Dreams of the past, GONE! With a love....

Back when I was in high school, I hung, peripherally, with the alternative kids.  This was the mid 80's, so by alternative, back then, I mean, they listened to U2, the Cure, and the like.  They died their hair a deep black.  Wore dark clothes, but also a surprising amount of purple.  They didn't give a shit about school, although all of them were planning on going to college, and were intelligent.  I think they might have been the very beginnings of the emo/goth trend that's prevalent even now.

At any rate, they'd talk about their trips into DC, the nearest easy to get to city, and how they went to Georgetown, the 'hippest' part of DC, and always mentioned a place called "Commander Salamander".  Apparently it was the coolest of the cool.  

They sold clothes, shoes, buttons, pins, bumper stickers (I think), tapes and CDs (I think CD's were in production them....maybe not tho), other miscellania, as well as you could even buy tickets to concerts and events.  

It wasn't until I was in college that I actually made it to Georgetown and Commander Salamader.  And it was everything they had said it was.  I LOVED that store.  I didn't buy a whole lot there (the clothes didn't come in my size) but I loved checking out the clothes nonetheless.  And I usually bought something when I was there (I KNOW CD's were in production then), a CD, or a button, or a book or something equally "alternative".  And this was like 89 or 90, back before Nirvana and Seattle grunge made 'alternative' a common word.  Hell, I might have seen my first Nirvana poster at Commander Salamander, who knows?  OH, and the music they played in there...wow!  Always cutting edge!

Back then, in college and a bit after, I was making frequent trips to DC, once a month, maybe twice a month.  I go down with various friends, and we'd walk around the monuments and musems, OR we'd ride the Metro to the Foggy Bottom stop, get off there and walk to Georgetown (as Georgetown itself HAS no Metro stop).  While there we'd visit a coming book store.  Or the three floored Barnes & Noble.  Or the almost as cool and alternative Urban Outfitters.  Or walk through the Georgetown Mall and look at the expensive stuff we could never afford.  Or we'd visit the small sex store, filled with 'novelties' called The Pleasure Palace, and laugh at what we saw there, but never buy anything.  

And then later in the early 90's, after I came out to myself and learned the DuPont Circle was the center of gay life in DC, my friends and I would exit the Metro there (we have to pass through DuPont to work our way over to Foggy Bottom, so it was closer).  And we'd visit stores there, like the record store Second Story Records (located, surprisingly enough, on the second floor of a building).  Or Books A Million.  Or the gay bookstore Lambda Rising.  Or the HRC store.  Or Kramers Books.  Or even the leather store, where again, we'd laugh at the sex apparel and toys, but never guy anything.  And then we walk over to Georgetown (it was a longer walk though) through a beautiful part of DC.

But regardless whereever else we went, we NEVER missed going to Commander Salamander!  It was up Wisconsin Ave  while all the other places were along M Street, and it was a walk of several blocks to get there, but it was SO worth it!

But as I grew older, and graduated college, and got a 'real' job, that cut into my DC trips.  They became less frequent.  And when I would go, a lot of the time, it would be as a tour guide for some visiting friend(s), so we'd spend out time around the Mall and not make it to Georgetown.  In fact, as I type this, I really can't remember the last time I was in Georgetown.....I think I was working at Borders them, so that'd be 2000-2003 period.

So earlier in the week, for some reason I thought of good old Commander Salamander.  This is what I remembered:

The outside of the store painted a deep blue, with designs on it.  The display packed full of 'stuff'.  The front door plastered with various stickers.  (the Bootlegger store next door, I believe was run by the same company.  Eventually, the shoes were just put into Commander Salamander and it took over both store fronts becoming one large store.  I remember it as both just being in half the building and the whole building.)  But the building itself stuck out as you went by it.  It was different and fun.

So when I was thinking about this place, I just happened to be on Google Maps and I scrolled up Wisconsin Ave to find the old store.  And this...THIS is what I see:

There!  See that building on the left there?  That...*shudder*, M&T Bank?  That is where Commander Salamander used to be!

*SIGH*

The hip, cool, alternative mecca is now nothing more than a corporate, mainstream, BANK, of all things.  UGH.

I researched it online and found out that Commander Salamander closed back in 2010, a victim of the Great Recession, I presume.  What a shame.  It kills a little piece of my soul to see this.

But well, as they say, "you can't go home again".

POLT