It’s one of the last true D.C. spaces to sit along 14th Street, a corridor now home to more banks and corporate eateries than the pawnshops and laundromats that some of us might remember.
And standing on the checkered floor, looking around the main stage of the Black Cat, you would have thought the last show cleared out just moments ago — drums still sat on the stage, glasses sat on the bar, the campy Centaur pinball machine still aglow.
Dante Ferrando, owner, operator, and D.C. native met me upstairs and we talked all things Black Cat, the changing punk scene, 9-11, coronavirus, and the future of the club.
Standing over five feet with blue hair and a convivial, upbeat attitude that may have had more to do with that coffee cup he’s hardly