Random MOCO Pic of the Day--a Jaunt to H Street NE

We went to H Street NE for dinner on Saturday night with some friends.  In a lot of ways it feels like a flatter Adams Morgan--lots of bars without the hill to climb.  But, unlike Adams Morgan H Street has an old school art deco theater that's been revamped--the gorgeous Atlas Theater.  I snapped this picture on Saturday night.  

For newbies to the region, H Street was the site of intense rioting after the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior in 1968.  Things got so bad in DC that Lyndon B. Johnson sent the National Guard into the streets.  The Atlas managed to survive the chaos, but as the picture* below of a guardsman holding an M19 rifle at the corner of H and 7th Streets demonstrates, there was plenty of destruction to go around.

 Although the suburban exodus from DC began soon after the end of World War II, the riots hastened the decline in neighborhoods like H Street and U Street (also the site of intense rioting).  H Street was never without its charms, however.  The picture** below was taken in 2010 before gentrification hit the area like a ton of bricks.

* Photographer Unknown.  Warren K. Leffler / Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-04301
** Carol M. Highsmith.  Warren K. Leffler/ Library of Congress, LC-DIG-highsm-09816