RSS FeedWaPo: 9:30 Club Retrospective (A Penn Quarter Graduate?)
You might call the 9:30 Club, which moved to the old WUST Radio Music Hall at 8th and in the 800 block of V Street (corner of 9th and V St) NW in 1996, a graduate of the Penn Quarter and downtown DC. It first opened in the Atlantic Building at 930 F Street at 9:30 pm thirty years ago and we remember the days that you could come downtown, find easy parking and catch a show that you would not be able to see anywhere else in DC. Sunny’s Surplus (an army surplus store where the Ventana Condo stands), the Fifth Column dance club (now the shut down Platinum nightclub) and the only downtown Wendy’s east of 16th Street (now gone but formerly next to the McDonalds in the 900 block of E Street) were all draws for us as teenagers. But none could match the allure of alt-music at the 9:30 Club and today the Washington Post celebrates the venue with a fantastic retrospective both online and in print. Check it out to glimpse a window into a slice of the Penn Quarter’s past.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
forgot about The Vault and the wig shop. I think there was a stereo/electronics place too where you could get 240/120 (i.e. foreign compatible) appliances on F.
Well the 9:30 club is at 9th and V – but thanks for the link, I love reading retrospectives like this.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Let’s not forget across the street from the 9:30 Club, Cavalier men’s store, the wig shop, the MANY artist studios on the second floor, and the Vault next to the Fifth Column. Also, in the building next to The Ventana was the Music Box and as in the Atlantic Building, many less interesting tenants. Riggs Bank was where the Marriott Courtyard now stands. Unlike many urban blocks, this was really a mixed bag: most of what you could see was pretty low end and downright uninviting; some of what you couldn’t was pretty interesting, and even exciting.