The MetroPCS store at the corner of Florida Avenue and 7th Street, Northwest, in Shaw occupies a cherished place in recent DC history. It also now occupies a different part of the building, because a medical cannabis dispensary called the Crank Corner took over its most prominent retail space.
The cell-phone shop inadvertently helped kick off the #DontMuteDC movement in 2019 when an apparent complaint from a new apartment and retail complex nearby forced it to silence the go-go music it has played on outdoor speakers since it opened in 1995. The insult to DC’s native music, which echoed years of frustration about gentrification in the District, inspired the Moechella concerts at 14th and U streets and helped cement go-go’s status as the city’s official music. After the blowback, T-Mobile, which owns MetroPCS, announced that the store’s music could crank on.
But “nobody shops in the stores anymore,” says Mohamed, the manager of the Crank Corner who has managed at both businesses since the shop was branded for Boost Mobile years ago. (He declined to give his last name.) During the pandemic, Mohamed says, management opened a cannabis “gifting” shop as a separate business with a discrete retail space accessed by another door behind the main shop. When DC mandated an end to gifting, ordering shops to become medical dispensaries but making medical cards easy to get, the Crank Corner pursued a medical license. It reopened this spring and took over the main space, Mohamed says.
A wall behind the compact shop’s counter displays reproductions of classic wood-type posters for go-go shows, while the cases offer various strains of flower, smoking accessories, and products like edibles and pre-rolled joints. A mural on another wall shows illustrations of Marion Barry, Chuck Brown, and Fat Rodney alongside other signifiers of local culture like wings with mumbo sauce and New Balance sneakers.
The shop’s biggest seller is flower, Mohamed says, though he laments that profit margins are tight and wholesale prices are high. The store’s website instructs potential patrons how to get a DC medical card, and they can also get one by scanning a QR code in the shop’s vestibule. Now that the shop is at the front of the building, it’s seeing a lot more foot traffic, Mohamed says. He stresses that the MetroPCS store operates separately from the Crank Corner, whose location does not put the dispensary in charge of the music that still blares from the speakers during work hours. “They still control it,” he says of the cell-phone shop’s tunes.Â
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
