Before I came to the USA, and more specifically to Washington DC to go into college, I had little to no idea what to expect of the city itself. I had only visited DC twice before, when I was too young to really care about anything other than McDonalds and amusement parks.
Arriving in September, as a young man of 20 just out of the army, my outlook and my interests had greatly changed since my previous visits. The only thing I knew is that I would be living in a city much larger than any town on the small island in the Mediterranean where I resided for the first twenty years of my life.
And so as I reached Foggy Bottom, I felt myself surrounded by boring, almost identical buildings that were far too serious for my taste. I was sure that this city had more to show than that.
Soon, I started hearing all about U Street, its nightlife, its restaurants, and its people. U Street, in the past, was where the largest African-American community was built, where Duke Ellington lived during his childhood and where the 1968 DC riots took place following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The former was perhaps instrumental in U Street’s rise as a vital cultural and entertainment in DC; the latter caused its downfall.
During its decline, U Street became the epicenter of drug trafficking and in turn, became a hangout for drug addicts. It was in the 1990s that the street started to develop again and became a center of entertainment and culture in the district.
The most important aspect of U Street is perhaps its cultural diversity. You realize this as soon as you have a look up and down the street. The different colors of people, the different languages they speak, the different restaurants that exist (from grungy and cheap to classy and expensive) and the different nightclubs with all kinds of music (from jazz to 80’s pop to more modern fare). All these are the characteristics of a place that could be considered widely attractive, a place where cultures, talents and dreams fuse together.
Exploring this street, I couldn’t help but wonder: what are the reasons behind the popularity of U Street? Is each restaurant/nightclub attractive to everyone? If not, then what kind of people is each place trying to attract?
