April 14, 2006 U Street: The Corridor Is Cool Again By ALICIA AULT<\/p>\n
SAUNTER down U Street in northwest Washington
\nalmost any night and you’ll hear the pulsing beat of urban nightlife: the tinny
\npop of a snare drum, the caustic sneering of an indie rocker, the smooth melodies
\nof a lounge singer, the plaintive picking of a folkie and the driving chunk-a-chunk
\nof hip-hop. The U Street Corridor, the center of Washington’s African-American nightlife
\nfor much of the 20th century and the birthplace of Duke Ellington, is
\nvibrant again and the newest and hottest place in town for getting out on
\nweekends after dark. The transformation that began in the late 90’s, after
\nthree decades of decline and neglect, continues to gather speed, with
\nboarded-up buildings reopened and transformed into galleries, shops, cafes
\nand clubs, and nightlife seekers migrating over from Georgetown and Adams
\nMorgan for a slightly older, less raucous scene where the patrons have a bit
\nmore money to spend.<\/p>\n
“Adams Morgan is not new anymore,” said Melih Buyukbayrak, who sold his
\ninterest in a restaurant there last year and is a co-owner of the new Tabaq
\nBistro in the U Street Corridor. “U Street is new and hip.”<\/p>\n
On weekend nights and even during the week, throngs from the city and
\nsuburbs, along with hip city visitors, crowd the dozens of restaurants, bars
\nand clubs of the corridor, a strip of U Street from 9th Street to 16th
\nStreet and blocks nearby.<\/p>\n
“When I come to U Street, I’m coming more for a laid-back, jazz kind of
\nthing,” said Katarro Rountree, 24, a Georgetown University graduate student
\ndressed preppily and drinking a Corona beer at Busboys and Poets, a
\nbookstore, cafe and performance space that opened in September at 14th and V
\nStreets. The cafe’s high-ceilinged, loftlike space would be at home in San
\nFrancisco or Seattle, and it draws a multicultural stew of aging liberals,
\nyoung antiestablishment types and college students. Although he likes
\nhardcore partying in Georgetown, Mr. Rountree said, he prefers U Street for
\nfood, music and date nights.<\/p>\n
In the heyday of jazz, artists like Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Louis
\nArmstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Shirley Horn, who was born in
\nWashington, made regular stops on U Street. One club where they played, the
\nCrystal Caverns, is now called the Bohemian Caverns and still books jazz
\nacts. Another, the landmark Howard Theater, was closed in 1970 but later
\nbought by the District of Columbia, which is soliciting redevelopment
\noffers.<\/p>\n
From the riots after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
\nJr. in 1968 until the mid-1990’s, many of the three- and four-story brick
\nbuildings and glass storefronts along U Street were shuttered and derelict,
\nwith the exception of stalwarts like Ben’s Chili Bowl, opened in 1958, where
\npeople still line up for half-smokes, chili fries and thick shakes. The
\nconstruction of a Metro stop and the rise of real estate prices in
\nWashington brought new interest in U Street, and in the last five years,
\ncondominium high-rises have sprung up and town houses have been renovated.
\nRestaurants, shops and night life have followed.<\/p>\n
The transformation has been so profound that Phil Coleman, 43, of
\nPhiladelphia, who used to live in Washington, thought in a recent visit that
\nhe had gotten out at the wrong Metro stop when he went to meet a friend on U
\nStreet. He was astounded, he said, by the crowd and the wealth of things to
\ndo.<\/p>\n
One of those things is shopping. Need designer shoes? Try Wild Women Wear
\nRed for Frye’s spring sandal collection, or Carbon, where you can also pick
\nup a $155 Virgins, Saints & Angels belt with a Jesus-and-Mary diptych
\nbuckle. Style-conscious types looking for retro oversize 1970’s sunglasses
\nor double-knit pants ($20) can bop into Meeps, which has been on U for 14
\nyears.<\/p>\n
A gallery scene is unfolding. Nevin Kelly holds down the western end of the
\ncorridor with the work of local and Polish artists. At the eastern end,
\nProject 4 just held its first show, a war-themed photography exhibit that
\nwas shown earlier at the International Center of Photography in New York.<\/p>\n
But it is at night that the U Street Corridor really comes alive.<\/p>\n
Mary Beth Sullivan, 47, who lives in Arlington, Va., and was having dinner
\none busy Saturday night in December with friends at Creme, a popular new U
\nStreet restaurant, said that in 20 years of living in the Washington area,
\nshe hadn’t set foot on U Street until a recent visit to see a concert at the
\nLincoln Theater. The district government bought and refurbished the old
\ntheater, reopening it in 1994 to show theater, comedy and dance.<\/p>\n
AT Creme, Ms. Sullivan’s party was eating at the bar; at 8 p.m., there was a
\ntwo-hour wait for the restaurant’s upscale version of Southern dishes like
\nshrimp and grits ($16) or pork and beans ($18). A relaxed crowd \u00e2\u20ac\u00b9 young and
\nold, black and white, straight and gay \u00e2\u20ac\u00b9 basked in understated candlelight
