Columbia Heights Makes The New York Times

The New York Times recently deemed a strip less than a mile long in Columbia Heights “cool.” In a slide show, they featured BloomBars, a nonprofit “art bar” that offers hip-hop jam sessions, belly dance classes and activist theater performances, wine bar Room 11, restaurant Meridian Pint and bar Wonderland. All situated between Park Road and Kenyon Street, the cool paradise is a mere few blocks from Target, Giant and IHOP on 14th St.

“The inspiration happened in the years leading up to the last presidential election. There was a sense that something radically different was needed to unite and inspire a diverse and demographically shifting Washington, DC, my hometown for the last 18 years, as well as in communities across the globe,” said John Chambers, founder and executive gardener of BloomBars. Meridian Pint called it a “great write up.”