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Dude could have shut down and/or relocated with a generic notice, and folks would prob have felt bad for them having to make the decision. Instead, he decided to get huffy and made himself the main character.

Classic.

I used to go to Planet Fitness down there. In 2019 someone did $10,000 damage to my vehicle with a football sized chunk of concrete for no apparent reason, at 6:00AM. Coincidentally, that’s when the shelter empties out. That was my last workout at Planet Fitness. I pay more to go somewhere else now.

"We’re a pretty woke, cool music company and that is part of why I wanted to be in Ivy City."

That place was awful. The wine was undrinkable, basically grape soda with booze in it. The bands they had were 90s one hit wonders. Not shocked at all it closed. Via Ghibellina, Other Half, Giza, and Ivy City Smoke House are worth the trip.

people weren't going out much during COVID, but people really weren't going to less accessible places like ivy city

where do you go now?

edit: why did I get downvoted to -3 for trying to learn about gyms in the area? 🤣

People who self-identify as cool usually are.

Called it.

He said there were other factors as well. People are really determined to convince themselves there isn’t a crime problem.

IMO, one of the big issues with City Winery was the location access. Many people don't want to deal with the hassle of driving through the infamous Dave Thomas Circle (i.e. New York Avenue/Florida Avenue intersection) to get to a venue that has relatively little nearby.

I think the lack of cross-promotion with other venues, i.e. having a common promoter for multiple venues in the DC area (like LiveNation, I.M.P., and the people operating/promoting shows at Union Stage, Jammin' Java, Howard Theatre, etc.), didn't help either. City Winery isn't like The Birchmere or Black Cat that have been around for many, many years and people know to look for show listings for those venues.

Wine was good until their winemaker left after the pandemic. These quotes reflect poorly though… they definitely had deeper issues than the neighborhood.

I never understood the draw. I went there three times, three different ways and it felt harder to get there than in some suburbs in Virginia.

• Friend drove there and had difficulty finding street parking.

• Uber/Lyft on the way there and they got lost picking me up.

• Bikeshared there and was dodging cars or took sidewalks that went in the wrong way.

> "We’re a pretty woke, cool music company

I mean they are actually / if someone can actually back it up I don't have a problem with them saying it

I don’t understand why this is a problematic statement. The developer made promises about how they were going to invest and grow the development to draw more people to the area and in fact the reverse happened. (Mostly due to COVID, but I’ve noticed in lots of Douglas Development areas they seem to have just pulled the rug out and are letting them sink down to crap for some sort of re-build later instead of investing in keeping them vibrant.)

Walked by the City Winery in Boston a few weeks ago. It’s in a fine location, not far from the TD Garden. There was a Celtics game that night and the restaurant was EMPTY.

I’ve always found it to be an issue with marketing and quality. Yeah the neighborhood is important, but it’s not everything.

It had potential, but last time we were bar hopping in Ivy City, they closed super early. It didn't seem like anyone working there wanted to be there. I really like Ivy City, and it sucks how many things have closed recently. I hope something better takes it's place, I love smaller venues to see music.

Yeah but middle aged people loved that place

it is hard to get there, but it's nice to have options like ivy city when you're tired of more easily accessible spots. Space is also cheaper there, so many establishments have big, open areas which is a nice change from much of the city

hehe my car was broken into at a planet fitness as well! i keep nothing in my car )

They didn’t even get in. They just smashed the shit out of it.

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My girlfriend and I frequently visit Other Half in Ivy City. I didn't even know City Winery was a music venue. All we'd heard - and we heard it often - was that the wine was not very good. Why would we want to go there when there's somewhere else nearby that we know is excellent?

We're not concert people, but we could be convinced to take a flyer on a show if we could enjoy high quality or unique wines during it. Sounds like a quality and marketing problem on their end.

The wine was undrinkable and the beer wildly overpriced, but you don’t know what you’re talking about on the music front. They do have some 90s one hit wonders but they also brought in underground stuff like Bob Log III and country legend Ray Wylie Hubbard, so it was a mix.

