Beach's 'Block' is one street by day, another by night

VIRGINIA BEACH

The stretch of Atlantic Avenue between 21st and 22nd streets is a place locals call “The Block.”

By day, it looks fairly benign, with the stuff you’d expect to see on a commercial strip of beach in the summertime. High-rise hotels. Restaurants. Young people riding beach cruisers. Babies in strollers, kids eating ice cream, shops overflowing with goofy tchotchkes.

But as darkness rolls in, all of that gives way to a nightly bar scene the city hasn’t been able to shake despite 20 years of determination to dedicate the Oceanfront to family fun.

One recent Friday, we headed down to watch and photograph the transformation.

3:40 p.m. The sun is bright and hot, and Atlantic Avenue is filled with stroller-pushing parents wearing corny T-shirts and sun visors. Jazz wails out of speakers affixed to a light post.

The Retro Cafe near The Block is closed until later in the evening, but a counter jutting onto the sidewalk still holds a half-eaten slice of pizza on a paper plate and a pack of Marlboros, possible remnants from the night before.

Jason Silver, 26, stands in front of the oxygen bar where he works, luring customers. He’s tall and lanky, with a ring through his bottom lip.

“After 11 you see more knuckleheads,” he says. This is his third summer working here. “I haven’t seen that many fights this summer, but it is just the beginning.”

His boss, Steve Clark, says he’ll keep the shop open even after all the families have gone home.

“In the last three hours, you could make your whole day, so we have to be here. But when the attitudes on the sidewalk change, we’ll close up. You’ll see it.”

7:50 p.m.  Amber and violet spread across the sky; the sun is just about to clock out for the day.

Crowds have taken to the street, as busy as a block in Manhattan. Performers for the city’s Beach Street USA – free evening street entertainment – have taken to their perches, offering a variety of sound from doo-wop to R&B to jazz and show tunes.

If you had to put a name on the vibe now, you might say it’s lively and a bit sexy: The doors have opened at the clubs on The Block, and seeping out are the sounds of pop monarchs like Kanye West. Women are passing around fliers to gin up business for the bars, and bouncers have taken to stools outside the doors too, promising cheap drinks and a good time.

“It’s not that many fights that jump off,” says Nick Clark, who does the door at Hammerheads. “If we see an argument about to happen in the club, we squash it by separating them and buying them a shot. We’d rather they stay and have a good time than get put out and arrested. … I know The Block has a bad history, but it’s getting better.”

Up and down the street, many young men seem to have gotten the memo: It is now appropriate to lower your pants approximately 10 to 12 inches off your behind. One dreadlocked guy, who’s been out here for hours and has the sweaty, slack-jawed face of someone who’s been drinking all day, waddles to keep his pants from hitting the ground.

Policemen atop horses have started monitoring the sidewalk. And as dusk begins to turn to dark, missionaries trying to save revelers take to the street, carrying large signs and damning people for wearing bikini bottoms and listening to music with drum beats.

“FEAR GOD TRUST JESUS!”

“We have happy hour, come check us out!”

10 p.m.  Showtime. Music roars from inside the handful of clubs on The Block. Strollers, for the most part, have vanished, and this is now an entertainment district populated nearly entirely by people who look to be in their teens and 20s. Through the windows of Crazy Charlie’s, you get a glimpse of bar-goers twisting and grinding to the music.

The row of nightclubs on The Block goes like this: Chicho’s, whose features include a crack in its window, a distressed awning and a number of security cameras overhead; Crazy Charlie’s has a banner out front re-christening it as Chemistry; The Edge; and Hammerheads. Not too far away are other nightspots like Retro Cafe and Harpoon Larry’s.

But before paying to go inside, there’s a lot to look at on the street, and some just hang out and people-watch: packs of guys, cruising by on the kind of tricked-out bicycles favored by the Mexican cholo dudes in L.A.; pretty girls, most of whom, perhaps contrary to stereotype, aren’t revealing too much; souped-up vehicles; and, of course, the musical acts lining the street before Beach Street USA finishes for the night. Many of the performers are out-of-towners like Dimitri of the Dimitri Nassar Trio, a jazz band from D.C. Dimitri says he’s enjoying the crowds. He hadn’t heard that just the previous weekend, a melee broke out near 17th Street that resulted in a stabbing.

“It’s real hip,” he says. “Nice people, everybody’s mingling. It’s a good deal.”

11 p.m.  Packs of people now clog the street; the aroma of sweet, convenience-store cigars fills the air. Beach Street performers have packed up and gone, and all that’s left now are youngsters, police and proselytizers, who seem to be inciting more commotion than anyone else. At 22nd Street, a woman yells at a somewhat petrified-looking man holding a large sign of sins. Clubs seem to be doing brisk business, although no one’s lined up in front of them. Cops are largely absent, but they aren’t really needed; there’s not much happening. By this time some of the people walking The Block begin to look familiar; that’s because they’ve been doing it for at least the past hour.

11:44 p.m.  Police serendipitously arrive in front of Flipper McCoy’s, a video arcade. A young man reports to the officers that someone picked his pockets while he was inside. They’re writing down his information when a man is literally tossed out of Retro Cafe. Blood covers his mouth, and he screams, “I got jumped! I got jumped!”

A few seconds later, the drunk dreadlocked guy from earlier is also tossed out; no one says so for certain, but it seems like he may have been one of the perpetrators. He vanishes into the crowd before being detained; police basically tell the guy with the bloody mouth to cool off and keep it moving.

Impromptu little parties break out on the street, with girls dancing to music from inside the clubs they won’t go into.

“We should have gone to Granby Street.”

“How was Harpoon Larry’s?”

“Classier than Retro, but, you know.”

12:30 a.m.  Spotted: Z104 radio jock Shaggy, who in recent months has become an active recruiter at Wave Church, by himself, arguing with a missionary. Shaggywas on his way to host his night at Peabody’s, the club on 21st Street, when the missionary told him he could not be saved because of the way he wears his hair, and because he listens to music with drums.

Incensed, Shaggy spends the better part of 15 minutes debating the Bible, informing the missionary that he’s not a drinker or smoker, and he’s married with a baby on the way and active in his church. He’s disgusted, and not just with the man.

“This,” Shaggy says, speaking of the strip, “used to be the place to be seen. Now it’s the place not to be seen. It’s so 10 years ago. It’s like a bad time warp.”

Guys walk by wearing sunglasses. Another wears a homemade shirt intimating something extremely vulgar scrawled in magic marker; his rooster and your cat make for a good time, ha ha. One cop stands in front of the Econo Lodge. A woman casually hurls a violent slur at what she thinks is a gay man.

“We can get us some Mad Dog and party!”

“Where the cane at?

“I ain’t never coming back down here.”

1:25 a.m. Police officers now stand in pairs every few feet along The Block. No one bothers them, and vice versa. You could almost not notice them until, out of nowhere, a guy comes out of Chicho’s, screaming obscenities. It’s the bloody-mouth guy from earlier, who is immediately snatched up by officers.

“You know my mom,” he pleads, and is warned again, to calm down.

Classical music coming from the speakers affixed to the light posts gets louder, more noticeable.

1:53 a.m.  Clubs have closed their doors a few minutes before the 2 a.m. deadline. Police have moved from the street to the sidewalk, where they begin the process of shooing people elsewhere.

Where they’ll go next – to their cars, home, or just another block where they can carry on some more – is anybody’s guess.

Malcolm Venable, (757) 446-2662, malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com