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Union Station is safe! The whole front side of Union Staion faces the Capitol and office buildings. The entire 1,300 Capitol Police force is right there. The south side of Union Station is split into two neighborhoods because of the train tracks. On the east side of the tracks is a nice residential neighborhood. There are hardly any problems. The west side of the tracks is a bit dicey because of the bus station and K street probation office but I have never seen anything crazy happen. Who would act up at a probation office? Doesn't make sense. Further up are "the (Sursum) Cordas" but I don't consider that Union Station. Yes there are some undesirables around US but they aren't thinking about you or me. Stop looking at the evening news. The next thing you'll say is that the White House is in a bad neighborhood.
Metropolitan Police Department (http://crimemap.dc.gov/presentation/intro.asp - broken link)
Just look it up. 50 Mass Avenue NE is the address of Union Station. Look at the crime year to date and then decide for yourself if you want to live there or up in AU Park or Kent or Anacostia or some other neighborhood based on your own tolerance levels for crime and your street awareness.
You have to keep some sense of perspective with these "crime reports". Most of the time, I live in the Vienna/Oakton area, and it's about as safe as you can get. Crime is simply not a factor here. But if you were to read this...
...you'd think the place was a cesspool of thug and gang activity. Burglaries, break-ins, kidnappings, sexual assaults, hit-and-runs, drunken brawling in the streets. And that's all just in one week!
Bottom line is that there is some level of crime everywhere, so it all becomes relative. In relative terms, Vienna is about crime-free. In relative terms, the Union Station area is not as good as that. But unless you are inherently offended by or frightened of homeless people or wander off into one of the ever smaller and fewer pockets of problems off to the north, you're simply not at very much risk of experiencing anything at all that you didn't invite. It's an urban setting. Be aware of that and then enjoy. Capitol Hill, Penn Quarter, and Union Station itself are all terrifc places...soon to be joined by NoMa and the H Street Corridor. Some may feel differently, but I'll take any one of those over say Haymarket...
Name the area "a few blocks from the White House" that is unsafe. You remind me of Bush I who gave the perception that crack was being sold right across the street from the White House in Lafeyette Square during one of his State of the Union address. What he failed to mention was that the FBI lured the idiot dealer there to make the buy.
Name the area "a few blocks from the White House" that is unsafe. You remind me of Bush I who gave the perception that crack was being sold right across the street from the White House in Lafeyette Square during one of his State of the Union address. What he failed to mention was that the FBI lured the idiot dealer there to make the buy.
I don't think the area around the White House is unsafe, but there have been two murders in the last three months within a few blocks for what its worth. 1000 Vermont and 1700 L Street. Don't know much about the details but doubt they were random (probably a club or something). I was assaulted by a homeless women in Lafayette Park once (one of the tin foil wearing protestors) but the Uniformed Division jumped in pretty quickly. It was kind of funny not really scary.
side note: there have been no murders this year with an 8 block radius of Union Station.
Like saganista and others said here (and 100s of others in other posts) so much of it depends on your personal level of awareness and tolerance and a relative measure against other options you might have. My main house in a very rural/isolated part of Maryland right now is closer to a crack house than I ever was living on Capitol Hill in SE DC (and yes, I'm trying to get it shut down so if you drive by you might see me writing down your plate numbers).
A murder can happen anywhere! Both of those addresses you listed are night clubs. The general population DT is safe, especially near the White House.
Night clubs? 1000 Vermont Avenue is a Citibank, and 1700 L Street is The Flower Gallery (a florist). There are some modest pubs/bars in the vicinity (Stan's on Vermont, The 4th Estate on L Street, etc.), but there is nothing remotely resembling a night club in the sense of show up at midnight and start shooting people at 4:00 am...
The shooting in the 1700 block of L street started with a fight in a nightclub called the Meeting Place at 1701 L Street. The shooting on Vermont started with a fight at a club on (forgot the name) Vermont and K, across the street from Stans Bar. There have been shootings and stabbings on L street in the past. The DC government snatched the liquor license away from a club called the Ascott at 1700 L street (next door to the flower shop) a few years ago because of violence spewing out onto the streets. Right above the Farragut North Metro Station, there have been fights at a club called the Bravo Bravo. I can go on and on. DT is relatively safe but most of the shootings have been the result of altercations.
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