That's exactly right. I've lived both west and south of Ivy City in NE under 2 miles away and there's no good way to get there without a car. Why would I go to a neighborhood that's not accessible via public transportation when I can easily get to all the others? Not everyone has a car or wants to drive to a place to drink.

Yeah, crime.

I went to City Winery in Boston once for a concert and it was fine. My issue with the place is that I couldn't really tell who the core audience this place is for. Is it for wine snobs? But then again I see so many concerts and comedy shows held there, so is it also a music venue? Though the artists they tend to book are pretty small and indie for the most part, so even that's a tough draw.

The menu is also really generic - New American stuff that can be found in a myriad of upscale bars and restaurants.

City Winery is just really lacking an identity. It tries to be everything to everyone and the concept ends up feeling flat enough that most would not come back unless their favorite artist or comedian also happened to show up.

I find it hard to believe that happened in the parking garage there.

Bit he said she said, no? Douglas went big on Ivy City, they own almost everything there. It would be in their interest to invest in the neighborhood after/while delivering their projects.

Right in front of the garage. My work truck doesn’t fit in the garage.

With a camera pointed right at it. Their cameras don’t work.

The draw was interesting new places/retail that likely wouldn’t pop up elsewhere.

Any place in this city that designates itself as a "eclectic" or "upscale" is garbage in reality. We don't need a hard to get to venue, or a snobbish wine bar. Jesus Christ let people be themselves and have a good time, I don't want to have to worry about what kind of "crowd" the place attracts. Give me cheap drinks and a place that isn't packed to the gills and I'm sold.

So the crummel school redevelopment- or lack of- has really stalled the neighborhoods come-up. The protests over the land use (of a large abandoned space that Douglas does not own) have prevented anything from moving forward there.

Everyone wants nice things that fights about redevelopment. Empower DC completely blocked anything from happening in the land site that connects ivy city to union market and the surrounding neighborhoods from the back.

Blame empower dc and the men’s only (aka sex offender) shelter they won’t close in the neighborhood, not Douglas development.

The shelter is mens only because it is located far from schools- aka sex offender central.

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His use of “homeless” as a noun is dehumanizing. Overall his l updated response to his original statement isn’t improving their image.

I went to one show there about 1 year ago and there were less than a dozen people attending.

I went to two shows there and the service was awful. Servers not coming to the table, not getting items ordered through the app when they switched to that. Totally chaotic. The huge dining room was mostly empty both times I was there. Their issues are definitely beyond just “crime in the neighborhood”

 >“We’re a pretty woke, cool music company and that is part of why I wanted to be in Ivy City. "

Groan.

I can agree to some extent, for places that needed a larger but more affordable footprint like that gin distillery, fish market, and well the winery. But in terms of more regular sized places, there are other retail location options.

What is this nonsense about needing “community outreach”? Are these children that need coddling

This place was hard to access without a car. I went to one show there in 2019. I figured out a route using the metro and CaBi. Worst bike ride I've ever had in DC. Granted, I wasn't familiar with the area, so roads that seemed okay on a map were different with cars present. I was happy to make it there in one piece. I ubered it after the show, instead of dealing with the bike and metro again. Had I ever gone back, I would have done a car there and back, which would have added a significant amount to the cost of a night out. It felt like they expected people to arrive by car, and I wouldn't be surprised if that ultimately killed the business when that type of customer decided to stop driving into the city when the pandemic "ended."

Then why is anything else open? There is a crime problem. There has never not been a crime problem. There is never not gonna be a crime problem. Business in the city is always gonna be the best long term option. When you open a business you gotta be able to perservere through it and stick around long enough to see it get better. Kinda how everyone that tucked tail in the 80s left collective hundreds of trillions on the table.

It's a pretty straightforward bus ride from around the NoMA Metro stop, but then you're dealing with two legs of a trip.

The “wine”, food, and service were all awful the one time I went, really detracted from the performance I was there for. Good riddance.

