[Alas Babylon!]

Yup. I was stationed at Bolling AFB in the 80’s. Used to go to the Mac-Donalds on Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X avenues up by St. Elizabeth’s mental hospital, sometimes at night.

Even the street names said you were in the wrong part of town.

I used to work part time at night out on 14th Street at the VA. Took Metro back and forth from the Pentagon, up to 11:00P PM.

Nothing ever happened to me. Guess I was lucky, or it was a different era back then.

[Jonty30]

I suspect the amount, and types, of drugs being consumed has a lot to do with the sharp increase of black crime. Prior to 1980, only a relative few went harder than marijuana, at the very least, because the other stuff was just to expensive.

Than came crack, and other cheap but highly addictive drugs. My experience, through observation, is that drugs are at the root of probably 90% of all crime.

[central_va]

I was in the Navy Reserves at the Navy Yard. We had to go out to lunch in platoons if we were going to make the short walk to 8th street under the SW freeway. The whole area outside the Yard was flattened when the new stadium was built. Good riddance.

I was in Lebanon and Israel during the 1983 war. I felt safer there than in DC.