Whose H Street Is It, Anyway?

Ravaged by the 1968 riots, H Street -- a strip stretching from Third Street to Bladensburg Road -- is still largely defined by boarded-up storefronts, tattered carryout joints and discount stores, by weekend street preachers and panhandlers loitering on corners.

But on the western end, just past Union Station, the developer who helped remake Logan Circle is building Senate Square, a 480-unit condominium complex. At the eastern end, the Atlas Performing Arts Center opened last year with a dance school, near the H Street Playhouse and Humphries's sleek new bar, where the orange-tinged "Dean Martini" costs $10.

Joe Englert, who owns three nightspots on Capitol Hill, hopes to have opened seven more by summer's end on H Street -- places with names like the Rock N Roll Hotel, the Beehive and the Palace of Wonders, where servers will dish popcorn and cotton candy while sword swallowers entertain.

Eventually, trolley cars will roll along H Street after the District lays tracks, fixes sidewalks and plants trees. Until then, Englert said, he will run shuttle buses to bring bar patrons from Capitol Hill and Union Station.

Musing about his vision for H Street, Englert said: "I love Georgetown. What could be better than walking your dog and knowing there are thousands of people around? To me, that's heaven."

Some longtime residents agree.

They say new condominiums will raise property values. For 25 years, Hezekiah Efferson, 83, has sold liquor and takeout orders of turkey wings, neck bones and macaroni he cooks on a hot plate in the back of his 13th Street store, behind a wall of security glass.

Now, he daydreams about opening a restaurant to serve the audiences leaving the Atlas. The neighborhood is changing, he said, "and I want to change with it."

Others fret about fitting in.

The Men's Fashion Center has served a black clientele since Murray Goldkind opened it in 1952. His son, Jerry, owns the store now, and he wonders if he will have to eventually cater to whites moving into the neighborhood.

"I've lost a lot of my base of customers," he said, standing beneath a poster of Elvin Hayes playing for the Bullets, circa 1978. "In 10 years, it will be a whole new area."

As investors have discovered the neighborhood, the ANC has pushed for revitalization and pressed for more police enforcement and a crackdown on public drinking.