Shared History: After 25 years on 17th Street, JR.'s is an institution for both the neighborhood and the gay community

Opinion: My first trips to D.C. while I was still a college student in southwestern Virginia were particularly strong indicators of what a country boy I really was. For a 19-year-old who grew up surrounded by open fields, cow barns and combines, Washington seemed huge. The 12-story buildings, broad state avenues, tightly packed townhouses and rage-inducing traffic jams, while all small in comparison to a megalopolis like New York City, still define for me what it means to live in the big city. Naturally, once I moved here I wanted to live in the gayest neighborhoods I could afford, which at the beginning meant not very gay at all – H Street in Northeast had yet to go through its urban renewal way back in 1990. It took a couple years, but I finally found myself living in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, just off 17th Street. So JR.'s, along with the many other restaurants and bars sprinkled along that corridor, was a big part of my young gay life in the city. Unlike Badlands or Tracks (or, later, Nation), nightclubs that I would hit on very specific nights every week — the rigidity of a '90s-era gay-nightlife schedule could approach the level of catechism – JR.'s was a place that offered more flexibility. It was my neighborhood bar, the place where you could meet friends after work for a drink, drop by on Saturday afternoon, and generally go when you felt like it. ... (more)

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