When I walked into Angel’s Share Wines and Liquors, on the corner of 7th and S Street in the Shaw neighborhood of DC, I asked the cashier if he knew about John’s Place. He clearly did not, and he seemed rather confused when I explained that I was doing a school project about the spot, where, in the late 1980s, there had once stood a nightclub in its place. This came as no surprise to me, for when you search for John’s Place on the web, the only result is a 1990 article by Ruben Castaneda, titled “4 Slain, 2 Hurt in NW Club.” I learned about John’s Place in S Street Rising, a book by Castaneda himself. Indeed, documentation about John’s Place and other bars and nightclubs alike in ’80s and ’90s Shaw — with the exception of a few well-known spots in the area that have lived on, such as the Black Cat or 9:30 Club — are virtually nonexistent; they seem to have faded into forgotten obscurity. The only lasting remnants of this lost nightlife scene appear to be tied to the violent, crack epidemic-induced culture that characterized the neighborhood in those decades. Yet, today, nightlife in Shaw is vibrant and up-and-coming, ushering in a new wave of bars and clubs that litter 7th and 9th Street, bringing an excitable young crowd with them.
The map below displays all the locations of present-day Shaw’s bars and nightclubs.
A host of hip, avant-garde drinking spots have popped up in Shaw, attracting an affluent millennial population. My friend, Sophia, has told me about how much she loves Dacha Beer Garden, a chic indoor-outdoor bar, restaurant, loft, and café on 7th Street. Instagram posts from Dacha’s page show its beautiful pink, mural-laden facade and the fun, youthful crowd it serves.
This sign outside the Passenger draws in the lively, youthful demographic it targets. Who doesn’t love Game of Thrones? It’s a cultural phenomenon.
The Columbia Room, located in Bragden Alley off of 9th Street, began as a tasting room in the Passenger with only 10 seats. It opened its own location in 2017 and shortly thereafter was named “Best American Cocktail Bar” at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. It’s a cant-miss for any alcohol enthusiast residing in or visiting DC.
There’s no shortage of inventive mixology at these stylish, energetic bars.
In the neighborhood, one can even find the Dabney Cellar, a bar spin-off of the Michelin Star-awarded restaurant The Dabney. The name and complementary setting put forth the low key, dive bar vibe that defines modern Shaw whilst maintaining the elegance of The Dabney’s brand.
The progressive, innovative nature of Shaw’s up and coming nightlife scene extends to the spirited LGBTQIA+ community of DC. Nellie’s Sports Bar welcomes all people of diverse sexual orientation and gender identities, often putting on fun, flashy drag events on a given night of the week.
There even exists the niche Uproar Lounge for the “Gay Bear” community, generally characterized by hairy, bearded, huskier gay or bisexual men.
Needless to say, nightlife in today’s Shaw is dynamic, imaginative, and exciting, but how did this surge of new enterprise and cultural transformation come about? The figure below displays the years in which all of these bars and nightclubs in modern-day Shaw were opened.
Nearly every nightclub and bar that exists in Shaw opened in the last decade, many in just the last few years. What happened to John’s Place? What happened to the other 7th and 9th Street bars and clubs that thrived a few decades ago? And what does the absence of that forgotten culture tell us about the broader socioeconomic forces at play?
The 2014 BBC news article “Washington DC, from murder capital to boomtown” explores the roots of this transformation. In 1991, a metro line opened in Shaw, which spurred subsequent development as people began to invest in cheap properties in the area and new residents began to move in. “Affluent young professionals began to opt for the convenience and buzz of living closer to the city centre, often moving to handsome old buildings in areas that had been considered out-of-bounds.” Years ago, the Wonder Bread Factory was a thriving business on S Street, but when it closed down in the 1980s, it supposedly became a “hub for drug dealers.” Now, the article explains, it has been “converted into slick offices for entrepreneurs.” The building still reads “Wonder Bread” and “Hostess Cake,” reminiscent of the memorable spot that is no more.
