Beyond Description

The Not for Tourists guide isn’t just about dive bars. “We’re on top of the changing dynamics all across the city,” the 2007 D.C.-area edition reads, “and even in some of the suburbs.”

True? Decide for yourself—see how many local areas can you name based on these excerpts from NFT’s descriptions. The choices are Clarendon, Columbia Pike (no, not Columbia Heights), Del Ray, Kensington, Logan Circle/U Street, Southeast/Anacostia, Tenleytown/Friendship Heights, and Trinidad:

1. “To quote your mother, lock your car doors.”
2. It’s “one of the last affordable neighborhoods in the city, and, unfortunately, it still shows.”
3. It’s a “self-absorbed but not overly snobbish neighborhood….”
4. “This area proves you can live inside the city and still enjoy as bland as an existence as any other God-fearing American suburb.”
5. “If you’re young and like to play into the morning’s wee hours, this is the place for you.”
6. “A microcosm of America itself, here you’ll find snapshots of life ranging from urban decay to disturbin’ decadence, with a splash of semi-suburban simplicity a stone’s skip away.…”
7. “A better name would be Boom Town. Ribbons are cut on new restaurants and loft buildings all the time here, where the march of gentrification has slammed into a deep-rooted arts scene.”
8. “You might as well be on location at a Smith & Hawken catalog shoot.”

Read on to see if you’re right.

1. Columbia Pike
2. Trinidad
3. Del Ray
4. Tenleytown/Friendship Heights
5. Clarendon
6. Southeast/Anacostia
7. Logan Circle/U Street
8. Kensington

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Books, Neighborhoods. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.