Winston's is part of the cluster of bars in the 3200 block of M Street, which includes Crazy Horse, Desperados, Beneath It All and Paul Mall.
"My dog's better'n that," replied Costner. "Now that's a babe," he said, pointing to a picture of a blond.
"Wally, you can punch me in the face five times and I'd still look better than you," said a tall, lanky fellow as he pulled out his wallet. "Now which one of y'all is going to tell me that's her?" Costner yelled to a group of giggling girls, as he examined a fake I.D. Outside Winston's rock 'n' roll cave, jean-clad youths wait impatiently to show identification to bouncer Wally Costner, whose 21 years of living are distributed through a 6-foot-5, 240-pound frame. On M Street, in the recently opened disco called The Library, patrons from Potomac and other affluent suburbs gyrate under strobe lights and ignore the books lining the walls. You can meet a lot of women if you want but I got a girl back home." Del Grande, sporting a high-and-tight haircut, said in confidential tones, "I'll tell you what. "It's a very loose, relaxed place," said Rick Del Grande, 23, who lives in the Marine barracks at Eighth and I streets SE. Marines, who invade Georgetown on Saturday nights, also frequent Annie Oakley's, with its mirrored dance floor and patrons in cowboy hats. At Annie Oakley's Wild West Bar, Virginians like Susie Plundeke, 19, arrive every weekend ("if we can find a car") to drink beer, play pool, meet people and talk, despite the pulsating sound system. In Blues Alley and Charlie's, jazz-lovers sip drinks and converse in muted tones. At Commander Salamander, punk rockers in concentration camp coiffures gobble up New Wave merchandise just like the middle-class consumers they disdain. There are out-of-town families trying to decide where to eat: "But I don't want steak" went the refrain recently outside Dino's Steakhouse. The action stops only after 2 a.m., when serving liquor is forbidden, and the streets slowly empty as people try to remember where they parked.īefore the dawn reclaims the streets, there are myriad human sights and sounds, often in stark contrast. Department of Transportation estimates about 10,000 cars and 6,000 pedestrians travel through the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street. More than 100 businesses in the area serve liquor.
Georgetown dc gay bars free#
"We want to be free to live as a community and not some kind of glorified freak show," said Paul Chadwell, a resident of Potomac Street NW, who, like many Georgetowners, says he is fed up with the traffic, noise and vandalism that are the byproducts of nearby discos.Īlthough many Georgetown merchants say this is the worst summer for business they have seen in years, one bartender in a popular nightclub said it can gross $10,000 on a Saturday night. Scott's, the Georgetown Club, Charlie's Georgetown, Chinoiserie and Blues Alley, which are protected from the masses by understated facades and locations off the well-trodden Wisconsin-and-M pathway.īut to the chronic dismay of some Georgetown residents, the streets and a circuit of popular nightclubs are a commercial everyman's land. For more discriminating tastes, there are establishments like the Pisces Club, F. They chat, window-shop, kiss under the Whitehurst Freeway, throw change to street musicians, carry vendors' red roses, sit on cars and play the radio (sun roofs and hatchbacks open) as if settling down for a day at the beach. People bump into old friends, make new ones. On weekends, Georgetown is Washington's front porch.
You can stand and talk and see the sights." "Every time you come here you see someone you haven't seen in a long time, someone you grew up with. "This is like being at home almost, like your own neighborhood," said Gary Smithwick, a 25-year-old resident of Southeast Washington who said he comes to Georgetown almost every Saturday night. Spilling over from sidewalks onto jammed streets, strolling in cosmopolitan chic or tour-bus casual, they stake out the shops, restaurants and nightclubs and claim the elite, historic district as their own. Night falls on Georgetown like a sable cape, lights begin to flicker and suddenly people are everywhere.