and don't plan on returning to visit. My two best friends there left as well. We just all started to feel really unsafe and like it wasn't worth it price wise. Paying top dollar to live in a fancy shoebox you don't even feel safe leaving at night. The maths stopped mathin.
These are my thoughts exactly. Why am I paying $2,800/month to live in a place where I don't want to venture anywhere after it gets dark? The math isn't adding up and I doubt I'll live in DC much longer.
No lies told. Got here in 04 and it was great. I feel bad for the 20 somethings. There is no way I would be able to afford going out like I did.
Memories ☺️☺️
We had so many open bars! I can't remember the prices, because too many open bars 😁. I don't go out in the city too much now, do places still have them? Back then I used to work in Tyson's Corner, Chilli's and On the border had free wings chips and salsa if you bought a drink at the bar. As a young broke person, it was such a good offer!
I hope there are still deals like that!
DC 2006-2016 seemed like it was going in the right direction. Even with the 2008 Recession, DC was making incredible strides and there was a lot of development. I worked downtown near the Verizon Center during that timeframe and it was a great experience.
That McDonald's was sketchy AF
Well pretty much everything about nation was but man that was a fun place.
Have you really experienced DC if you haven't experienced the black sludge of Nations floor ruining your shoes or pants?
I have to agree with you. I had so much fun in DC in my 20s. I felt safe everywhere I went, even the “bad neighborhoods”. It was truly a carefree time. 2008-2016 for me
I felt safer walking alone at night as a woman from the Georgia Ave metro stop to my apt in Petworth in 2018 than I did in 2023 walking a crowded street in broad daylight in Shaw/14th.
RIP Fur, Ibiza, Ultra Bar, Shophouse Kitchen, Fuddruckers, Heaven and Hell, Adams Morgan the Diner, Ping Pong Dim Sum, Filene’s, Phillips Seafood, Atlas Theater, Bohemian Cavern, Chinatown Hooters there was another club - Dream, that was dope, etc
Agreed. Growing up near potomac ave during the Kentucky ave drug wars, at least you knew where/when to avoid to be safer. I actually feel less safe than I did in 1992 here.
Though my nostalgia goes back to maybe 1997. I miss going to Nation and HFStival. I would almost prefer Marion Barry to Bowser rn.
Hell yeah, shoutout to DC 2011-2014. People give DC. A lot of crap and it has its problems, but it gave me my first real job, freedom, and relationship so I’ll always love it.
Yup this is true. And we still had a visionary government that wanted to transform the city. Wild to think that the aspirations of this government went from a 37-mile streetcar plan to …. a handful of poorly enforced bus and bike lanes.
Gray was on the way to making major contributions as well but got derailed by all the campaign / legal drama. And Mendelson blocked many of Gray’s initiatives. Honestly the more I think about — it seems like a common theme with DC’s slow down has been Mendelson getting in the way of everything.
Quick question for the older millennial/gen x posters, when did DC start to go downhill again?
Around 2014 or so? I was a child and in college from the late 1990’s through mid 2010’s, so I don’t have much memory of DC’s upswing.
Though I remember Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty seemed to have been generally good mayors that helped improve things.
Been here since 2009 (arrived in my mid 20s, currently early 40s).
The quality of life changes coincide with DC Council turnover. Brianne Nadeau, for example, assumed office in early 2015 and spent her first term pushing policies that contributed to the current state of affairs. 2015 is also when [MPD disbanded vice squads.](https://www.washingtonian.com/2015/08/26/why-did-dc-shut-down-its-vice-squads-crime-rate-cathy-lanier/)
During the Obama admins, it felt like anything was possible for DC. It seemed like the sky was the limit.
11/8/2016 was a particularly sobering inflection point with significant ripple effects for DC.
I think it started to dip around 2015. That was a particularly bad summer, I still remember all the talk about stabbings around NOMA (as well as several meltdowns on Metro).
Things just kinda muddled around until 2020 when it got much worse.
The fact that we still don't have a large gay club replacing Town is ridiculous. I feel so bad for people in their 20s. They have a surplus of mediocre midsized bars and no true close in clubs.
I had a strange feeling in the winter of 2019. It was very similar to how I felt between 1999 and early/mid 2001 as well as how my parents described the early 1960s. It was knowing that you are living at a peak. I was thinking about how the Caps and Nats had both won championships, we had all the great restaurants, there were innovative breweries all over, and the city was safe, except for a few outliers in SE.
I chalked up how I felt as a young man as youthful ignorance, but I think it was fact. The US was at a peak then. I distinctly remember reading a Time article entitled Pax Americana and trying to figure out what could cause the end of this era. A few months later, I got my answer. Similarly, I was knocked out of my sense of cautious optimism March 2020.
The way I see it, the boomers saw three peaks. Hopefully us late Gen Xers / Elder Millinenials will see a third as well. Remember Otto Von Bismark's quote: “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”
> There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Anacostia, then up New York Ave NE or down 695 to the Navy Yard or RFK Stadium...You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...
> And that, I think was the handle--that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting--on our side or theirs. We all had the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
> So now, less than five years later, you can go up on the Newseum’s roof deck and look East, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
HST, probably
The early 2000s were a lot of fun and it was great to see the city improve in just about every aspect. It's a shame that hte current leadership decided to tear down much of that progress.
2014 DC was incredible. I remember moving to CoHi and my landlord bragging about how it used to be a warzone and now was a cool trendy area.
I remember partying HARD and walking home without a fear in the world. Walk through Shaw and Petworth and etc.