> men’s only (aka sex offender)

Mixed-gender shelters that aren't specifically for families with children are uncommon. Sometimes 'family' shelters won't let the man stay with the rest of the family.

Yeesh, should these men just be put on the street? The incredible cruelty we show to the most downtrodden is hard to hear sometimes.

Edit: directed at the person calling men's shelters just "sex offenders". Also even if there are sex offenders there, they shouldn't be left to wither in the streets.

Doesn’t even have to involve that intersection. I’ve lived in the H street and NOMA areas for years and I can count the times I’ve gone to Ivy City on one hand. It’s just annoying to get to, without even the benefit of being in between me and someone I may be meeting.

Do a sex offender search and see where most of the dc sex offenders are registered. This is dramatically the largest concentration of sex offenders in the city.

Those investments likely would’ve improved the neighborhood.

As it is that area is kind of a shithole, and it’s definitely sketch especially at night.

Except the same types of places are all open around Union Market, with the perk of being metro accessible.

Large independent concert venue like the winery? -> Songbyrd

Brewery like Other Half? -> Redbear

Distillery like Republic Restoratives? -> Cotton and Reed

Michelin Star Dining like Gravitas? -> El Cielo & Masseria

Plenty of small retail shops and more food options than you can count.

There’s no real compelling reason for most people to go right past one neighborhood to get to another one that isn’t much different.

Don’t you have to walk like 4-5 blocks from the metro to the D4? That’s a pretty inconvenient bus transfer

We all knew there was more to this story. Any time somewhere tries to blame a closure on “crime”, they’re hiding other issues. (Starbucks closing stores for “crime” but really it being to prevent unions is the key example these days.)

There have been several cases in the last few years of restaurants blaming the city and/or neighborhood for their failure, and these claims are always accompanied by anguished howls from the credulous (usually heavily concentrated amongst the Popville commentariat). But in every case i can think of there was always something else going on.

and what exactly is your solution for the human beings who would be displaced if you closed that shelter?

At this point, I have a problem with anyone saying “woke”. It is a word that has lost all meaning (if it even had any in the first place).

The crummel school redevelopment would’ve improved the neighborhood.

I don’t need to have a solution for that to point out having so many Sex offenders concentrated in one place is problematic- esp in a “shelter” that kicks people out to wander during the day. Why don’t we create smaller men’s shelters and more transitional housing for them and spread them throughout the community… like Bloomingdale- oh wait you can’t bc of all the schools there. Work force training that prioritizes high risk Sex offenders because surely the most downtrodden would benefit from the leg up? Why don’t you offer space in your home to these poor lost souls?

Why does this neighborhood and the people that live there- including me at one point and not in the Douglas project in the real neighborhood- have to live in fear because of the transit and geographic isolation provides one of the only areas so many Sex offenders can actually live if they don’t have family here.

All of the development was welcome until it wasn’t exactly what empower dc wanted and now the area is losing business and resources because of neglect.

The developer did invest in the neighborhood. The government and a few private interest groups dropped the ball.

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The complete cut off to EASY public transit and lack of walkable access points is racist. DC set the area up to be a throwaway space and cut it off from resources and the rest of the growth in the surrounding areas.

That school and vacant bus lot needs to develop because it will bring more park space and the park along the back of Mt Olivet needs attention. It isn’t a place for children or adults.

Anyone arguing or downvoting me needs to spend real time there because I lived there and I am so disappointed in empower dc messing with the new project. Like can you guys start by cleaning up the park there?

Like all of the woke commentators that are fine with the crime of ivy city when it hurts the people that live there- just like the economic loss of all of the restaurants.

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I liked the wine but I think their winemaker left and it went downhill. It seemed like none of the workers wanted to be there and there was a bit of toxicity in the culture

Thanks for proving my point

Wow. My car cost me $2,500. I'm astounded you'd put yourself in a position where $10k worth of damage was possible.

The average price of a new car in the US is $48,000.

It costs pretty much the same to fix your $2500 car as mine, it’s just that yours isn’t worth it.

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