It can sometimes be tough to keep up with the pace at which new bars and restaurants have been opening in DC lately. These new businesses, as anyone who’s spent a night out around town in the last five years knows, aren’t necessarily opening in the same as they would have a decade ago.
That Washington’s nightlife has changed geographically changing as more neighborhoods across the city have been redeveloped is not an alarming takeaway. In some neighborhoods on the city’s eastern side 100 percent of venues that serve the nightlife economy have opened in just the past six years. The map below shows the percent of nightlife businesses that opened after 2010, for neighborhoods with more than 10 nightlife establishments.
Looking at a more detailed timeline shows striking divides. In neighborhoods with the oldest nightlife, more than 60 percent of businesses opened before to 2007. Conversely, in Ivy City and the Union Market neighborhood, none of today’s nightlife was open prior to 2012; while Navy Yard had only one-fifth of the activity it does today. All the oldest nightlife neighborhoods, with the exception of Stanton Park, are north of downtown and west of 16th Street, Northwest. The newest are more geographically diverse, located in three of the city’s four quadrants.