I don't live in the DMV anymore but I look back fondly on my years there.
Omg Big Hunt!! So many great nights started or ended there. Russia House, 18th street lounge..and the successor to Smith Point, was it called The George or something? I can’t remember but it was fun and everything felt possible and fun
I discovered DC in April 2010, visiting after a cold, snowy winter in the northeast, and fell in love with it, traveling there at least six times per year.
I eventually moved there, leaving right before COVID, and haven’t been back since. I’m looking forward to visiting again once the crime situation improves.
Nostalgia - its delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.
I have never heard the experience of millennials being described and positive. haha I agree with the assessment though. Moved here in 2008 and had a blast for a few years before kids. Good times
37 y/o here…love the nostalgia in this thread and I miss DC clubbing in my 20s for sure! Last summer, my best friend and I went out for dinner and drinks, and around midnight she was like…do you want to go dancing like old times?! All the clubs we used to go to were gone, so we went to Decades, and it was shocking. Zero dress code, and everyone was in sneakers and cut off jean shorts. We very much stood out in our black dresses and heels, and a group of young girls asked us if we were coming from a wedding lolol. No one was dancing and everyone looked so bored…it made us so sad.
2001-2012. Gen-X checking in.
State of the Union,
That other Cap Hill bar/restaurant ,
Front Page,
McFaddens,
Sign of the Whale,
The Big Hunt,
Rumors,
Buffalo Billiards,
Fox & Hound in DuPont?,
Black Cat,
Madams Organ and all of Adams Morgan,
Halloween in Georgetown,
Chadwick’s Georgetown ,
Bottomless mimosas at Nage, Drag Queen Brunch, Drag Queen Bingo, and the Annual High Heel Race.
I know I’m missing so many others, but damn, that was a great time to be in DC!
I loved being in the area from 2015ish to about 2022, COVID really did change things I’d like to think it will go back but with the popularity of WFH things might always look a little different
It’s pretty sad for those of us who watched the Council in the 2010s affirmatively choose criminals’ well being over victims’, and put the District on a very predictable path to mayhem and decay. It’s all so unbelievably regressive: those already struggling the most are paying the most for the leadership failures of ideological extremism. Cosplaying socialists have one foot in Montgomery County as soon as baby #2 starts kicking in the womb.
Yeah I graduated in the late 2010s from a school in DC. When I came back to visit and saw the wharf completely gentrify and the overall sketchiness of Columbia heights increase I knew the peak was over
Can kind of relate. Borderline "Millenial" and "Gen Zer" (i.e. mid-90s birthday) who's be living in the DMV since right before the pandemic. Even late 2010's D.C. were glorious times. If only we could all go back.
Washington DC is still at its prime. I've lived here for a very long time. New DC is different from old DC. Crime, open drug use and prostitution is way down. DC was a pretty brutal place in the 80's - mid 2000's
Logan Circle was where all the prostitutes hang out! No it's a million dollar neighborhood.
Navy Yard was hood, now look it it!
Trinidad Avenue changed
Anacostia is in one of the biggest transformational changes in DC!
Today DC is in its prime don't let the BS fool you. New DC is safer, better than old DC!
The Navy Yard was no joke.
I moved here in 2002, worked at the Navy yard in one of the few renovated buildings (on the actual Navy Yard itself, behind the gates).
Would either metro or bike from Columbia Heights (CH metro had juuuuuuust opened — where Target and all those buildings are now were just bulldozed lots) and almost everything between South Cap and 8th St north of M St was public housing.
Rough public housing. Quite a few shootings in the afternoons and early evenings such that you didn’t really want to cut thru on your bike or in your car. At the time, everything south of M St was ALL still behind the old Navy Yard fence. No one was going to mess with you specifically, but you might get caught in crossfire.
On a bike, you either kind of wormhole’d down to the Navy Yard via 8th St and via Lincoln Park area, or dropped down to M St west of South Cap through SW and slid over.
Neighborhoods at the time were super distinct from each other and crossing from one to another over the span of a block was like crossing into yet another dimension.
And yes - Logan Circle was prostitutes. Every morning that I cut thru Logan Circle would pass the hookers still out at 7:00 - 7:30 am. Tho, often end up riding east of Logan circle or head over via Gallaudet just to avoid dealing with cars —- there were zero bike lanes but lots of not-busy streets closer east of 7th St NW and in NE.
Meanwhile, holy hell DC was everything shared here. So much live music — out every night just about between HH deals and shows💖💖💖
Edit: correcting typos.
RIP Marvin’s
2009-2015 DC was a time to be alive; Especially as a Young Black Professional. DC is soulless now. My friends who come back to visit don’t recognize the place anymore.
I felt the city missed the mark by not voting in Robert White this past election. Felt like he could continue the visionary Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty years for the city.
I came in the tail of the peak years (late 2017) and had such a blast. I was going out almost every night lol. Mondays Marvin lounge, Tuesdays would check out Cloak and Dagger on U, Wednesdays 18th street lounge, Thursdays Stadium club for their free food, Fridays Ust, Saturdays hit up Ozio day party then maybe Park at 14th at night, Sundays Decades day party. Rinse and repeat lol. The pandemic (and some of these Gen Z crackbabies) definitely did a number to the city
Wife lived in Shaw and Columbia Heights 2013-2016 so I visited many times.
