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Monday, November 23, 2009

? not happy about having a tattoo parlor in Bloomingdale ... ?

A Florida Avenue NW resident commented on what appears to be a new tattoo parlor on the unit block of Florida Avenue NW, north side:
I was wondering if anyone else has noticed the new tattoo parlor business on the unit block of Florida Avenue NW on the north side of the street. At first, it missed my attention because it opened up around Halloween and I thought the large signage was a Halloween decoration (a massive skull). For those residents who will soon be going to sea and require body identification in case they fall overboard and wash up on some distant shore, this maybe a good thing. For the rest of us, this may be a harbinger of things to come for our neighborhood. I would expect that the next business to open in that block will be a strip bar, like the ones Charlene Drew Jarvis used to allow in Ward 4 along Georgia Avenue NW (there are good political contributions involved). Perhaps these types of operations will appease those who oppose the Bloomingdale Farmers’ Market on R St. For the rest of us, who are trying to uplift and improve the neighborhood, this is yet another slap in the face."


Here is feedback from a W Street NW resident:

In reference to the tattoo parlor neighbor...when are we gonna stop bitchin about little things..we don't have a grocery store cause someone complained. We don't have a police substation cause some one complained. The reservoir site is collecting dust cause we couldn't get it together. The bandits and drug houses are flourishing in our neighborhoods and we don't complain together or enough. There are people who like tattoos and are not stuffy and realize that a neighborhood consist of different likes and dislikes that have to work together...get over it...it hasn't been bad for U st and the Strip joint hasn't done M and 18 bad either...looking at the messes we are in now, I would take Drew Jarvis over Fenty anyday..Focus boo...fix up your property and home and pay for that space ...then work with your neighborhood. Florida Ave is full of other things that need to be redirected...like folks that need jobs..so when an opportunity opens let it open it is just ink on the skin..not blood on the sidewalk or a gun in your face.

6 comments:

  1. Each of my parents told me, on separate occasions, that they were proud of me.

    Why?

    Because I never went to prison.

    Ummmm, folks? That isn't an accomplishment.

    But in Bloomingdale? Its like becoming an astronaut or something.

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  2. I have the same issue with some residents. They complained about Baraki bringing in a bad element? Are you kidding me with this?

    You're not going to go from drug den to a Pottery Barn in one step. I welcome any business to our neighborhood that's not a liquor store or mini-mart behind bullet proof glass.

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  3. I have to say that I too find the alarm over a paltry thing like a tatoo palor to be pretty unwarrented and highly unusual. Tatoos are art, and the people that get them aren't all thieves, gangsters and dregs of society. It's insulting to see such stereotyping being made of the clientel of what could be a respectable business offering a product in demand.

    For the record I'm not inked at all, but know plenty of folks that are. They're people with Master's Degrees, stable jobs, great marriages, darling kids and so on.

    Erik on 2nd

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  4. Depending on how the business keeps up its front it really shouldn't shouldn't be a problem. It's not like this is a strip club or some business teaching housewives to pole dance.
    Seriously, tattoos went mainstream when college kids and grandmas got them as their way to "rebel". Personally, I think tattoos are kind of stupid, but a parlor does not connotate (to me), a downward spiral of the hood. No, a busted window of a vacant storefront does that. The crowd I think this place will attract are hipsters coming to our "bad" neighborhood to get their tat and a side of street cred to impress the friends in Reston.

    Mari
    Truxton Circle

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  5. I would actually welcome and patronize a 'business teaching housewives to pole dance.' I went to a pole dancing class with some friends back home (in a cute nice suburb) and it was a blast and not sketchy at all. Another formerly risque thing brought around to the mainstream!

    I welcome tatoo parlor as well, although I have enough ink already, so I won't likely be a patron. So much nicer to have a fun business than an empty storefront.

    Amy
    Rhode Island Ave

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  6. people used to consider a pool hall a negative to a neighborhood too.

    times change.


    -christian, bloomingdale

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