The announcement that a developer is planning to build a Negro Baseball Museum on a somewhat forlorn corner of Pennsylvania Avenue is great news. It is even better that the plans involve the site of the once popular Sphinx Club in a retail and restaurant development to accompany the museum.
The development when finished in two years will bring visitors to the area and jobs and hopefully further development along a street that was once a prominent commercial and entertainment center famed around the nation during the days of segregation.
After the riots of 1968, The Avenue rapidly declined. Desegregation caused black patrons to widen their shopping and entertainment horizons. Many of the patrons of the Avenue businesses and entertainment spots moved uptown and to the suburbs. The areas became rundown and revitalizations from the 1970s onward emphasized residential development of Pennsylvania Avenue. It has been difficult to redevelop the area in terms of commerce. The museum complex and the subsidiary businesses might be the spark that brings commercial development back.
It is imperative that the Avenue be made more tourist-friendly and that the new complex be run in a first class manner and be affordable to non-tourists. Pennsylvania Avenue will never recover its former glories because society has changed and the economics of show business have changed so much, but it can be much more than it is currently. The planned museum complex will bring much needed jobs and energy to an area that needs a commercial success story.
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