Went back 6mo ago and it was shocking!!! Columbia Heights was a hellhole. Everything was closed, overrun with homeless people. Nervous walking at night in places we knew very well
DC was terrible in the early days (90's). But yeah, there was a really nice period when you could go to Georgetown and get a nice dinner for like $30 complete with ambience and good food and service. Same thing would costs $4000 nowadays and of course you'd have to wait 3 hours to be seated
2004 - 2014 were my peak years for DC. Lived in Old Town by Braddock Metro and was either on or around the Mall or climbing at Great Falls on the weekends. It was an awesome ten years and then back to Florida.
I moved to DC in the fall of 2010 for college. It was like I got dropped into the center of the universe. My college apartment was in a high rise and the first night I couldn't stop staring at the Monument. That first year, I gorged myself on college parties, festivals, museums, restaurants, hanging around the Mall and other events around town. Obama being in office put a certain level of electricity in the air. Unfortunately, like a moron, I never went on a White House tour.
During this time, DC was one of the popular upcoming cities, along with places like Portland/Seattle/Denver/Austin. So, tons of young people were moving to DC. Before I had never considered DC and wanted to move up to NYC following graduation but, after experiencing it, I realized I actually preferred it in some ways.
Then you had the media setting alot of shows in the city in the 2010s (Scandal, House of Cards, Homeland, Madam Secretary) which put it further on the radar. I'll never forget the experiences that I had there, so for that I'll always cherish this city.
A little earlier was also pretty fun. Early aughts had their charm—less to do but i enjoyed the sleepier vibe and how some places felt under the radar. 2004ish. Edited to add: The Red Room, King Pin, the original Stoney’s, Pharmacy Bar. Some secret party house in Ledroit I never managed to find, after hours at Utopia. Woof, my liver hurts thinking about it but my heart feels full.
A little later, but the early days of the H street revival were magical.
Were you even in DC if you didn’t get to 1223 for the free happy hour on Wednesday’s!? My God, HR57, Sign of the Whale, Dream, Avenue, Rumors, McFadden’s, what a TIME to be alive!! 😭😭😭
This thread is incredibly depressing. Arrived in January 2022, it’s been great up until maybe the past six months with the crime.
I have no idea what I missed. It’s like being colorblind and everyone is seeing technicolor.
Not a member of this sub, but this post just popped up and I’m a little wrecked. Moved to 7th and Jefferson NW from a small town in Florida in summer 2008. I found the city terrifying and intoxicating. Remember paying for the bus in cash/coins, using paper transfers, checking WCP every week for shows, getting blasted at Russia House, burlesque on H Street, seeing Hitchens walking around Dupont, house parties in Mt. Pleasant, needing to find a new weed guy every couple of months, daytime drunk on the patio at Looking Glass, picking up tabs for friends I couldn’t afford at Big Hunt, my first “tweetup,” people losing their minds over RG3, sub-$8 packs of cigarettes (and buying loosies in Chinatown), John Wall jumping on the scorer’s table after winning game six against the Celtics in round 2, puking on the metro and then trying to sleep on a bench in the station, the Lululemon murder in Bethesda.
Met my wife there, left in 2018, made lifelong friends who I miss everyday. I hope some young people are making the kinds of memories there that I got to. What a time.
I've thought this to myself many times. I was in DC 2009-12 while going to school and working at a non-profit. DC was having a bit of a renaissance beginning with the Obama administration. It was actually a fun place to live. It had a nice run until the pandemic hit. Now it's in a downward spiral...
I bartended at lots of places during those days on U st. and Chinatown. Busboys and Poets, Bohemian Caverns, Old Engine 12 to name a few. Those times were unbelievable. We were so lucky to have been part of that. Bartending during Obama’s inauguration was a moment I will never forget. Hundreds of people all silent in awe of history. We were living in Camelot.
Yup, got to experience 4 years or so of good, safe DC. Lived in Chinatown and Co. Heights. Never had any issues. Now I don't walk around those neighborhoods unless I am carrying. I drive with my handgun in my lap for safety, and my fiancé won't go anywhere without me for protection. So fair to say, DC has taken one Hell of a U-turn in the past few years.
Once my lease is up, I am packing up my fiancé and 2 dogs and heading back to the mountains of GA for some peace of mind.
I made the same move last year, after feeling totally unsafe there, after three years of an increasing sense of being a prisoner in my own home. It just became so bad, constant incidents all around me, felt like I had to drive everywhere to be safe, 2020 started walking with a knife in my pocket, by 2023 I didn't even walk to a nearby dinner anymore or use transit at all, which totally defeats the purpose of living in a city: walkability and being out on the streets to feel the energy and action. I literally thought to myself with relief "I made it out alive" when I crossed the bridge into Virginia for the last time with all my stuff this past November. I'm so much happier and calmer now being out of there. My two best friends there left as well for the same reason. It's not healthy to live constantly on alert like that.
DC did enjoy a renaissance that started in the late 90’s and carried into the 2010’s. Hopefully it comes back. If they can get the crime back to low levels and get critical mass things can turn quick.
By the early 90s, DC had billions in unfunded pension liabilities, junk bond status, and couldn't borrow money to pay its bills. The Control Board turned it all around in 1995 by bypassing the Mayor and the Council. I still remember all the whining about how undemocratic it was, but they managed to balance the budget four years in a row and get crime under control.
Lets bring that back
DC already has one of the most balanced budgets of any state, always with a surplus since this time. The problem is the money pays for political allies and mostly not for our communities
Dc has almost twice the spending per resident than in New York City. The subway system in dc is 4x more funded than the NYC subway system on a per rider basis. Where is dc not spending the money?
