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On Friday, desperate, cash-strapped retailers are hoping you'll show up and buy things (at huge markdowns!1!!!1!). It's a national shopping day so special that it has a name and even a web site. Here in D.C., we don't have a ton of destination shopping centers, but we do have a big one that wasn't open this time last year: the DCUSA complex in Columbia Heights. For those of you planning on heading to Target or Marshalls on Friday, DCUSA, the MPD, ANC 1A, WMATA, and Ward 1 D.C. Council member Jim Graham all have your back.
In a series of messages to the Columbia Heights email list on Friday, Graham reported that Metro would be opening one hour early, at 4 a.m., to accommodate shoppers, and ANC 1A Vice Chair Anne Theisen passed along word from the MPD about ...
... "the deployment of 30 police officers to the area that day (11/28), the temporary installation of portable toilets (although the exact location was not shared), and street performers to keep waiting shoppers occupied until they could get into the stores, which will be opening early that morning.Street performers? We can't wait to see what kind of performances we'll be treated to at 4 a.m. on 14th Street NW. Fingers crossed for mimes! And naturally for the sake of the national economy, we're also hoping for something like this.DC/USA is expecting people to sleep over Thanksgiving night and anticipates seeing lines that go around the block by the following morning."
For more on the special Metro hours on Friday, click here. In addition to the 4 a.m. opening time on Friday, note that Metro will operate on a Sunday schedule on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 27, from 7 a.m. to midnight.
Photo by mindgutter
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I only hope they have enough toilet paper.
blittle: there's a "turn her over" joke somewhere in there
OH COME THE FUCK ON!!
Shopping on Black Friday has always been a question of "Do I want awesome prices on choice items, or do I want my dignity?"
Usually, it's dignity that loses. Every damn holiday season. Why can't Hannukah be earlier than this abortion of a holiday?
I'm pretty damn skeptical that anyone will be sleeping overnight outside DC-USA.
Awesome photo, though.
Alexalexalex, I'm sure a few people will be sleeping overnight outside DC-USA, but they won't be shoppers.
I would not wander Columbia Frights before the sun was up so, sad to say, the nightmare mall of DCUSA is out of bounds for me this black friday morning.
EinDC, you must be referring to people who had one too many at "Logan@The Heights"
Having the Metro open an hour earlier is going to cost the District $27,000...I doubt we'll make that up in the extra hour of sales tax... good going Grahamstander, as if the District doesn't have enough financial problems.
How about just making the effing escalators at Columbia heights *work*
I hope no one shows up because everyone is broke. The condos are shuttered and abandonded. I hope the whole DCUSA complex goes out of business and becomes a dark shell covered in graffiti and occupied by junkies and street gangs. I envision darkness, newspapers blowing, a flickering street lamp with some anonymous regional sales rep hanging by a noose from it, forgotten. Merry fucking christmas.
I'm from London and spent my first Thanksgiving in DC last year. I was amazed - and strangely seduced - by the crazy advertising around Black Friday. I was persuading my hosts that we should drive to some mega mall and buy cheap things regardless of whether we needed them or not. They threatened to throw me out onto the street.
carn
Yes, it would be just great if the economy got worse and crime in DC went up. I hate big-box retailers as much as the next guy, but stop being a douche about it.
@twinkiestar - amen to that. Try navigating the metro with a buggy
@carn - it's shopping, have a deep fried pumpkin pie and relax
run_for_the_hills:
Someday when im the head of football-padded biker gang like in the road warrior you'll change your tune... oh yes..