The XX Factor

What Trump’s Inauguration Night Was Like in the D.C. Neighborhood That Partied Hardest for Obama

Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street NW, Jan. 20, 2017.

Lisa Larson-Walker

When Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, U Street NW was popping. The D.C. nightlife corridor was once known as Black Broadway, a central hub of black-owned businesses and jazz clubs. It was a natural home base for the inauguration parties and spontaneous street-side celebrations of the weekend America got its first black president.

On Friday evening around 8:30 p.m., hours after the installation of President Donald J. Trump, police cars blocked the side streets leading onto U Street, leaving several blocks empty of cars or people. A motorcade drove through, sirens blaring, limousines and armored vans parading down U Street while onlookers stared in silence. Finally, someone cracked: “Go to hell, Nazi!” he yelled. It might have been Trump, or Pence, or some other new administration arrival. It didn’t matter. It felt like the new president was trolling the city, 96 percent of which voted against him, by shutting down a corridor known for black excellence and favored by his predecessor.

Pedestrians wait as a motorcade passes U St & Vermont Ave, Jan. 20 2017.

Lisa Larson-Walker

This was outside the Brixton, a bar that would be stuffed full of white, handsy, too-drunk men on any other Friday evening. So notorious is the Brixton as a symbol of gentrification and annoying bros on U Street that it’s inspired a diss track, “Burn Down the Brixton,” from a local punk outfit. If any bar could chuckle along with Trump’s “locker room talk,” it would be this one.

And yet, on Friday night, the Brixton was full of young, professional, progressive women in sparkly dresses dancing to a remix of Beyoncé’s “Formation.” They were attending the Nasty Women Ball, a private event on the second floor of the bar. Across the street at Nellie’s, a gay sports bar, bartender Kenneth Bell, 34, wore a “No Ma’am” hat in preparation for Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington. There was only one MAGA hat in the room, and it said “Make America Gay Again.” A few anti-Trump protesters walked by the window, carrying their posters home from the downtown events of the afternoon. “Ugh, let’s just go get drunk,” one said. They laughed.

Bouncers and bar patrons chat outside of The Velvet Lounge on U St NW, Jan. 20, 2017.

Lisa Larson-Walker

U Street is almost unrecognizable as the neighborhood that hosted dance parties in the street when Obama took office. In the years since then, legendary jazz joint Bohemian Caverns has closed, as has the Islander, a decades-old black-owned Caribbean restaurant. Where there was once a massive flea market patronized by almost exclusively black customers and vendors at 8th and U, there’s now a massive, multiblock condo complex with a Kit & Ace and a Warby Parker store on the ground level. When the condos were first erected, they were advertised with an enormous banner that announced “she has arrived” above a photo of a white woman in a powdered wig. It reeked of colonialism.

A poster of Barack Obama displayed in the dining room of Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street NW, Jan. 20, 2017.

Lisa Larson-Walker

Historic landmark Ben’s Chili Bowl, the only restaurant on the U Street corridor to survive the 1968 riots that erupted here following the assassination of Martin Luther King, became even more of a tourist hotspot after Obama ate there shortly before his inauguration in 2009. (Here’s a photo of the line around the block a week later.) At the time, there was a sign at the cash register saying that Bill Cosby would always eat free at the restaurant; Obama’s name was soon added. In 2009, few could have predicted how Cosby’s reputation would shrivel and burn. There’s now a mural of both men on the side of Ben’s. The proprietor hasn’t given in to pleas to paint over Cosby’s face. On Friday night, the place was half-full, mostly populated by people looking at their phones over baskets of cheese fries and chili dogs. Things usually pick up strong with a late-night crew, but around 9:30, the line didn’t make it to the door.

Progressive activist and electronic pop artist Moby DJed parties at U Street Music Hall, a literally underground dance club at 12th and U, on the weekends of both Obama’s inaugurations. This year, the club hosted DJ Ben Nicky at a party called Synthesis. It was billed as the “official inauguration afterparty” and promised to “make trance great again.” None of this seemed ironic.

Maria Fenton.

Lisa Larson-Walker

At Marvin, a bar at 14th and U named for Marvin Gaye by two brothers who have a minor restaurant empire that also includes the Brixton, Maria Fenton, 44, was drinking a glass of red wine alone. Eight years ago, she spent the night of Obama’s inauguration roaming the city. “Do you know how many old people I held and cried with? People who never thought they’d see a black president,” she said. Fenton was surprised to feel jolt of relief when Obama met his last day in office, because she believed he might be assassinated during his term. She’s disgusted by Trump, but says he’s merely a symptom of a system of deeper ills in the U.S. “It’s horrific for white women, but it’s nothing new for black women,” she said.

Two men pose for a photo holding an anti-Trump protest sign outside of Boss Burger near U & 14th St NW, Jan. 20, 2017.

Lisa Larson-Walker

Christina Cauterucci interviewing Tyone Hall outside of Boss Burger near U & 14th St NW, Jan. 20, 2017.

Lisa Larson-Walker

Tyone Hall dances with a friend outside of Boss Burger near U & 14th St NW, Jan. 20, 2017.

Lisa Larson-Walker

Just south of U on 14th Street, two young men had a boombox outside a burger shop, laughing at a friend dancing around with an “impeach” sign with a clown face on it. Tyone Hall, 19, is a Howard University student who hopes the city won’t change too much with the influx of members of the Trump administration. “To be honest, the things they say he did to those ladies, we don’t need no type of president like that,” Hall said. “He makes us [men] look bad. And he’s just racist.” One of his friends, who emigrated from Jamaica three years ago, saw a neo-Nazi get punched and hit with a stick at a protest in Dupont Circle earlier in the day. But by 10 p.m., they were goofing around, enjoying a night out. “Tonight, I’m just chilling, having fun,” Hall said.

Pierette Montone.

Lisa Larson-Walker

The protesters were a bit more serious at the Black Cat, a lovably grungy home for weirdos and local music acts. There, an anti-fascist benefit concert (punks, wipe the drool from your chins) headlined by Waxahatchee was going down. Pierette Montone, 30, was having a beer at the bar after a day of #DisruptJ20 actions. “I went down and voiced my dissent,” she said. “Roamed around the Capitol for a while, then joined up with the water protectors. And then a bunch of us broke off and took the cops on a little run.” Montone moved to Philadelphia about a year ago, but she was living in D.C. during Obama’s 2009 inauguration. She remembers listening to it on the radio with her friends and attending the inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial to see Beyoncé the night before. This inauguration, she sees friends like the Black Cat’s bartenders burying themselves in work, just trying to make it through the day. “For anyone who lived here for Obama’s inauguration, it was an enormous positive moment,” she said. “Now it’s only fear.”