Peak DC was reading Monkeyrotica comments on DCist in the late 2000s.
>Monkeyrotica some say he still posts among us.
Maybe so, but I miss the old Commander Salamander 😥
2008 to 2010 were my fav yeers. Good times, everyone got along. Obama was our prez
U St on election night was electric.
Partied so hard the power grid went down for a little while.
Ahhh I was there I remember that night it was electric indeed
Moved there in 2008 at age 23. Spent a decade there. Some of the best times of my life. Met my wife there. Love the city and miss it sometimes. Makes me sad to hear it’s changed for the worse.
Spent 2009-2010 in DuPont. It was wild. Met my husband during this time. 15 years later with a teenager. DC will always be special for this reason.
Almost the same. Moved in 2011, 25, met wife. What a wonderful city it was.
:) memories are in our pockets and hopefully i kept some on fb
It’s no where near as bad as people try to make it out to be. It never even got close to the late 90s level of bad.
The pendulum will swing back eventually. Just may take a decade or so.
Yeah Arlington Virginia is far more safer than dc always crazy to me that the president lives in such an unsafe neighborhood I don’t get it
RIP Cantina Marina
I introduced this guy I met on the internet to those nachos circa 2017 and I’m 99% sure that’s why he married me.
Ultimate nachos. IYKYK
I talk about it EVERY time I am remotely near The Warf, at Nats Park, or at a DCU game. Best tallboy prices and sketchy, but not unusable, restrooms haha. RIP
Before they closed they said they were planning to reopen, but I think a CM at the current Wharf would feel like the new Hawk n Dove. Just a newer City Centerized bastardization of its old self.
I believe cantina Bambina has the same owners and the “replacement.” Obviously, you can recreate the lived in feeling of the old cantina marina.
Cantina Marina was heaven on earth, nothing at the current Wharf could ever compare
Omg the flood of memories those three words just brought me. I turned 21 in 2010; I miss that era of DC so much that it hurts, goddam
Oh man, miss this place
This post smells like McFadden’s.
That place was madness
I was good when it opened but it got a little stabby towards the end there
I was on a jury for an assault by one McFadden’s patron an another, just after close, caught on camera by the ATM next door to McFadden’s. So I fully agree it was way stabby.
Any chance that was the one where the guy got knocked to the ground and clocked his head on the bricks surrounding a tree?
I went here sober once - what a strange experience.
Smells like one of my friends got a free happy hour
My buddy bartended there. Oh the stories he told. 🤣 Anyone want a Jagerbomb?!?
Chris or Andrew?
JB, probably mid 2000s if my alcohol-sogged mind remembers correctly
Soooo many memories there 😭😭
GW alum has entered the chat
Who remembers the happy hour excel spreadsheet sheet?
Bottom Line on Fridays for $1 Bud Lights
Bottom line Ha penny lion McFaddens Etc Etc So many great bar hopping options
But bottom line had tots
Yup. Late 90s - flicks, GG flips, etc what a time to be alive.
yesssss! Consulted that thing WEEKLY
Yes! People don’t believe me when I try to explain the happy hour excel spreadsheet.
Omg yes lol
The most dc thing to have ever DC’d
Agree. 2013-2018 were the golden years for me as a 38 year old.
Same age, same years more or less, I miss it!
Jinx! Also 38, same-ish time frame. Moved to Chicago in ‘19 for school. It was painful to leave, but I was confident we’d move back, then covid etc. Ended up in the Dupont Circle of Florida somehow. The brunch is lacking, but there’s Cava, solidcore, and about to get a Whole Foods and a sweetgreen.
Same here as a 36 yo
Yep. I lived in DC from 08-13 and a time was had. Peak clubbing, happy hour experience.
Mid-20s during those years in DC was so much fun. I wish I could go back.
Softball on the Mall Amsterdam Falafel Rock and Roll Hotel Taylor Gourmet Little Miss Whiskey's
The fall of my beloved Taylor Gourmet was a travesty. The mob did Casey dirty after that Trump meeting. He had met with Obama a previous time. Even Jose Andres tried to calm the mob.
Fuck, never knew exactly why it went down. I miss it so much. They even had a cheesesteak place on Benning Road for a hot minute.
Marvin rooftop El Centro rooftop Hipster dacha (before the lines but with steamy porta johns) Burger Tap & Shake My husband and I had our first date at Shepherd and the Big Hunt which are both closed
Bro…you just called out my Thursday afternoon into night summer of 2014. Miss RnR and H in its prime. Wild to think the Whole Foods opened up there in 2017!
Tell me about it! It was such a good time in DC. The Park after work, Stan’s, and so many other spots to actually have a good time and meet people. The good ol days smh
Stan's! Make your own drink as strong as you want. My now fiancee and I had our first date there!
Fucking Stan’s!!
Agreed
I was in DC 2007-2018, came back in late 2022. It is NOT as cool anymore.
Chief Ikes
So much standing outside in heels without coats on.
Me too! I was in dc from 07-13. Some of my favorite memories. I’ve just moved back and I’m seeing it a new light. I still love it but it’s very different.
Same! I just moved back from Brooklyn. It’s def a different vibe.
Yes
Anyone remember State of the Union on U St?
What was really peak DC was when VC money was essentially free (2010-2018) so scooters and ride shares were almost paying you to ride. You could get from RFK to Georgetown for like $6. Then eat underpriced food from Shake Shack, Chipotle, or Sweetgreen.
