(Scroll down to skip the intro and see the pics.)
Each weekend this fall I am preparing a photo tour of one of Washington's important streets. I pick start and end points and simply walk straight down that one corridor.
Last week I began the series with a
tour of 16th Street. Today we move two blocks east for a walk down
14th Street.
Despite being so close, 14th and 16th Streets could not be more different. While 16th has always been a relatively swank and safe residential avenue, 14th Street is a commercial corridor with a much more troubled past.
In 1968 14th Street was one of the
key locations of rioting that destroyed much of inner city Washington. After that, during the 70s and 80s, it was the heart of the poor black ghetto, and the city's prime red light district.
20 years ago 14th Street was a ghetto. 10 years ago it was rough, and as recently as 5 years ago it was still lined with decay and dereliction. Over the last 5 years however, it has been gentrification ground zero. It has gone through a dramatic transformation and is now among the more healthy and diverse streets in the city. Although it cannot be said that it is as wealthy as 16th or some other commercial streets like Connecticut or Wisconsin Avenues, it has undeniably turned the corner in a very real and visible way. And it's done so in a very short span of time.
As a personal example: I started dating my (now) fiance in 2007. At that time she lived in Columbia Heights, near the section of 14th Street where we will start our tour in just a moment. Of all the new residential and retail buildings you see in this thread, only two were open and occupied when we first met (and they had just done so within the previous year or so).
Here is a map of our tour route. We will start at the northern end of the red line and walk south.
We begin in the center of the Columbia Heights neighborhood, with a panorama showing the intersection of 14th Street and Park Road, where the city recently installed a new public plaza. This is not only the epicenter of Columbia Heights, but also the center of redevelopment. 5 years ago this intersection was surrounded by vacant lots and patches of weeds; now it is a burgeoning midtown district, and the most important retail location in this part of the city.
Since it's a panorama I'm going to put in it a separate post, so it doesn't stretch the entire thread: