Quote Originally Posted by Gofer Blue View Post
Washington DC. On a motoring holiday up the east coast of the U.S. we booked into a motel in advance over the phone. It was on a road called New York Avenue East which sounded quite grand and therefore presumably safe. When we got the key to our room we found that the door had been jemmied at some time and there was a flimsy metal plate over the gap. Looking at the neighbouring rooms we found they were all the same so no point in asking for a different room. Thankfully the night passed without incident. The following morning we walked to the nearest underground station to travel into the city to do the sightseeing stuff. This was scary, like a scene from a film. There were small groups of lads sitting on the steps of practically every house watching us intently as we walked down their street. Clearly we were tourists with our backpacks. We were too nervous to go back that way after dark so we got a taxi - the driver could not believe that we had walked where we had walked, even in daylight!

I’ve been driving up NY Ave E most Monday’s for the last 11 years or so to get to a meeting in Maryland.
I used to hate a couple of intersections when the lights turned red.

It used to be very sketchy
Lots of that area has been gentrified
Still preferred it to driving on The Beltway.

Apart from NW DC, the rest of the City used to be bad. Now a lot of the bad parts like Anacostia and The U-St Corridor has been gentrified somewhat and packed full of Hipster/Yuppies.

Still dodgy AF in some areas, but not as bad as it was.

Much of Baltimore is way worse.
Stray a few blocks from Camden Yards or The Harbour and it gets very real very quickly.