(Editor’s Note: Earlier reports of this DCist’s loss of an arm are unfounded. It was actually our big toe.)
DCist loves Fun Street. You ask: “Where might that be?” In what seems to be an aborted late 1990s marketing rebranding attempt, F Street near the MCI Center was given a Botox injection in the form of “Fun” Street to place emphasis on the strip’s funness quotient. It never caught on, but the signs remain. Surrounding Fun Street is the East End. Or is it downtown’s east end? Or is it Chinatown or Gallery Place? Perhaps Penn Quarter has swallowed the rest of neighborhood.
For the downtown area between Mount Vernon Square and the Navy Memorial, identity crises are nothing new. The area has fallen victim to a major personality disorder. Development-wise and in terms of general buzz, the area has been on fire the past few years. The Post today carries an account of Mayor Williams’ checking out the new Gallery Place mall — and its sparkling new Aveda where the mayor accepted a “small, beribboned flask” of cologne from the store, the Post reports.)
With the new retail complex, Gallery Place itself has a well-anchored name. But walk one block from the mall, and where you are exactly is anyone’s guess.