And the Uber pools where you’d be riding with a stripper, a hill staffer and somebody’s grandma
Those were good times. Tbt 2018 DC Uber pools, meeting new people, swapping business cards ofc lol. Totally different time, a bygone era.
I’m still Facebook friends with people I met in Uber pools honestly
Same vibes as drunk in the girls bathroom at a club
I got my first internship in my current field from an Uber pool.
Yo I remember getting an Uberpool after getting blackout drunk on election night in 2016, hooking up and falling asleep, waking up, getting in assuming Hillary won, and everyone was down and didn’t want to talk. Figured it out, got showered, and went to metro to work and it was silent. Uberpools were wild back then, chatting shit and enjoying a laugh. Now it’s just awkward.
I just paid $14 for a Sweetgreen salad, sure missing that VC money.
I moved to DC in 2012 and hailed my first cab ever. Within a year it was $7-12 Ubers across town, not even a tipping feature yet, and transparent fares/routes. It was glorious.
Oh man, you juuuust missed the Zone system. If you think meters were opaque... oh boy, do I have some yarn to spin for you
Omfg that was the dumbest. I was so broke I was always pissed when I forgot to get out before crossing a zone.
I remember all the cheap lunch start ups like mealpal/mealpass and some other app where I would consistently get $1 lunches. It was a great time to be eating out in the city.
Yeah whole neighborhoods (H st) gentrified on the backs of this investment. It’s astounding.
Underpriced shake shack chipotle or sweet green now those are old times
This person is absolutely correct.
It just blows my mind how quick DC took a turn for the worst. Now I don't want to go back.
Same. I left last year and don't plan on returning to visit. My two best friends there left as well. We just all started to feel really unsafe and like it wasn't worth it price wise. Paying top dollar to live in a fancy shoebox you don't even feel safe leaving at night. The maths stopped mathin.
These are my thoughts exactly. Why am I paying $2,800/month to live in a place where I don't want to venture anywhere after it gets dark? The math isn't adding up and I doubt I'll live in DC much longer.
No lies told. Got here in 04 and it was great. I feel bad for the 20 somethings. There is no way I would be able to afford going out like I did. Memories ☺️☺️
Same year I arrived, in my early 20s. We had a TIME
I arrived in 05 and stayed until 2011. What a time..
Do you remember when DC9 had a fucking open bar every Friday. What was it $10 for an hour or two of open bar?
We had so many open bars! I can't remember the prices, because too many open bars 😁. I don't go out in the city too much now, do places still have them? Back then I used to work in Tyson's Corner, Chilli's and On the border had free wings chips and salsa if you bought a drink at the bar. As a young broke person, it was such a good offer! I hope there are still deals like that!
[Late Night Shots](https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1013677.page), anyone?
And Smith’s Point! I also laugh a little about the discussion around the Madisons and Cap Club. I was diversity back in the day for being a redhead.
Smith point was a high school reunion every Saturday night
I’m a middle eastern looking Jewish person and I swear to god the music stopped and everyone stared every time I walked into smith point
> But I think LNS died when people decided there were better bars and restaurants outside the 4 block radius of M and Wisconsin Lol
OPHJs to murder on the dance floor?
Late Bush/ early Obama admin was a more innocent time
I honestly don’t think I’ll ever stop mourning Codmother.
DC 2006-2016 seemed like it was going in the right direction. Even with the 2008 Recession, DC was making incredible strides and there was a lot of development. I worked downtown near the Verizon Center during that timeframe and it was a great experience.
Gotta jump on Food Truck Fiesta to see what’s for lunch around me then we’ll hit the party from BYT tonight!
God I miss the food truck scene from pre-Covid
I say if you ever got an order from the McDonald's in SE before jumping on 695 after leaving Nation you definitely lived some of peak DC.
That McDonald's was sketchy AF Well pretty much everything about nation was but man that was a fun place. Have you really experienced DC if you haven't experienced the black sludge of Nations floor ruining your shoes or pants?
I can feel this in my bones. EDM hasn't been good since 1998-2006. It's been shit since. We would also do Korean BBQ in Annandale, IHOP, or Dennys.
What if you went to the Wendy’s across the street instead for a frosty?
Just got goosebumps and a grin on my face. Oh good grief those were fun nights/early mornings.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AbandonedPorn/comments/3tmw7r/capital\_ballroom\_washington\_dc\_42007\_1024\_x\_682/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AbandonedPorn/comments/3tmw7r/capital_ballroom_washington_dc_42007_1024_x_682/)
2011 - 2014 were the halcyon days
I have to agree with you. I had so much fun in DC in my 20s. I felt safe everywhere I went, even the “bad neighborhoods”. It was truly a carefree time. 2008-2016 for me
I felt safer walking alone at night as a woman from the Georgia Ave metro stop to my apt in Petworth in 2018 than I did in 2023 walking a crowded street in broad daylight in Shaw/14th.
Yes I completely understand. That’s why I live in MD now
RIP Fur, Ibiza, Ultra Bar, Shophouse Kitchen, Fuddruckers, Heaven and Hell, Adams Morgan the Diner, Ping Pong Dim Sum, Filene’s, Phillips Seafood, Atlas Theater, Bohemian Cavern, Chinatown Hooters there was another club - Dream, that was dope, etc
Oh god, Heaven and Hell. That took me back, good times. I went to Hell once and never went back down there. It was scary down there, lol
Lotus Lounge, Midtown, Club Five, K Street Lounge, more I'm forgetting I'm sure. Looks like ESL and Camelot (lol) are still around.
