Affle Hop

This sucks. Instead of turning into a promenade with a mix of outdoor cafes and vendors, it’s turning into a tourist t-shirt hell.

Tackle Box is opening another location in Cleveland Park (the old McDonald’s space), so I’m guessing their plans for PQ are on hold or dead.

These t-shirt shops are like the retail bank locations that exploded downtown in the late 90′s and early 00′s: they clearly do enough business to pay the rent, but they contribute nothing to a vibrant neighborhood. Just like the planning board started to demand the new retail be something other than banks, perhaps it’s time to put limits on these shops too.

that block is definitely T-shirt central. the Washington Welcome Center (that name always cracks me up for some reason) aka Tourist Fly Paper has a lot to do with it.

Need to move the buses to another location. They are stalling transition there and in surrounding blocks.

Is that disgusting tree covered with tourist chewing gum still there?

I have been a DC resident for 17 years, and I never stop getting annoyed by other residents’ tendency to denigrate tourists. The scorn of the imperial court towards its lowly subjects is not surprising, but it is ugly, particularly in an alleged democracy where we are all supposed to be equal. Without the tourists, our local economy would suffer greatly. Without tribute-paying subjects, the empire would be nothing.

Have more respect for the people who put us here!

The gum tree is long gone! It went when the city redid 10th Street.

I am guessing redevelopment plans are still on hold or have been shelved. If on hold, these businesses likely have short-term or month-to-month leases or cancellation clauses favorable to the developer. If shelved, they will likely be around longer than any of us would want them to be there.

It’s hard to imagine that the frozen yogurt shop on F is on a short-term or month-to-month lease considering the improvements they made to the space.

In case anyone is wondering what the Waffle Shop looked like a long time ago check this out and this too.

Couldn’t they have used those two lonely-looking letters W and S for something like Washington Showcase? (Temporarily, of course.) A bit of wit would have been nice.