GGW post: "Bloomingdale's 1st & T NW used to be home to part of DC's underworld"

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Bloomingdale's First and T used to be home to part of DC's underworld

by David Rotenstein   •   September 15, 2015

Last spring Jak & Company, a Washington hair salon, shut its doors after about 50 years in business, 27 of them at First and Rhode Island, NW. The salon's owner said gentrification was one reason the store was closing. Bloomingdale, Jak & Company's neighborhood, has changed a lot, and its history includes hidden ties to Washington's underworld.

Salon owner Latosha Jackson-Martin interviewed by a Fox 5 reporter April 13, 2015. Photo by the author.

                                                                    

Much of the urban change Bloomingdale has undergone is like anywhere else: early twentieth century boom times as a middle-class residential neighborhood; racial change; decline and disinvestment; and, rediscovery by new money and new people.

But for a big chunk of the 1980s and 1990s, the intersection of First and T streets NW was First Street Crew territory. The drug gang was notorious for open-air crack sales and for brazenly killing potential witnesses. And beyond the time the crew dominated, the Bloomingdale corner has long history of ties to organized crime in Washington.

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