A few years ago, the D.C. government was so excited to have a Major League Baseball team, Canada's Expos, move to town that it poured $700 million into the construction of a fancy new stadium along the north side of the Anacostia River in Southeast. Baseball, of course, is America's game, and the Nationals have such exciting players as, uh, Babe Ruth and Bob Feller, to bring in the money.
But as Nationals Park enters its second year, the area remains very, very empty. It's not just the team, although it wouldn't hurt if the team could actually win a game every now and then. Like everything else, it's the collapse of the real estate bubble, or more generally, the credit crisis, or more generally yet, the destruction of all American -- no, global -- wealth.
The Washington Post captures the moment in a great Sunday front-pager:
Fans approaching the ballpark along Half Street will pass an empty office building and a 35-foot-deep hole in the ground owned by Monument Realty, which has put plans on hold for shops, residences and a hotel. One block north, another office building, built by Nationals owner Theodore N. Lerner, sits vacant in search of a tenant.
Sad, but yes. The area bustles during the day, at least, as all the hip young people hang out near the new Department of Transportation building, trying to get sexy, candid pictures of Secretary Ray LaHood. There's also a great hamburger restaurant around there called Five Guys, as well as an olde sandwich shoppe, Subway.
But at night these places are empty. The entire area is empty. So many condos, or half-built condos, or even the foundations of would-be condos -- a few bars of steel jutting into the air, and rusting -- just won't sell.
Things were much better in the steroid era.
Jim Newell writes for Wonkette and IvyGate.
