Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!
Ok, so I know at some point I was going to write a mission statement about this blog, about how living in DC really DOESN'T suck, and that it's all a matter of finding your place, tapping into a community, and sucking up all the city has to offer, (instead of sitting around and moaning about the metro, about the crime, about the fucked up taxi cab zone system which I can't really defend...at all).
But the fact is, this city is changing and it's changing in ways that I don't like. Forces of gentrification have been at work in this town for years and years and years, but the past three or four have been simply amazing. Back in '98 it was like pulling teeth to try and convince my MoCo friends to come down to 14th and Q to see my band play at the Metro Cafe. They'd talk about going down to Velvet Lounge the way that old soldiers talk about firefights in Vietnam.
To the outsider, that whole U Street/Logan area was pure sketch back then. Fourteenth was all but deserted on a Sunday night. And bad things definitely *could* happen.
But truth be told, my car was only broken into once, and although one of the neighborhood crackheads *did* pull a knife on me as I walked back to my car from the Velvet one night, for the record, it was a butter knife, and for the record, he didn't put much effort into the whole performance.
In fact, the homeless people were always really nice to me down there. (...Kevin, if you're out there and connected to a computer, I hope you're still singing).
I know damn well that the fun of it was that my white suburban friends were afraid to go down there. And perhaps as a white, suburban kid, I was just gentrifying without actually moving in. And perhaps that's just another form of carpetbagging. Perhaps I'm hypociritcal for hating all the seemingly-rich, seemingly-gay white kids who bought up my old playground. And perhaps I'm a big asshole for thinking of that neighborhood -- a place where *generations* of native Washingtonians call home -- as a place I ever had any sort of "ownership" over whatsoever.
At least I recognize it. You can't walk down U street without tripping over a drunk sorrority girl. The Whole Foods on P Street is packed with some self important fuckers who wouldn't dare shop in a Giant. And the sidewalk in front of Halo on a Saturday night? Well, let's just say that boys that pretty wouldn't have lasted long on that street ten years ago. (And perished even faster right around 5th and K....though for different reasons entirely).
My point? I guess that the unfamiliar faces are starting to point to a suddenly unfamiliar neighborhood. And even though I know the neighborhood is safer and cleaner, and that none of the booming establishments in Logan ever could have survived without the newcomers (and yes, this includes my gay peeps, who I admittedly sometimes unfairly target the most for "changing" the face of the hood), sometimes I miss the old neighborhood.
But then, on the way to Starbucks on Saturday morning...
(STARBUCKS? Jesus, why should you even read the rest of this post? "On my way to STARBUCKS Saturday morning"?!?!?" God damn, I suck)....
I saw it: The awning of the new Stoney's!!!!
Stoney's IS old DC. Stoney's is one of the only tried-and-true dive bars the city has ever known. Sure, we've got the Raven and Nanny O'Brien's and the Pharmacy Bar and I guess you can throw Wonderland in there, too. But Stoney's is old school. The place was nicotine yellow and sticky from stale beer years and years before my uncles were having their own happy hours there in the 80's. Redskins memorabelia covered the walls, and cliche fireman's tags hung behind the bar. (Imagine the Chile Harold, then imagine if a clean up crew had never once visited the place). It was cash-only, the food sucked, and the staff did not discriminate - they were rude to absolutely everyone.
I loved Stoney's. I loved sitting on the patio in the summer, I loved grabbing greasy grilled cheese sandwich dinners with my girlfriend there in the winter, and I loved driving by it just as the sun went down -- barely being able to make out the forms of a few broken-down locals and the flicker from the TV behind the smoky windows.
About a year ago, this L Street institution of 35-some years shut it's doors, the victim of rising rents and doubtless fiscal mismanagement (the place kind of always seemed to be barely hanging on).
And now it's back. It's back. On P street. On gay old P Street.
A fucked-up football dive on P Street. I am absolutely the happiest little boy on Connecticut Avenue tonight. Sorry, Argonaut. I have a new place to watch the Skins on Sunday.
But the fact is, this city is changing and it's changing in ways that I don't like. Forces of gentrification have been at work in this town for years and years and years, but the past three or four have been simply amazing. Back in '98 it was like pulling teeth to try and convince my MoCo friends to come down to 14th and Q to see my band play at the Metro Cafe. They'd talk about going down to Velvet Lounge the way that old soldiers talk about firefights in Vietnam.
To the outsider, that whole U Street/Logan area was pure sketch back then. Fourteenth was all but deserted on a Sunday night. And bad things definitely *could* happen.
But truth be told, my car was only broken into once, and although one of the neighborhood crackheads *did* pull a knife on me as I walked back to my car from the Velvet one night, for the record, it was a butter knife, and for the record, he didn't put much effort into the whole performance.
In fact, the homeless people were always really nice to me down there. (...Kevin, if you're out there and connected to a computer, I hope you're still singing).
I know damn well that the fun of it was that my white suburban friends were afraid to go down there. And perhaps as a white, suburban kid, I was just gentrifying without actually moving in. And perhaps that's just another form of carpetbagging. Perhaps I'm hypociritcal for hating all the seemingly-rich, seemingly-gay white kids who bought up my old playground. And perhaps I'm a big asshole for thinking of that neighborhood -- a place where *generations* of native Washingtonians call home -- as a place I ever had any sort of "ownership" over whatsoever.
At least I recognize it. You can't walk down U street without tripping over a drunk sorrority girl. The Whole Foods on P Street is packed with some self important fuckers who wouldn't dare shop in a Giant. And the sidewalk in front of Halo on a Saturday night? Well, let's just say that boys that pretty wouldn't have lasted long on that street ten years ago. (And perished even faster right around 5th and K....though for different reasons entirely).
My point? I guess that the unfamiliar faces are starting to point to a suddenly unfamiliar neighborhood. And even though I know the neighborhood is safer and cleaner, and that none of the booming establishments in Logan ever could have survived without the newcomers (and yes, this includes my gay peeps, who I admittedly sometimes unfairly target the most for "changing" the face of the hood), sometimes I miss the old neighborhood.
But then, on the way to Starbucks on Saturday morning...
(STARBUCKS? Jesus, why should you even read the rest of this post? "On my way to STARBUCKS Saturday morning"?!?!?" God damn, I suck)....
I saw it: The awning of the new Stoney's!!!!
Stoney's IS old DC. Stoney's is one of the only tried-and-true dive bars the city has ever known. Sure, we've got the Raven and Nanny O'Brien's and the Pharmacy Bar and I guess you can throw Wonderland in there, too. But Stoney's is old school. The place was nicotine yellow and sticky from stale beer years and years before my uncles were having their own happy hours there in the 80's. Redskins memorabelia covered the walls, and cliche fireman's tags hung behind the bar. (Imagine the Chile Harold, then imagine if a clean up crew had never once visited the place). It was cash-only, the food sucked, and the staff did not discriminate - they were rude to absolutely everyone.
I loved Stoney's. I loved sitting on the patio in the summer, I loved grabbing greasy grilled cheese sandwich dinners with my girlfriend there in the winter, and I loved driving by it just as the sun went down -- barely being able to make out the forms of a few broken-down locals and the flicker from the TV behind the smoky windows.
About a year ago, this L Street institution of 35-some years shut it's doors, the victim of rising rents and doubtless fiscal mismanagement (the place kind of always seemed to be barely hanging on).
And now it's back. It's back. On P street. On gay old P Street.
A fucked-up football dive on P Street. I am absolutely the happiest little boy on Connecticut Avenue tonight. Sorry, Argonaut. I have a new place to watch the Skins on Sunday.
posted by t-o-n at 6:52 PM
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