The Ghetto Revitalized: Washington Ave between 5th & 8th (UPDATED)
We all know about Washington Ave between 5th and 8th street: you just don't go there. You're going to get shanked, shot, beat up or wrongfully arrested as a suspected drug dealer. While Lackner likes to spend his Sunday nights in the alleys instigating knife fights, the rest of us sane people have avoided that stretch like the plague. And for good reason, the place had degenerated into an under 18 hoodlums paradise awash with spanglish gangeros and chongas.
It wasn't always like that, back in the early days through the early and mid 90's that stretch was the place to be and be seen. But like everyone knows in this industry, times change quickly. Washington between 5th and 8th quickly took a nose dive. Crappy club owners took over once prestigious establishments like The Living Room and Bash and effectively turned the strip into a cornucopia of thugs and cornrolls. South Beach magnate Gerry Kelly makes a pointed observation in the article with this comment:
"It was a gradual decline from 1996 onward -- you could just see it," he says. 'There was a huge influx of people that came to South Beach and saw all the models, all the success of Bash and others, and one year later a lot of people said, 'Owning a club is the next best thing to being a rock star,' so you had a lot of inexperienced nightclub operators...who didn't share the same dress code or the same marketing values."
But things are beginning to change in the area as those old, god forsaken venues (Club Deep, Troy, Goddess, Templo, etc, etc) are beginning to close down and new more intelligent business owners are beginning to move in. Venues like Dek23, Gem, The Angler's Hotel, Heathrow UK Lounge are starting to turn the strip around. We're still not at the point we were during the heyday, but at the very least that part of the strip is walkable again between the hours of 10pm-5am. I personally wasn't old enough to experience the 1990's decade of glam but it seems a new era of club owners wants to bring this dilapidated stretch back to life and they seem committed to bringing us club goers a new and safe area to stumble our liquor laden selves around in, without the threat of a wild Lackner jumping out from behind a parked Vespa wielding his rusty Army surplus store knife.
UPDATE: Reader Nathan Bliss left comments regarding this area in a previous post about Bella Rose which sheds more light on this Christmas like miracle revitalization of Washington Ave between 5th and 8th street:The seedy area u referred to between 5th and 8th has dramatically improved over the past year. The completion of the street construction project along with the opening of the new Anglers Resort (which is rivaling Prime 112 as the to be seen Saturday night Restaurant) has dramatically improved the area. I remember when I couldn't walk down the street at night with my wife without being harassed. It is nothing like that anymore and there are some decent clubs in that area that are worthwhile checking out, including the new Ora Ultra Lounge (formerly Ink) and Gem Nightclub. Also, a new club is opening up in the space formerly occupied by Goddess and being operated by some South Beach heavy hitters. History shows that hot areas in South Beach change over the years and this little area is heating up again.
