In case you missed it, the H Street Festival on Saturday, September 15th was a complete success!
There was tons of food and fun and dancing and parading and more dancing and interesting folks walking all over the place. It was a time to catch up with old acquaintances and make new ones, for sure. And despite a few glitches, such as the sheer difficulty for many vendors to set up on Saturday morning; the lack of portable toilets; the sometimes-narrow passageways that created pedestrian bottlenecks especially in the 1200 and 1300 blocks; delayed stage times, especially for the Best and Worst Tattoo Contest (which started more than twenty minutes late); it’s safe to say that around 50,000 of my dearest and nearest and I had an amazing time, where everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, together in one crazy street. An event of this magnitude is not easy to organize: there has been talk and speculation in Ye Olde Interwebs about possibly expanding the festival beyond 8th Street NE, for instance, in order to give the ever more voluminous crowds more space to move. Unfortunately, the intersection at 8th and H Streets is among the busiest in town, handling crosstown lines such as the 92 and the X2, so rerouting may not be possible.
The best part? On Sunday morning, the streets were absolutely clean and spotless! A big round of applause and many exes and ohs from all of us here at The Hill is Home go to the fine folks over at H Street NE for pulling off such a great day!