Gentrification (and its Discontents...)

I currently spend most of my workdays in downtown Washington DC, smack between two long-gone DC punk/indie bastions. What's now touted as "Penn Quarter" was seriously rundown commercial property just a decade ago (though to call it "blighted" would be a disservice to the truly blighted parts of DC). In this case, the whole area got a major boost when the MCI Center opened (during my 8-year absence from DC).  The FBI fortress and Smithsonian Portrait Gallery / Folk Art collection and Chinatown Arch had always been there, but this part of downtown was ghostly and somewhat creepy by the time the doors would open for yet another show.

This is F Street NW, between 9th and 10th Streets -- and while the name may persist elsewhere in the District, the true heart of the 9:30 Club will always be right here.  Some of the facade of 9:30's old home is being preserved, but a 10-to-12-story office / condo development is going up behind that brick lattice.  Will the infamous "9:30 Club Smell" attach itself to the new subterranean parking and storage structures? And more importantly, did they retain the pole in the middle of the floor?

d.c.space had a far different demise... it's been replaced by a Starbucks.  I can't completely verify, but it feels like the same basic footprint (with the main entrance shifted from mid-block to the corner for easier pedestrian access).  Slightly smaller than I remember, but otherwise consistent with the original space.  (Across the street is another ill-fated site -- in the mid-90s, it was the "Insect Club" but now it's 6+ months delayed in its opening as a Juan Valdez Cafe... Perhaps the mules were delayed on their way up from Colombia.)