Another example is the O Street Market, the area around which had been the site of a shooting in 1994 (Wheeler and Melillo). “Now it houses a high-end grocery, and is backed by luxury apartments.” Shaw is becoming safer, it’s seeing new business investment and development, and houses are appreciating in value; surely, this is a positive trend for the neighborhood and it’s inhabitants, right?
Thinking back to a conversation with my friend Sophia, I inquired more specifically about the demographic she noticed at Dacha Beer Garden. She identified it as a hipster crowd, made up of young, seemingly affluent individuals in their 20s, who were predominantly white. Shaw is a historically black neighborhood, yet the influx of new bars and clubs and the according demographic that come with it seem to undermine that original population.
The few hot locations that still harbor a predominantly black crowd seem to be tied to the niche culture of the self-proclaimed Little Ethiopia, based in a section of 9th Street, between U and T, where a lot of Ethiopian immigrants began to settle in the 1990s (Charles). The “modern swanky” Ethiopian MK Hookah Lounge and the Empire Hookah Lounge, for example, still enjoy an animated black customer base; the Empire Lounge markets Afro Caribbean Wednesday’s each week. Even those spots, however, seem to have increasing amounts of white people filling their couches and dance floors.
How does one’s perspective of this new, lively Shaw change when the word “development” is substituted with “gentrification”? According to a recent article by NPR, titled “Old Confronts New in a Gentrifying D.C. Neighborhood,” the demographic breakdown of Shaw has seen a major shift. “In 1980, Shaw was 78 percent black. In 2010, the black population in the neighborhood had dropped to 44 percent.” That population decrease, the article explains, is not only a product of white people moving into Shaw, but also of a decline in “the actual number of black residents, not just their percentage of the population.” In the last couple decades, housing prices in Shaw have skyrocketed, and average family income has more than tripled. The unfortunate byproduct, however, is the widespread displacement of the black population that has called the neighborhood home since John’s Place’s doors were still open. The article introduces Ernest Peterson, a black man who has spent the majority of his life as a proud resident of Shaw: “I go outside, and these people who been here for 15 minutes look at me like, ‘Why you here?’ That’s that sense of privilege they bring wherever they go. I been here since ’78. They been here six months or a year, and they question my purpose for being here.”
Shaw is evolving, developing, and growing in economic standing, and from its evolution has emerged a vibrant, exciting culture. It’s a social scene, an up and coming neighborhood, and a place where well-off young people like myself and Sophia can enjoy fun excursions to Dacha Beer Garden among a cool, hip crowd, but at what cost?
Sources:
Castaneda, Ruben, and DeNeen L. Brown. “4 SLAIN, 2 HURT IN NW CLUB.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 25 Feb. 1990, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/02/25/4-slain-2-hurt-in-nw-club/24cb2a56-7514-450a-ad6e-5d084c56fede/?utm_term=.258ce850d951.
Charles, Dominic. “Claiming a Neighborhood: Shaw and Little Ethiopia.” Boundary Stones: WETA’s Washington DC History Blog, 14 Aug. 2018, blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/2018/08/14/claiming-neighborhood-shaw-and-little-ethiopia.
Gringlas, Sam. “Old Confronts New In A Gentrifying D.C. Neighborhood.” NPR, NPR, 16 Jan. 2017, www.npr.org/2017/01/16/505606317/d-c-s-gentrifying-neighborhoods-a-careful-mix-of-newcomers-and-old-timers.
Lewis, Aidan, and Bill McKenna. “Washington DC from Murder Capital to Boomtown.” BBC News, BBC, 6 Aug. 2014, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28605215.
MK Lounge, www.mkloungedc.com/.
Spiegel, Anna. “The Columbia Room Wins ‘Best American Cocktail Bar.’” Washingtonian, Washingtonian Media Inc., 3 Aug. 2017, www.washingtonian.com/2017/07/24/columbia-room-dc-wins-best-american-cocktail-bar/.
Wheeler, Linda, and Wendy Melillo. “D.C. Market Shooting Kills 1, Injures 8.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Apr. 1994, www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-market-shooting-kills-1-injures-8/2013/11/18/c7a1dee6-5087-11e3-a7f0-b790929232e1_story.html.