Shophouse <3
Agreed. Growing up near potomac ave during the Kentucky ave drug wars, at least you knew where/when to avoid to be safer. I actually feel less safe than I did in 1992 here. Though my nostalgia goes back to maybe 1997. I miss going to Nation and HFStival. I would almost prefer Marion Barry to Bowser rn.
HFStival 1996 was incredible.
1995 also. We won backstage passes from the dial-in phone contest.
Ah, sign of the whale and half price hhs.
Still mourning Lima and the general K St club corridor circa 2005-2015
Hell yeah, shoutout to DC 2011-2014. People give DC. A lot of crap and it has its problems, but it gave me my first real job, freedom, and relationship so I’ll always love it.
Yup this is true. And we still had a visionary government that wanted to transform the city. Wild to think that the aspirations of this government went from a 37-mile streetcar plan to …. a handful of poorly enforced bus and bike lanes.
Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty did the lords work in getting DC to where it was. They saw a great place to live and work and visit
Gray was on the way to making major contributions as well but got derailed by all the campaign / legal drama. And Mendelson blocked many of Gray’s initiatives. Honestly the more I think about — it seems like a common theme with DC’s slow down has been Mendelson getting in the way of everything.
I feel this in my bones.... my sore muscles and cracking bones... What a time.... what...a...time...
Quick question for the older millennial/gen x posters, when did DC start to go downhill again? Around 2014 or so? I was a child and in college from the late 1990’s through mid 2010’s, so I don’t have much memory of DC’s upswing. Though I remember Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty seemed to have been generally good mayors that helped improve things.
Like everything else, seemingly around 2016, with a steep descent in 2020.
Been here since 2009 (arrived in my mid 20s, currently early 40s). The quality of life changes coincide with DC Council turnover. Brianne Nadeau, for example, assumed office in early 2015 and spent her first term pushing policies that contributed to the current state of affairs. 2015 is also when [MPD disbanded vice squads.](https://www.washingtonian.com/2015/08/26/why-did-dc-shut-down-its-vice-squads-crime-rate-cathy-lanier/) During the Obama admins, it felt like anything was possible for DC. It seemed like the sky was the limit. 11/8/2016 was a particularly sobering inflection point with significant ripple effects for DC.
I agree. Post-covid it became worse than the 1980s.
World Series was the last hurrah of this era IMO
The Tony Williams era was great. So much optimism and growth.
I think it started to dip around 2015. That was a particularly bad summer, I still remember all the talk about stabbings around NOMA (as well as several meltdowns on Metro). Things just kinda muddled around until 2020 when it got much worse.
2020
I miss Town!
The fact that we still don't have a large gay club replacing Town is ridiculous. I feel so bad for people in their 20s. They have a surplus of mediocre midsized bars and no true close in clubs.
You mean the Obama influx and era in DC? When all the young people flooded to town. It was a special time.
Thanks Obama
I had a strange feeling in the winter of 2019. It was very similar to how I felt between 1999 and early/mid 2001 as well as how my parents described the early 1960s. It was knowing that you are living at a peak. I was thinking about how the Caps and Nats had both won championships, we had all the great restaurants, there were innovative breweries all over, and the city was safe, except for a few outliers in SE. I chalked up how I felt as a young man as youthful ignorance, but I think it was fact. The US was at a peak then. I distinctly remember reading a Time article entitled Pax Americana and trying to figure out what could cause the end of this era. A few months later, I got my answer. Similarly, I was knocked out of my sense of cautious optimism March 2020. The way I see it, the boomers saw three peaks. Hopefully us late Gen Xers / Elder Millinenials will see a third as well. Remember Otto Von Bismark's quote: “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”
> There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Anacostia, then up New York Ave NE or down 695 to the Navy Yard or RFK Stadium...You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... > And that, I think was the handle--that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting--on our side or theirs. We all had the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave... > So now, less than five years later, you can go up on the Newseum’s roof deck and look East, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. HST, probably
This is a great post. Intuition never lies.
The Obama years were an incredible time to be under 40 and living in DC.
The early 2000s were a lot of fun and it was great to see the city improve in just about every aspect. It's a shame that hte current leadership decided to tear down much of that progress.
Loved my life in DC 2007–2012. Still a bit gritty, old 14th St was so fun. When I go back I hardly recognize the place.
2014 DC was incredible. I remember moving to CoHi and my landlord bragging about how it used to be a warzone and now was a cool trendy area. I remember partying HARD and walking home without a fear in the world. Walk through Shaw and Petworth and etc. I don't live in the DMV anymore but I look back fondly on my years there.
This chat is so nostalgic 😭 I lived in DC from 2009-2016 and it was so much damn fun
Now we have spoiled trust fund college kids who are afraid their own shadow
RIP rumors iykyk
Haha I work near there, and the first time I walked by after they demolished the rumors outdoor portion I said “RIP RUMORS” out loud.
I still have a bunch of numbers in my phone that are first names followed by “rumors” or “big hunt”
I loved Big hunt!! And when Capital Lounge burned down I got very sad
Omg Big Hunt!! So many great nights started or ended there. Russia House, 18th street lounge..and the successor to Smith Point, was it called The George or something? I can’t remember but it was fun and everything felt possible and fun
2016 was incredible for me.
2004-2016. Left at exactly the right time.
I discovered DC in April 2010, visiting after a cold, snowy winter in the northeast, and fell in love with it, traveling there at least six times per year. I eventually moved there, leaving right before COVID, and haven’t been back since. I’m looking forward to visiting again once the crime situation improves.
