Do as the Pet Shop Boys Say: “Go West”
One of the great things about living in a metropolitan area is the life around your home. Living in Cherrydale – one of the more northern communities in North Arlington – provides me with a lot of culture, and walking distance to two Starbucks that the community folks infiltrate Saturday and Sunday mornings to read the paper, discuss local news, and catch up – whether they’ve met before or not.
The word “community” doesn’t just refer to condo buildings or a housing association. Community is what people who have common interests (be it living in the same area) enter into based on those interests. To have community is important, and something that I look for when I look for a place to live.
There are pockets in this city however that don’t, one being the West End – that part of town in between the Farragut areas and Georgetown. I work just east of the West End, but even we can go only one direction for shopping, restaurants, and entertainment. It’s unfortunate that in an area with a wealth of diversity in housing and possible tenants (from students to diplomats to workaholic 20- and 30-somethings to wannabe Georgetown-ers) that there is so little in the way of retail and entertainment. As our own friend says, he didn’t take a job specifically because of its location in the West End at 25th and N.
That’s a sad statement for a neighborhood with such potential – hopefully with some of the new initiatives, we’ll see change.
It is kind of a strange neighborhood, but it’s a heck of a lot better than it was 10 years ago before the Ritz, several new apartment buildings, etc!
Still, its a cultural desert. Name one reason you would go to the West End?
For me, the only reason I know it exists is the public pool at 25th and N. That and the previously mentioned job offer at 24th and N I turned down.
The big problem, IMHO: No street level retail.