WP on H Street NE

Yesterday's Post has a story on H Street northeast, focusing on the frustrations and hopes of the street's small business owners. A number of businesses have opened on H St. over the last few years, including bars, sandwich shops, coffee shops, gyms, and yoga studios -- "the same sort of attractions that drew young people to Adams Morgan when Georgetown grew too expensive for many of them." But prolonged, massive construction up and down the street has created major traffic and parking problems, hurting many businesses.

According to the Post, within a year "a proper boulevard is to emerge from the construction cocoon, with wide sidewalks, granite curbs, freshly paved traffic lanes and new landscaping. Tracks are being laid for six trolleys, expected to arrive in 2012, that will run from near Union Station to Benning Road and Oklahoma Avenue, in the shadow of RFK Stadium." Until that happens, most business owners seem optimistic:

There seems to be a consensus among the merchants of H Street that if they can weather the disruption, they will emerge with something a bit closer to an urban utopia than recent history has allowed.

They see the best of upscale Capitol Hill to the south merging with the middle-class sensibilities of the Trinidad neighborhood to the north, blending in the ethnic and cultural diversity of Adams Morgan but with the fabric of community woven in a tighter knit.

If that seems a rose-colored hope, there is abundant evidence that it is more than a possibility. Plans to revitalize H Street from Third to 14th streets have been discussed for years, and city planners long ago envisioned that the Capitol Hill populace would creep north to H Street. The new businesses, wedged between empty storefronts and carryout joints where a wall of protective plexiglass separates patrons from workers, reflect that the anticipated migration has occurred. So does a short stroll south on any of the numbered streets that intersect with H.

Read the full article here.