Young women painted in colorful tube tops and jeans that cling beyond all sense of propriety bounce up and down, barely balancing themselves on their matching heels. Men in their late 20s and 30s and even 40s, clad in everything from khakis and T-shirts to coordinated linen suits, rove their eyes over the line of women as if trying to decide whom to try their "rap" on first.

Less than 20 minutes later, some of the same people emerge for air – hair frizzed and sweaty clothes pasted to their bodies — from a club along the strip marketed as "The New U" in Northwest Washington.

Tourists, "club" kids, hip-hop "heads" and professionals flood U Street at night, making the strip a symbol of the diversity for which the nation’s capital is known. Clubs on the street spin jungle, house, hip-hop, reggae, old-school funk and acid jazz seven nights a week.

Sometimes you don’t even have to go into the clubs to be entertained, with all the activity happening right outside.

On Friday and Saturday nights the streets are clogged with clubbers inside and outside of cars talking and exchanging numbers, police telling everyone to move along and the infamous motorcycle crews who just park and pose on top of their bikes.

Sundays, you can find a group of noticeably physically fit men and women, some with gym bags stretching — not to go work out at the gym, but to dance to some house music.

Mike Khouri, who works on U Street nearly every night, said that in his four years as bouncer at State of the Union he hasn’t seen much trouble. But as soon as Khouri said that a lady strung out on drugs tried to force her way into the club. As she yelled "This is my door, you don’t own this door," Khouri barricaded himself in front of the door to stop her.

"I take that back," Khouri said, laughing and holding the woman back at the same time.

Jay Freeman, a bouncer at Bar Nun for two years, said he has gotten to know the crowd enough at the club to say they are usually okay.

"They’re also low-key and a little intoxicated at times," he said.

Most of Freeman’s time is spent on top of black bars stool at the club’s entrance. Dressed in all black with gloves, he looks like the average bouncer. Freeman said all bouncers are supposed to wear gloves to protect themselves if they get into a fight.

"If I have an exposed cut, I automatically am prone to things like AIDS," he noted.

So amidst U Street’s nocturnal ritual of social swapping, there lies the reality of drugs and AIDs some try to forget.

Known as the "Black Broadway" in the 1920s and ’30s, U Street now seems to be the porthole to Babylon, say some of the non-partyers. Members of the Nation of Islam pick Friday and Saturday nights to sell their bean pies and "The Final Call" newspaper to the hundreds of clubbers who pass by. Some members describe the paper as the "necessary literature" to wake up their brothers and sisters.

U Street’s resident "grandfather" and poet, M’Wali Askari, can usually be found between State of the Union and Republic Gardens in the 1300 block of U Street spouting wise words and memories of yesteryear when "women were covered up."

Women and men in their Friday’s finest (like Sunday’s best with a sexy edge) rush past State of the Union to its neighbor, Republic Gardens. Usually at this time, a line stretches from the club’s entrance almost to the next block. Republic Gardens, tagged the "jiggy"(really dressed up) club by some club kids, has become a place for many of the District’s black urban professionals to unwind and the spot to find in-town celebrities and models.

The front man at Republic Gardens, who declined to give his name, said many people have to be turned away or are asked to wait until others leave to avoid exceeding the club’s legal capacity.

"It gets pretty hectic at times," he said.

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator