Local construction workers are enjoying a wave of new hiring thanks to a couple colossal downtown construction projects — CityCenter DC and the Marriott Marquis convention center hotel — as well as a boom of apartment construction along 14th Street Northwest.
According to a report in the neighborhood newspaper the Northwest Current last week, however, those workers may be spending part of their paychecks on some illicit entertainment.
The Metropolitan Police Department made 11 prostitution arrests in August near some of the construction sites, in the area between 10 and 12th streets between M and N, according to the Current report (see p. 2), after making 10 arrests in July. Of the 11 August arrests, four were men and seven were women.
According to the Current, police lieutenant Jeffery Carroll told residents at a neighborhood meeting in Logan Circle earlier this month that the jump in prostitution may be related to the surge in construction activity and increase in construction workers in the neighborhood.
Carroll told residents that prostitution activity typically takes place between midnight and 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. The recent surge has come between 3:30 and 7:30 a.m. or else at around 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon, which police say could correlate to changes in construction shifts.
Prostitution had been a problem in the neighborhood for years, dating to the 1970s. But it didn’t return until recently.
“Historically, that area did have prostitution, but over the past few years it’s kind of died off,” Carroll told the group, according to the Current. “For some reason this year, prostitution has come back with a vengeance.”
Follow Jonathan O’Connell on Twitter: @oconnellpostbiz
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