Some establishments featured peep shows, celluloid intimacy in flickering booths doled out in two-minute installments. Some, like the Casino Royal, were theaters, showing X-rated movies on a big screen, communal carnality at odds with today’s hermetic, digital pornography. This was Washington’s red light district, our version of New York’s Times Square and Baltimore’s Block, home to such establishments as Benny’s Rebel Room, the Casino Royal, the Gold Rush, This Is It? and Doc Johnson’s. If you were a male growing up in the Washington area between about 19, a visit to 14th Street was something of a rite of passage. Home to a vibrant collection of strip clubs and porno theaters, I should say, for there once was an undeniable energy on 14th Street, even if it was a skanky energy. There are no historical markers celebrating this downtown stretch of 14th Street, which at one time was among the seediest places in the District, home to a collection of strip clubs and porno theaters. I’m talking about the blocks around 14th and I, an area that today is chock-full of rather drab office buildings and hotels. I’m not talking about the stretch between Thomas Circle and Florida Avenue NW, a newly trendy bit of real estate that, as recounted this week in The Washington Post, is packed with bars and restaurants and condos.