The area around the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro station has seen such an overwhelming swarm of rowdy teenagers on recent Saturday nights that station employees have dubbed it “7th and Hell” and local residents are asking for help.
“On Friday and Saturday nights in particular we’ve seen a pretty drastic increase in crowds in the couple of months, particularly of juveniles,” Metro Transit Police Deputy Chief Jeff Delinski said of the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro station entrance at 7th and H streets.
“We attribute it to the movie theaters and the nightlife in the area,” Delinski said. “There are under-21 clubs opening up.”
The Downtown Neighborhood Association, which represents residents in Penn Quarter and Chinatown, called an emergency meeting with city leaders last week to discuss the growing problem along 7th Street.
“The concern is that if we don’t get a handle on it, that people may be afraid to come downtown,” group spokesman Miles Groves said. “You get enough people in a small enough space, it can turn in to something very, very dangerous. We need to get it diffused.”
D.C. police flooded the area with patrol officers over the weekend to try to curb the crowds, an initiative that business owners and residents said helped restore some order.
But residents said the area needs a more permanent solution, such as legislation to lower the city-wide teen curfew from midnight to 10 or 11 p.m. in the downtown area.
Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Council members are scheduled to meet with the Downtown Neighborhood Association to discuss the issue next week.
The area is one of the city’s biggest recent success stories, with dozens of restaurants, bars and shops springing up on streets that were once depressed.
Employees at the Fuddruckers restaurant at the corner of 7th and H streets have resorted to locking the restaurant’s doors during business hours to keep out the crush of kids who have no intention of buying food.
“On Saturday nights we’ll get 20 to 40 to 60 kids running around in here,” said assistant manager Beatrice Hernandez. “We’re talking about mayhem — absolute pandemonium. In the short run, it has been affecting business.”
Delinski said that transit police had not recorded a significant crime spike in the area. But Metro is now assigning between four and six officers to man the entrance on weekend nights to help control the crowds. D.C. police did not return a call for comment about crime activity in the immediate area.
