I’m a Jersey kid. *he gleams*
I may have told you this a few times [slash] every time I could. And, quite to the contrary, the following is not NJ:
We are also not the “armpit of America” or “where New Yorkers go to urinate” or “what happens when land developers get bored…” But this post is not about Jersey. This is about adjusting to DC.
I have never lived in NY, but since this view is 20 minutes from the house in which I grew up in Jersey
… you can understand why I have a NY state of mind.
This newyorcentrism has been a problem for me, for a long time. I first moved to DC in the fall of 2000 for college. It’s now 2009 and I still don’t always think of myself as a resident here. Let me emphasize that nonsense. I am 26. I have lived in DC for most of the last 8.5 years. That is one third of my life. Yet, it has never felt like home.
So why the discord?
This is where it gets fuzzy. I don’t want to be the guy that makes everyone who is from and/or loves DC roll their eyes in disgust. I’ve been that guy – the hater. I’m molting now, though. This post is shed skin. But I first have to tell you why I’ve struggled.
1. The Metro. It’s clean. Its rules leave it without… personality, but the colors are easy and the no eating thing is a dream. In NY, it’s the Subway. It runs. Period. 24 hours a day. Period. In DC? The Metro may never have seen 4 am in its life; not even on the weekends. During the week, it shuts down before late night TV even starts. This baffles me, still. I’m not used to a major city giving up on transportation not too long after darkness falls.
2. I can’t find cabs or cab drivers. Somewhat ironically, I live on New York Avenue. For those who don’t know this city, it’s easily one of the top 5 most traveled roads in DC. It’s city-wide and also Route 50. It’s a route. But if I stepped out of my house at any time of day or night, my chances of catching a cab within minutes is about as likely as a cab driver not asking me how to get where I’m going; not how I want to go (my preferred route), but in search of directions. Directional awareness is an element of the cab driver job description. But assuming it’s not, this city is a grid. If I say, “5th and K,” damnit: count to 5 and sing the alphabet song. I dare you, readers: go to NYC, jump in a cab (that will probably accept payment by card and have a TV console showing you traffic and weather) and find a cabbie that can’t find Central Park. I dare you. But here in DC, I once asked to get to the Mall, clarified that I meant the National Mall,* and dude just gave up around D and 4th. Think about it this way. Let’s say you go to a restaurant and order a steak. The server asks how you’d like it prepared. You say, “Medium.” If the server returns in a few moments and says the kitchen needs to know at what temperature you’d like them to attempt preparing it “medium,” do you head for the door?
3. “Open late” meets “closing early.” DC neighborhoods are different from the small Jersey town I grew up in. It’s a government town. So, certain neighborhoods are completely commercially-isolated. In some (including mine), you get your mail by wishing upon a star and food delivery doesn’t come unless it’s not something you’re proud to eat. Case in point: I used to be able to get awesome burgers delivered in small town Jersey. Here? This is what I’ve been able to find. It came from George’s (a Chinese-American *ahem* “fusion” restaurant)**
Also, walking out of the house at 2 am to get a pint of ice cream is either a death wish or a three hour tour. Corner stores here steel-bolt their doors by 8. This is not neighborhood-specific. Sorry, but no good ice cream craving happens before 11.
4. Where are the diners? Jersey diners are legendary, and rightfully so. Adams Morgan: this, is not a diner. Florida Avenue Grill is ok, but it’s just not the same. I want a 24 hour diner that can stack pancakes to the ceiling, has fresh pie behind some glass… thing and prefers you seat yourself. I want hearty omelettes after drinking too much and gumball machines in the entryway. And I want to have to remember to bring quarters to play oldies in the small jukebox at my table.
5. Snowmania. As all DCers know, all it takes is one snowflake to shut down the government. No seriously: the government shuts down. We are at our most vulnerable point as a nation when the Weather Channel predicts flurries.
These are a few of my least favorite things.
But I don’t think in extremes about DC. Example 1: I don’t think it can’t feed me. The idea that someone can’t find at least a solid dozen restaurants in this city at which to become a regular is absurd. DC is not restaurant-less. There’s a lot of creativity here. Example 2: there was that one great cab driver last week. Example 3: there’s a 24 hour CVS in Dupont Circle (I’ve seen ice cream in its freezers). Example 4: when we got that big snow in 2003, and Pennsylvania Avenue was abandoned under a foot of it, we ran up and down one of the most powerful streets in the world like heavy-legged goofs.
See? And I didn’t even mention how much I love U St., or Little Fountain Cafe, or that tree-lined walk down New Hampshire Avenue as you near Dupont in the fall, or Screen on the Green during the summer while drinking wine we smuggled in via juice cartons, or watching a movie from the balcony at The Uptown…
The adjustment to DC, for me, has been not about its places but its attitude, its feel. There is just such great pace where I grew up. Everything moves; it’s like watching an ecosystem on Planet Earth. And it’s not that everything slowed to a crawl when I got here; nor is it that DC is trying to be like NY and fails, as if they’re running the same race but DC is getting lapped. It’s a completely different run. What I like about this city most is that it doesn’t threaten to overwhelm anyone. It can’t. It’s probably about 100 blocks wide, east to west. It’s perfectly customizable. To a large extent, I can make this city what I want it to be when I want. I just may have to turn a stone or two.
This concept was way too slippery for me to grasp until last fall. Until last fall, all of my placement in DC had seemed transient. I was a student all those years, thinking my permanent address was miles away. But I’m here now. I’m registered and I voted. I’ve graduated at GW for the last time (probably) and I’m willing to try what I’ve ignored.
—
*Non-DCers: the National Mall is the biggest green patch we have in the city. It’s what they put two million people on to watch the inauguration in January. It is flanked by the Washington Monument and the Capitol building.