\nreflecting off blond wood and olive-tone walls. Ms. Sullivan had come on the
\nrecommendation of the bartender, whom she had known in his previous job at
\nthe upscale Marcel’s in the nearby West End. What was U Street’s allure for
\nher and her friends? In part, Ms. Sullivan said, “We like the diverse
\ncrowd.”<\/p>\n
At Busboys and Poets, named for Langston Hughes, who began his career as a
\npoet while working as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, the
\nvaried crowds come for camaraderie, poetry readings and screenings of films
\nlike “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices.” Late one night last winter, a
\nyoung couple lounged on a sofa and not far away, even though it was after 1
\na.m., students pored over laptops at long, communal wooden tables. A
\nmiddle-aged couple, the man in black tie, made their way to a spot in the
\nsofa area near where a young woman in a halter top and her date, an Usher
\nlook-alike, were drinking Champagne.<\/p>\n
A few doors down 14th Street at Jin on another winter night, a hip crowd of
\n20- to 40-somethings shimmied and sipped Kristal and Dom Perignon behind the
\nfrosted door of the “Asian-Caribbean Soul Lounge.” Tiny white stools lined
\nthe bar, but most patrons chatted in the lounge area, where tables hugged by
\nretro sofas can be reserved for $250 or $500.<\/p>\n
At U-Turn on 11th Street, a spike-haired, tattooed Matt Aikens, 22, had
\njoined the punk and goth crowd that comes regularly to listen to bands with
\nnames like Curbside Revenge and Pessimist Parade. He had come in from
\nAlexandria, he explained, for the “community feel” of the club.<\/p>\n
And at Polly’s Cafe, at 1342 U, a neighborhood crowd ate vegetarian-leaning
\ncomfort food in a cozy publike space mostly below street level with exposed
\nbrick walls and a working fireplace. Polly’s has live music, usually
\nacoustic indie, on Wednesday nights, the owner, Cici Mukhtar, said. She is
\nadapting to the new U Street crowds by supplementing her beer on tap with
\nsmall-batch bourbons and novelty liquors like the espresso-fueled Van Gogh
\nvodka.<\/p>\n
U Street hasn’t yielded completely to the new and affluent. Visitors will be
\naccosted for change on busy weekend nights, and they will walk past liquor
\nstores with bulletproof cashier’s windows and boarded-up, spray-painted
\nstorefronts. But with the old U Street steadily fading, the party scene is
\nwhat takes the eye.<\/p>\n
Well after the dinner hour on a Friday night in March, women in cocktail
\ndresses and stilettos waited at the valet station at Tabaq; one stepped into
\na Volkswagen Touareg, another into a black BMW sedan. A block away, about a
\ndozen men and women who seemed to be barely more than 18 years old, wearing
\nclub attire, laughed and teased each other just beyond the velvet rope at
\nBar Nun.<\/p>\n
The night was far enough advanced for crowds to be thickening at Republic
\nGardens, a nightclub that survived lean times to enjoy the resurgence and
\ncan now command $250, $500, and $1,000 minimums at some tables after 11 p.m.
\non Saturdays.<\/p>\n
Jazz sounds drifted into the street from Bohemian Caverns, Twins Jazz and
\nDuke’s City. At DC9 and the Velvet Lounge, which are smoky, scruffy and
\nloud, the music was indie and punk. Two of Washington’s most successful
\nspots, Black Cat and the 9:30 Club, drew fans who like a smorgasbord of
\nmusic: reggae, pop, alt-country, gypsy, R & B, go-go, gospel, punk, folk,
\nLatin.<\/p>\n
Jon Dauphin\u00c3\u00a9, 38, a lawyer eating with five friends at Creme on a Friday
\nnight in March, said he liked U Street enough to have moved close by three
\nyears ago from Georgetown, drawn by the diversity not only at night, but
\nalso in the feel of the area day to day. “This is the cutting edge,” he
\nsaid, “of what the city is and can be.”<\/p>\n
If You Go<\/p>\n
The U Street Corridor is accessible from the U
\nStreet\/Cardozo\/African-American War Memorial stop on the green line of the
\nWashington Metro system. It is easily navigated on foot.<\/p>\n
Hotels within walking distance include Hotel Helix, a boutique property at
\n1430 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, 202-462-9001; doubles from $140; and Hotel
\nRouge, 1315 16th Street NW; 202-232-8000; rates $150 to $200. The Bed and
\nBreakfast on U Street, 877-893-3233, www.bedandbreakfastdc.com, in a home at
\n17th and U Street NW, has a queen room with a private bath for $165 a night
\non April and May weekends.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If the New York Times says it’s cool, I guess my neighborhood really is. Printed today in the New York Times:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1744,1741],"tags":[5702,8502,1780,1137,1779,6242],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-york-times","category-news","tag-dc","tag-new-york-times","tag-nightlife","tag-travel","tag-u-street","tag-washington"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":65,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1603,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/1603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nikolasschiller.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}