November 20, 2023 at 6:00 am EST
In October, a window at a supermarket on H Street NE is broken. The corridor’s challenges have been compounded by violent incidents over the past year. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) Comment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSave
The red neon sign was above the entrance and the shelves were neatly stocked with wines, whiskeys and vodkas. Sorab Dilawri was ready to open his new liquor store in that cool DC corridor known as H Street NE.
Two days before the opening in mid-September, just before dawn, burglars threw a brick through Dilawri’s window. They toppled a row of shelves, smashed $10,000 worth of red wine and increased crime that rocked the neighborhood and the city beyond.
By mid-October, a month after H Street Liquors opened, Dilawri had swept up broken glass from two other break-ins. “I’m scared for my life,” the 40-year-old owner said from behind his cash register, considering his options. “What are you going to do? Stay home?”
A decade ago, the following Years of disinvestment following the riots of 1968, H Street NE emerged as a haven full of lively cuisine and nightlife, drawing visitors from across the region. With the construction of luxury high-rises and the opening of a Whole Foods, the neighborhood became a symbol of DC’s rebirth after the city’s financial collapse in the 1990s.
But more recently, H Street’s appeal has waned as the corridor has come to reflect a more modern version of Washington — a city still recovering from the pandemic, plagued by economic uncertainty and plagued by violent crime.
The lower vistas of H Street are northeast of the U.S. Capitol, between Second Street and 15th Street northeast. They are due in part to competition from newer nightlife options at the Wharf, Navy Yard and nearby Union Market, as well as traditional replacement streets such as U Street, Adams Morgan and Georgetown.
The corridor’s challenges are also compounded by violent incidents last year that drew national attention, including attacks on a member of Congress and a staffer. At the same time, a constant stream of burglaries, robberies and stolen cars increases the collective unease. Additionally, aggressive scammers and groups of people are almost constantly seen on the sidewalks, many of whom appear disheveled, disoriented and sometimes threatening.
As October came to a close, a community group spoke out It was necessary to tell a neighborhood email list that a DC judge had released a man of no fixed address who had been arrested on H Street after he allegedly threatened two people with a machete.
“Please be vigilant,” wrote Bobby Pittman, chairman of the First District Citizens Advisory Council. (At this point, the judge had already issued a pre-trial stay away order prohibiting the suspect from being within 100 meters of the two targets.)
Surveillance video shows two burglars breaking into the H Street liquor store and overturning the shelves on Sept. 6, two days before it was scheduled to open. (Video: Sorab Dilawri)
Days later, the owners of a restaurant with locations at H Street and Dupont Circle announced they were closing. They cited an “increase in violent crime” as the reasons.
“I just finished,” Aaron McGovern said closed Brine Oyster and Seafood House on Nov. 11, said in an interview. A few months ago, he also closed Biergarten Haus, a longtime tavern on H Street. “People don’t want to come to H Street, not only because there are better options there, but also because the street is scary.”
“People don’t want to come to H Street, not only because there are better options there, but also because the street is scary.”
— Aaron McGovern, who closed two restaurants on H Street this year
At 11 p.m. on a Friday, the longest line — two dozen people — was outside the Safe House, among about 20 marijuana shops that have opened on H Street since 2021. Landlords seeking to avoid tax penalties have been willing to rent vacant storefronts to cannabis entrepreneurs, said Anwar Saleem, who keeps a list of stores as executive director of H Street Main Street, a nonprofit business advocacy group.
Saleem admitted in an interview that the flick “doesn’t feel comfortable,” a feeling he attributed to the corner drug trade, the homeless population, a pervasive smell of marijuana and other factors. His organization, he said, has spent $30,000 this year to beef up businesses’ security systems and replace windows broken during break-ins.
“You walk past people and you feel their spirit and you know it’s not right,” he said. “We want to take back the street. We need a reset. We will be a role model for the city.”
‘Boots on the ground’
While making her rounds one day, D.C. police Captain Sherrelle Williams stopped at Shop & Run, a convenience store on the corner of H and Eighth Street NE, where the front window looked like a glass spider’s web, shattered by a brick someone had thrown had thrown three months ago.
Many shelves in the store were empty. Where the chips should have been, there was nothing. The same goes for the shelves for freshly made sandwiches and donuts.
The owner, Mohammad Mohammad, stopped ordering food a few weeks ago. He breaks He terminated his lease two years early, saying he was fed up with the $5,000-a-month shoplifting losses, the $14,000-a-month rent and the marijuana dealers who too often loiter outside his door.
“Maybe tomorrow will be my last day,” Mohammad, 38, told the captain.
“Give us 30 days,” Williams said. She repeated herself twice more: “Give us 30 days.”
The captain took charge of H Street in July and needs time to get things in order. She has launched what she calls a “boots on the ground” campaign involving residents, business owners, city officials and police Officers on bikes, scooters and cruisers.
“We want to disrupt what’s happening on H Street,” she said at a recent meeting of 40 residents and business owners. At one point, she promised to have a bench removed from Eighth Street, where people hang out 24 hours a day, near real estate ads that say “You Belong Here.”
As he listened to the captain, Itay Hertz, an Israeli-born security consultant who bought a townhouse in the neighborhood in 2022, worried that the police approach was more reactive than proactive.
“They talked about taking a bank,” he said later. “What is the strategic plan?”