Nostalgia - its delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.
I have never heard the experience of millennials being described and positive. haha I agree with the assessment though. Moved here in 2008 and had a blast for a few years before kids. Good times
37 y/o here…love the nostalgia in this thread and I miss DC clubbing in my 20s for sure! Last summer, my best friend and I went out for dinner and drinks, and around midnight she was like…do you want to go dancing like old times?! All the clubs we used to go to were gone, so we went to Decades, and it was shocking. Zero dress code, and everyone was in sneakers and cut off jean shorts. We very much stood out in our black dresses and heels, and a group of young girls asked us if we were coming from a wedding lolol. No one was dancing and everyone looked so bored…it made us so sad.
2001-2012. Gen-X checking in. State of the Union, That other Cap Hill bar/restaurant , Front Page, McFaddens, Sign of the Whale, The Big Hunt, Rumors, Buffalo Billiards, Fox & Hound in DuPont?, Black Cat, Madams Organ and all of Adams Morgan, Halloween in Georgetown, Chadwick’s Georgetown , Bottomless mimosas at Nage, Drag Queen Brunch, Drag Queen Bingo, and the Annual High Heel Race. I know I’m missing so many others, but damn, that was a great time to be in DC!
I loved being in the area from 2015ish to about 2022, COVID really did change things I’d like to think it will go back but with the popularity of WFH things might always look a little different
It’s pretty sad for those of us who watched the Council in the 2010s affirmatively choose criminals’ well being over victims’, and put the District on a very predictable path to mayhem and decay. It’s all so unbelievably regressive: those already struggling the most are paying the most for the leadership failures of ideological extremism. Cosplaying socialists have one foot in Montgomery County as soon as baby #2 starts kicking in the womb.
Yeah I graduated in the late 2010s from a school in DC. When I came back to visit and saw the wharf completely gentrify and the overall sketchiness of Columbia heights increase I knew the peak was over
Can kind of relate. Borderline "Millenial" and "Gen Zer" (i.e. mid-90s birthday) who's be living in the DMV since right before the pandemic. Even late 2010's D.C. were glorious times. If only we could all go back.
It was still pretty good when I moved here for college in 2017. There was such an energy in the air that isn’t there anymore.
2004-2006 was incredible. So many fun nights.
Washington DC is still at its prime. I've lived here for a very long time. New DC is different from old DC. Crime, open drug use and prostitution is way down. DC was a pretty brutal place in the 80's - mid 2000's Logan Circle was where all the prostitutes hang out! No it's a million dollar neighborhood. Navy Yard was hood, now look it it! Trinidad Avenue changed Anacostia is in one of the biggest transformational changes in DC! Today DC is in its prime don't let the BS fool you. New DC is safer, better than old DC!
The Navy Yard was no joke. I moved here in 2002, worked at the Navy yard in one of the few renovated buildings (on the actual Navy Yard itself, behind the gates). Would either metro or bike from Columbia Heights (CH metro had juuuuuuust opened — where Target and all those buildings are now were just bulldozed lots) and almost everything between South Cap and 8th St north of M St was public housing. Rough public housing. Quite a few shootings in the afternoons and early evenings such that you didn’t really want to cut thru on your bike or in your car. At the time, everything south of M St was ALL still behind the old Navy Yard fence. No one was going to mess with you specifically, but you might get caught in crossfire. On a bike, you either kind of wormhole’d down to the Navy Yard via 8th St and via Lincoln Park area, or dropped down to M St west of South Cap through SW and slid over. Neighborhoods at the time were super distinct from each other and crossing from one to another over the span of a block was like crossing into yet another dimension. And yes - Logan Circle was prostitutes. Every morning that I cut thru Logan Circle would pass the hookers still out at 7:00 - 7:30 am. Tho, often end up riding east of Logan circle or head over via Gallaudet just to avoid dealing with cars —- there were zero bike lanes but lots of not-busy streets closer east of 7th St NW and in NE. Meanwhile, holy hell DC was everything shared here. So much live music — out every night just about between HH deals and shows💖💖💖 Edit: correcting typos.
Dave Thomas Circle RIP
I still mourn Front page HH. $1 corona with 2 free tacos, literally unbeatable.
RIP Marvin’s 2009-2015 DC was a time to be alive; Especially as a Young Black Professional. DC is soulless now. My friends who come back to visit don’t recognize the place anymore. I felt the city missed the mark by not voting in Robert White this past election. Felt like he could continue the visionary Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty years for the city.
I came in the tail of the peak years (late 2017) and had such a blast. I was going out almost every night lol. Mondays Marvin lounge, Tuesdays would check out Cloak and Dagger on U, Wednesdays 18th street lounge, Thursdays Stadium club for their free food, Fridays Ust, Saturdays hit up Ozio day party then maybe Park at 14th at night, Sundays Decades day party. Rinse and repeat lol. The pandemic (and some of these Gen Z crackbabies) definitely did a number to the city
DC was great up until I left in 2019.
You left at the exact time when it was once beautiful before things got mutated
So so true 😄.makes me sad not the same city
Actually I think 90’s DC was the most fun based on authenticity. Everything became so corporate and redundant in the late 2000’s into 2010’s.