**They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That burger needs one: FAIL.
Oh, how I LOVE the diners in jersey. I mean, it’s pretty difficult to find a bad one.
Such good, straightforward food.
I hate it when cab drovers ask me for directions. I am directionally challenged. It is their job to get me there, dang it.
A friend in college–we went to GW–used to say he was going to make his millions opening a branch of IHOP or Cracker Barrell on campus. We were always incredibly desperate at 2.30 am.
Millions. As I was leaving undergrad, someone started a little courier service that delivered small items like juice or chips to dorm rooms. I always expected it was a fix and I’d be robbed, though. So I never tried it.
This is a great post. I like how you list the things you don’t like, as well as the things you do. (There must be SOMETHING you like about this area to have kept you here for so long, right?)
There are many somethings. I’ve just been insisting there are better somethings in other places. I’ve needed to stop the comparisons for a while.
Okay but seriously….what’s going on with that burger?
Man…
The saddest piece of “meat” I’ve ever seen. Sad.
I lived in New England for more than 10 years before I finally gave up my NY drivers license and voter registration. NY is not just where I am from it is part of who I am..and nothing in the world beats breakfast at 3am at your local diner after the bar has closed and before you want to face going home.
It’s the best kind of familiar. Maybe I should open a diner here.
I’ve lived in South Dakota for four years now, and I think this is where I fit. I lived in Des Moines, Iowa for 12 years and never fit. NC for a year? That was NOT me. There IS a fit and I think you’ve found it – even though there’s still some things worth fixing.
I’m beginning to realize how arrogant it was to think there should be an entire city that bends its character to my whims. That said, cab drivers: come on.
I love DC but I haven’t LIVED in DC…yet (Keep fingers crossed for May). I spent the first 10 years of my life in Istanbul…Think NY but with hills…I love the city life and I love a city that never sleeps. I’m waiting till I actually live in the city before I make any judgments but I also know that I can’t wait for the opportunity to live in NY where I’ll be as close to home as I can be without actually being in Turkey.
Great post
Thanks. I want the “never sleeping” thing, too. Not that I’m always awake… I just like to think that the city I’m in never sleeps before I do. It can even just be an illusion.
Why can’t we ever get food delivered without a side of disappointment? If I remember correctly, that burger was accompanied by an order of “cheese fries”, consisting of frozen crinkle fries topped with a single slice of american cheese.
Because disappointment makes us salty? And we like salty things?
What’s the difference between Jersey girls and trash?
Trash gets picked up.
don’t hate on me… I was told that joke by a jersey girl.
No hate. Smiles, but no hate. Jersey girls do shots of awesomeness for breakfast.
The picture at the top of so-called Jersey guys? I *know* it doesn’t hold true across the board, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen most of them when I’ve been down the shore in the summer. Yes, “down the shore.” I’m from Philly.
That’s the beauty of so many stereotypes: they had to start somewhere. I could go back right now and find those kids. They make me afraid to open a yearbook.
Oh, hon. I could have warned you about George’s. That stuff is TOXIC.
I guess because I grew up in a suburb, but I already kinda feel like DC is my home (after a year and a half). It’d be different if I grew up across the Charles from Boston rather than 45 mins away, I suppose. I get that.
We were in NY all the time, for one reason or another. I could get from my front door to Broadway in 25 minutes. And when we weren’t in NY, the feel of the city was chasing us back to Jersey anyway. Inescapable.
It’s hard to adjust to a city when you so closely identify with your hometown. I moved to Hamilton, a crumbling city an hour from Toronto, ten years ago and I kicked and screamed all the way there. Ten years later, though, I’ve grown to love its rotten little heart. DC sounds interesting. I nearly took an impromptu road trip to Washington to attend the Let Gaza Live rally.
If I’m any example… not to discount genuine dislike for any place, but I think a lot of the critical things transplants say about their present location is nostalgia for a past that could be better expressed. But you should come to DC; there’s always a rally, and often you can find one full of really smart people.
Bro, two things:
1) They have public transportation. Florida does not. Fuck Miami, they have no clue. But I feel you on the, you have to leave the bar by 1am to catch the train back to Vienna. Seriously.
2) All the cabbies are chillin in Georgetown. They are all sketchy too.
Since I am about to become a transplant to DC, I’m excited to find new places. Maybe turning over the rock would be good for you?
*Awesome poster btw.
I’ve been rock-turning for months now. I’ll still be at it when you get here, definitely.
When/if you move from DC, you’ll probably become SUPER nostalgic about your time there. I’ve moved from city to city every other year (on average) since I turned 18. I found myself daydreaming for even the really bad places after I had left.
But I’ll always miss my hometown in Iowa most of all. I think it’s a fact of home, unless you had a miserable childhood.
I know. At this point, I’ve been here so long that once the switch actually flips, it’ll probably break off and I won’t know what to do with myself anywhere else.
A) That burger is a crime against bovines everywhere. Also against humanity & their taste buds. And I don’t even eat burgers.
B) Woodley Cafe in Woodley Park gets a bad rap because Open City, the holy grail of pseudo-diners for those unwilling to travel far enough off the Metro to get to The Diner, is right across the street – but it’s greasy & sort of gross in a mostly glorious way. I’m not claiming that it’s what you want, but it’s a nice little start.
C) How come Pentagon Row is a Mall and the National Mall is a government entity? Shit’s all backwards here.
It’s politics. And irony. Together they keep constituents and tourists at bay.
“Going out for ice cream at 2am is either a death wish or a three hour tour.” Ha!
Even though I pretend I want to, “There is just such great pace where I grew up. Everything moves; it’s like watching an ecosystem on Planet Earth” is why I will never be able to move out of NY.
One day, I’d actually love to live in NY. I’d been so close for so long…
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