DC Neighborhood Blogging
Overheard at a local coffee shop: “seventh street is the new eleventh street.” I would have said that ninth street is the new fourteenth street, since eleventh is kind of nothing. Oh well.
I think the point is that just a few years ago, 11th street was the U Street district border. Walk down the strip there now, however, and things have pushed out to seventh, and are fast pushing beyond. Eventually, I suspect that just as Adams Morgan long ago pushed down 18th and over across U, we’ll see U push over into NE over Florida Ave. and connect with the burgeoning Atlas District strip on H Street, with “Big Bear” as the anchor in the middle that eventually brings the two areas together.
Ridiculous! I live (at 3rd & T) somewhere between the eastern edge of greater U St. (which stops at about 7th and Florida) and Big Bear (1st & R) and the distance between these is … more significant than I’d like. Besides, the stretch down Florida from 6th to RI is mostly just occupied houses (except for Thai X-ing — in the basement of a house) And RI Ave creates a big bleak discontinuity. Greater U and Bloomingdale will almost surely never connect. And even if they did, the idea that THAT would somehow stretch continuously in an Adams Morgany way all the way to H St NE is completely preposterous. The distance down Florida from U & 7th NW to 11th NE is about the same as the distance from the White House to Woodley Park up Connecticut. Consult the map!
— Will Wilkinson · Mar 5, 11:10 PM · #
Potentially ridiculous, I agree, and my idea that Florida Ave will develop into NE seems quite dubious. But it seems clear to me that over the medium-long term, U Street will continue to expand, Shaw will develop (housing values have already quadrupled in the last 4 years), and so will Atlas (look at the condos springing up, and the change in buying patterns on the South side of H St.), eventually resulting in clearly separate but chain-linked communities — something like you see in Brooklyn, perhaps. Or maybe I’m just feeling optimistic after my recent move to Shaw.
— Peter Suderman · Mar 6, 01:47 AM · #