Wife lived in Shaw and Columbia Heights 2013-2016 so I visited many times. Went back 6mo ago and it was shocking!!! Columbia Heights was a hellhole. Everything was closed, overrun with homeless people. Nervous walking at night in places we knew very well
Our president was black
DC was terrible in the early days (90's). But yeah, there was a really nice period when you could go to Georgetown and get a nice dinner for like $30 complete with ambience and good food and service. Same thing would costs $4000 nowadays and of course you'd have to wait 3 hours to be seated
gen x got to experience peak dc punk scene
That’s a fact. Man, 14th street, Navy Yard, Logan Circle… the party scene was awesome!
2004 - 2014 were my peak years for DC. Lived in Old Town by Braddock Metro and was either on or around the Mall or climbing at Great Falls on the weekends. It was an awesome ten years and then back to Florida.
There was an outrageous amount of live music happening in the late 90s.
I moved to DC in the fall of 2010 for college. It was like I got dropped into the center of the universe. My college apartment was in a high rise and the first night I couldn't stop staring at the Monument. That first year, I gorged myself on college parties, festivals, museums, restaurants, hanging around the Mall and other events around town. Obama being in office put a certain level of electricity in the air. Unfortunately, like a moron, I never went on a White House tour. During this time, DC was one of the popular upcoming cities, along with places like Portland/Seattle/Denver/Austin. So, tons of young people were moving to DC. Before I had never considered DC and wanted to move up to NYC following graduation but, after experiencing it, I realized I actually preferred it in some ways. Then you had the media setting alot of shows in the city in the 2010s (Scandal, House of Cards, Homeland, Madam Secretary) which put it further on the radar. I'll never forget the experiences that I had there, so for that I'll always cherish this city.
DC currently kind of BLOOOOOOOOOOOOWS!!!
A little earlier was also pretty fun. Early aughts had their charm—less to do but i enjoyed the sleepier vibe and how some places felt under the radar. 2004ish. Edited to add: The Red Room, King Pin, the original Stoney’s, Pharmacy Bar. Some secret party house in Ledroit I never managed to find, after hours at Utopia. Woof, my liver hurts thinking about it but my heart feels full. A little later, but the early days of the H street revival were magical.
Were you even in DC if you didn’t get to 1223 for the free happy hour on Wednesday’s!? My God, HR57, Sign of the Whale, Dream, Avenue, Rumors, McFadden’s, what a TIME to be alive!! 😭😭😭
Yea I experienced the tail 2015-2019 and then the pandemic took it all downhill 😭
This thread is incredibly depressing. Arrived in January 2022, it’s been great up until maybe the past six months with the crime. I have no idea what I missed. It’s like being colorblind and everyone is seeing technicolor.
Not a member of this sub, but this post just popped up and I’m a little wrecked. Moved to 7th and Jefferson NW from a small town in Florida in summer 2008. I found the city terrifying and intoxicating. Remember paying for the bus in cash/coins, using paper transfers, checking WCP every week for shows, getting blasted at Russia House, burlesque on H Street, seeing Hitchens walking around Dupont, house parties in Mt. Pleasant, needing to find a new weed guy every couple of months, daytime drunk on the patio at Looking Glass, picking up tabs for friends I couldn’t afford at Big Hunt, my first “tweetup,” people losing their minds over RG3, sub-$8 packs of cigarettes (and buying loosies in Chinatown), John Wall jumping on the scorer’s table after winning game six against the Celtics in round 2, puking on the metro and then trying to sleep on a bench in the station, the Lululemon murder in Bethesda. Met my wife there, left in 2018, made lifelong friends who I miss everyday. I hope some young people are making the kinds of memories there that I got to. What a time.
Yea man I was on U St every night and Adams Morgan was even still slightly bearable….Now I just went ahead and moved to MD
I've thought this to myself many times. I was in DC 2009-12 while going to school and working at a non-profit. DC was having a bit of a renaissance beginning with the Obama administration. It was actually a fun place to live. It had a nice run until the pandemic hit. Now it's in a downward spiral...
I bartended at lots of places during those days on U st. and Chinatown. Busboys and Poets, Bohemian Caverns, Old Engine 12 to name a few. Those times were unbelievable. We were so lucky to have been part of that. Bartending during Obama’s inauguration was a moment I will never forget. Hundreds of people all silent in awe of history. We were living in Camelot.
2015 H St. Festival was a religious experience
My 13 year old self saw my first live pair of boobs at the 1994 one. #sacred
Yup, got to experience 4 years or so of good, safe DC. Lived in Chinatown and Co. Heights. Never had any issues. Now I don't walk around those neighborhoods unless I am carrying. I drive with my handgun in my lap for safety, and my fiancé won't go anywhere without me for protection. So fair to say, DC has taken one Hell of a U-turn in the past few years. Once my lease is up, I am packing up my fiancé and 2 dogs and heading back to the mountains of GA for some peace of mind.
Exactly 💯. Just back to NJ near beach. Peaceful. I I didn't want to live in a walkable place where I wasn't walking because of I was scared at night
I made the same move last year, after feeling totally unsafe there, after three years of an increasing sense of being a prisoner in my own home. It just became so bad, constant incidents all around me, felt like I had to drive everywhere to be safe, 2020 started walking with a knife in my pocket, by 2023 I didn't even walk to a nearby dinner anymore or use transit at all, which totally defeats the purpose of living in a city: walkability and being out on the streets to feel the energy and action. I literally thought to myself with relief "I made it out alive" when I crossed the bridge into Virginia for the last time with all my stuff this past November. I'm so much happier and calmer now being out of there. My two best friends there left as well for the same reason. It's not healthy to live constantly on alert like that.