Hertz’s concerns deepened earlier this year when a neighbor was robbed at 8 a.m. on a Saturday while pushing his daughter in a stroller. “Take his money, his phone and his shirt off his back,” Hertz said, according to an account confirmed by the victim. In October, a man with a pipe stumbled toward Hertz’s wife, Elisabeth, insulting and threatening her as she took a lunchtime walk.
Hertz said he plans to train volunteers for a neighborhood patrol modeled after those he says exist in Israel. The aim is not to intervene, but rather to document illegal activities and alert the police. “I want to take a look at the street,” he said.
The growing sense of danger in the neighborhood is reflected in the crime data. Since January, for example, the number of violent crimes has increased from 76 to 96, or almost 25 percent compared to the same period last year. The number of stolen cars rose from 115 to 163, or 41 percent, while the number of robberies rose from 62 to 79, or 25 percent, and the number of burglaries rose from 14 to 36. Overall, crime has increased by almost 6 percent.
The rise in violent crime was greater elsewhere, including in the U Street neighborhood, where the number of incidents skyrocketed almost 84 percent in the same period. But what sets H Street apart is the public attention sparked by high-profile incidents, most recently in September when Blake Bozeman, a former Morgan State University basketball player, was fatally shot in the Cru Lounge.
A little over a year ago, Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. was shot and injured during an attempted robbery on H Street NE. In February, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) fought back at her home against an apparently deranged attacker who allegedly punched her in the face. The following month, a man stabbed an aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) during a chance late-afternoon encounter in the hallway.
“Everyone repeats the same messages over and over again,” said Adam Kelinsky, the owner of Pursuit, a wine bar on H Street NE that has been broken into five times this year. “If eight channels cover the same thing, the news is out. At some point people will say, ‘I’ve seen that eight times, that’s bad.’ I’m not going there.’”
The neighborhood’s concern was enough to attract a recent visit from Police Chief Pamela A. Smith, who walked the corridor and listened as owners of shops, bars and restaurants spoke of deserted streets and creeping fear.
“Instead of stealing a candy bar, they’re stealing the entire store,” Leon Robbins, owner of Stan’s, a longtime clothing store, told the Chief, describing a problem he said is plaguing cities across the country. “Business is terrible. Crime is terrible.”
“Instead of stealing a candy bar, they steal the entire store.”
— Leon Robbins, owner of a clothing store on H Street
Ryan Gordon, owner of the Queen Vic, a British-style pub, told the boss he was closing early because he feared for the safety of his employees when they left work late at night. “It would kill me if something happened to one of my employees,” he said.
A block away, Smith stopped at Pursuit, the wine bar, where Neal Gearhart, the manager, complained that the streets were empty after dark. “It’s crime that keeps people away,” he said.
On a recent Saturday, Gearhart told the boss, he was doing “$50 a day in sales.”
The potential of H Street
In the 1950s, H Street NE was a busy shopping district and was plagued by riots following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. By 2000, 75 percent of the storefronts were vacant and the street became known as a place to buy and use heroin.
Back then, Mayor Anthony Williams (D) capitalized on H Street’s potential and advocated zoning policies that attracted developers, investors and people like Joe Englert, a nightlife impresario who opened themed bars with quirky names like the Rock & Roll Hotel and H Street Country Club and the Palace of Wonders.
At the end of 2012, H Street ranked sixth on Forbes magazine’s list of “America’s Hottest Hipster Neighborhoods.” Four years later, after numerous delays, the city opened a $200 million streetcar system, providing free transportation along the corridor.
Dolly Vehlow and her husband, Steve Hessler, a lawyer, were among those who “accepted the dream of the H Street Promise.” They purchased three buildings, rented two more and opened Gallery O on H in 2005, where they exhibit art, host concerts and rent space for weddings and other events.
Now, when they show the gallery to people looking for a venue for an event, Vehlow said, “they look around and rave about how beautiful it is, and that’s the last we hear from them.”
She and her husband attribute the decline in interest to the poor mood in the neighborhood.
“We are dying, our business is dying and our dream is dying,” Hessler said. The couple is staying loyal to H Street for now. “If nothing changes in the next six to eight months, you’re going to hear something different,” he said.
Tony Tomelden, the owner of the Pug, an H Street watering hole and mainstay since 2007, is unwilling to make such a statement, even though his revenue — $50,000 a month a decade ago — is less than half what it is today .
On a recent evening, the pug hosted a Taylor Swift-style party, and there was the bearded owner greeting guests in a sparkly dress and blonde wig. “I have to be optimistic,” he said. “Otherwise I’ll strangle someone.”
On a recent afternoon, Dilawri bought 20 boxes of pizza and stacked them on a folding table outside his liquor store.
“FREE PIZZA,” said the board at his feet. Half an hour later he had used up his last box.
The three break-ins in his first month cost him about $18,000 in lost liquor sales and repairs, he said. After the second, he installed a buzzer to control who came into his store. Nevertheless, he thinks about how he can build neighborly relationships. Pizza was his first idea. An art exhibition is planned for December.
“This is about creating goodwill,” he said. “Show people that we mean no harm. Karma.”
“Everyone loves you!” a man shouted.
Dilawri smiled and waved.
Two days later, he swept up the glass of another broken window and filed another police report.
Story edited by Jennifer Barrios. Photo editing by Mark Miller. Editing by Melissa Ngo. Designed by Jennifer C. Reed.