Above: Barack Obama and DC Mayor Adrian Fenty (right)
pick up their lunches at Ben’s Chili Bowl on January 10.
(Getty Images)

The Wall Street Journal

A Neighborhood to Explore
By JUNE KRONHOLZ
JANUARY 16, 2009

Before there was Harlem, there was U Street — the nerve center of Washington’s black community, alive with music, theater and African-American-owned businesses, churches and social institutions. Until Harlem surpassed it in the 1920s, U Street was the largest African-American community in the U.S. Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and especially Duke Ellington made regular stops.

Years of neglect and the 1968 riots undercut that rich history until U Street began its recovery a decade ago. Now, U Street’s Art Deco hotels have been converted into high-priced condos. A Metro stop delivers visitors to shopping and an emerging gallery scene. Busboys and Poets (A), a literary café named for Langston Hughes, who began his poetry career while busing tables nearby, is a favorite among visiting celebrities and locals alike.

Ben’s Chili Bowl (B), which continued to dish up its famed half-smoke sausages throughout the worst of the urban decline, now competes with Ethiopian diners like Dukem and upscale restaurants like Station 9, Crème and Tabaq Bistro. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.