RSS FeedIt’s Official…Penn Quarter Is No Longer Sketchy
The once-sketchy Penn Quarter downtown gets more vibrant yearly.
We got a nice chuckle out of this USA Today article sprinkled with words like “hopping,” “hot,” and “multi-faceted.” The broader point of the text, that Washington DC has become more cosmopolitan, was not lost on us, and it is nice to see recognition on that front. It ticks off a number of hotspots all across DC and puts in a good word for our neighborhood.
When we moved to Penn Quarter there were still flat-top parking lots around, construction zones everywhere, and many more ‘For Rent’ signs in retail bays than you see now. This is a nice affirmation for the businesses that took a pioneering chance and rode the construction of our anchor tenant in the 1990s (then the MCI Center, now the Verizon Center) sufficiently navigating the economic waters in the following years; Jaleo and the District Chophouse come to mind. Of course, we miss some of the victims such as Olsson’s Bookstore, Kemp Mill Records [YouTube] and the Popeyes chicken walk-up window but such is the cost of progress and the business cycle as we know it.
More importantly, we now know that our “hot ‘hood” is no longer sketchy.
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Comments
@Urbaniste – good points and you’re right that there were some very early pioneers. we remember coming down here in late high school and college to visit a variety of venues.
this included everything from Sunny’s Surplus on F Street to Woodies to the dance clubs that dotted the neighborhood such as The Fifth Column (F St), Decades (E St), and Insomnia (6th St). DC Space at 7th and E (now the Starbucks) had some great avant-garde performances too. can’t forget the original 930 Club (F St).
we often wondered how the dynamic might have been different if the Washington Opera had gone through with renovating the Woodies building and turning it into an opera hall. would the downtown renaissance have arrived sooner with another anchor tenant?
Quite right, everybody. And don’t forget the National Building Museum. That’s how I got to know the neighborhood. In the 1980s and early 90s I developed tours of the neighborhood for the museum featuring architecture and history.
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I think the real pioneers (in the 1980’s and very early 1990’s) preceded the period you are speaking of. These pioneers were the residential developers (and their equity partners)along with the very first restaurants (Jaleo, 701, Pleasant Peasant, Manhattan Deli), shops (Illuminations, Olsson’s, Lansburgh Market, Market Square Dry Cleaners and Florist, Lansburgh Hair Salon), theater (Shakespeare), and art galleries (Zenith, Haslem, Osuna)who took a chance that the Pennsylvania Avenue Develpoment Corporation’s concept of a mixed-use community with housing, cultural uses, offices, and retail would work.
Penn Quarter sure has changed and grown. Except for a few single occupancy units next to Union Hardware and Dominick over The Artifactory, no one lived in Penn Quarter legally for close to 100 years. The old buildings in need of renovation housed artist studios and co-op galleries, DC Space, the Insect Club, the 930 Club, some porno shops, Sunny Surplus, and Central Liquor. If you were a hippie in the 60’s or had similar leanings, you felt safe here; if not, it seemed deserted and scary, especially as night fell. Not that there was much crime here – nor much of anything beyone the two Smithsonian museums and Ford’s Theatre that would attract someone. It was a different place for sure!