Jaybird's Jottings

Landmark News

Alexandria City Council has approved rezoning for the Landmark Mall.  Town center will be built on the 11-acre site.

Wonder if Chick-Fil-A will stay?

 

Book Update: Photos

Working on photos for the book.     Picking out ones that have something unique about them, and not necessarily content wise.

This marker, at the end of South Lee, is the only one of its kind in Old Town and Parker-Gray.   From a distance, it looks like a state highyway marker.    I'm not sure why this is the only one, perhaps the cost.

 

The Washington Tourist Guide

Funny, true piece in the Post this morning by Monica Hesse, about Washingtonians playing tourist guide and hoping to avoid going to the same places.

For us, it’s been Mount Vernon.  I started calling the docents by their first name.  

Overall our guests have mostly struck out on their own.  But one time, I kid you not, someone asked us – "What sites do you recommend?"

 

 

 

 

Dog City

Beautiful, attention-getting Belgian Tervurens in Old Town this morning.

George Kept Here

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton - the Founding Fathers - may be long gone, but their writings are alive and well at the National Archives.  And now, through an agreement with the University of Virginia, many of their historical documents are available on-line.   The database is searchable and the documents are annotated.  So far, there are 175,000 documents.

I searched Alexandria and got over 3,700 hits.   One of the oldest is from October 1753.  Washington passed through Alexandria for supplies, on his way deliver a letter to Jacques le Gardeur, the Commandant of the French Forces.   Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie demanded the French vacate that part of Ohio.

Anyway, if someone finds that key to the parallel universe for document readers, let us know.  And thank you National Archives!

 

The Unwinding

Haven’t had time for much reading this year, but with my manuscript now getting the lay out treatment, the reading lamp is back on.  

What great timing too.   George Packer’s “The Unwinding, An Inner History of the New America” has raced up Amazon’s charts to number two and number three in 20^th Century U.S. History.

After a preview on-line, I hurried over to Clarendon last night and bought it at Barnes and Noble.   Devoured Chapter 1.   Packer is Steinbeck meets Burns.   His first study is Dean Price who grew up in Madison, North Carolina.  The family farmed tobacco.    For me, this hit the bulls-eye of childhood memory.   Madison is a short drive up Highway 220 from Greensboro.    I never picked the sticky weed but my Dad sure did.   Fifty cents a day, I remember him telling me.  

Packer writes about Cone, the mill where many worked.   I never worked there, but every time I go down to Greensboro, I pass by where Cone used to be on the western part of the city near I-85.  

Greensboro had its hey-days when I was growing up there in the 60s and 70s.   People had good paying jobs.  High Point Road was always full of cars, youngsters cruising and folks going out to eat at places like Libby Hill, Nick's Hot Dogs, Jack's Steak House or Stameys.   The Coliseum attracted all the great rock groups like Led Zeppelin and The Who.   The ACC Men’s Tournament was played there every March, as well as the 1974 Final Four.   The GGO brought in the golfers,  the Greensboro Generals won Eastern Hockey League championships and fought the rival Checkers on a Saturday night.     The city garnered All-American City credentials.   Greensboro was king.

Gotta’ get back to the bus.    Packer had me from the opening paragraph:

No one can say when the unwinding began – when the coil that held Americans together in its secure and sometime stifling grip first gave way.  Like any great change, the unwinding began at countless times, in countless ways – and at some moment the country, always the same country, crosses a line of history and became irretrievably different.

Portner Brewhouse Returns!

Now this is cool.

In the summer of 2010, when I was looking for historical markers, I came across one for the Robert Portner Brewhouse on the 600 block of North St. Asaph Street, across from Trader Joe’s.   As the marker notes, the building, now upscale apartments, was built in 1912 as a bottling plant by the Robert Portner Brewing Company.  

Portner emigrated from Rhaden, Prussia in 1853, and found his way to Alexandria.   Around 1861, he and some partners established a grocery store (“Portner and Recker”) at the southeast corner of King and St. Asaph.    

He also sold beer there, brought in from other sources.    After the Civil War was over, Portner began to dabble further into the beer and beer-making business.  He put in some underground cellars on Washington Street between Pendleton and Wythe, and eventually built his brewery there.   The plant spread across both sides of N. St. Asaph and became the largest brewery in the South.   At one point, production was 60,000 barrels a year (Tivoli Passage is named after the brand name that Portner gave to his beer).   

Anyway, I’m excited once again, and I know beer lovers in these parts will be too, to learn that Catherine and Margaret Portner, great-great granddaughters of Portner, will open up “Portner Brewhouse,” a new brewery in Old Town.

Northern Virginia magazine and American Food Roots have articles.   Plans include a restaurant, Craft Beer Test Kitchen, and eight beers on tap which will replicate those of Portner.

2014 is the target.   One source said the location is “mere blocks” from the original site.     

 

Additional Reading:

“The Shortest Dynasty, 1837-1947, The Story of Robert Portner.” By Michael Gaines

 

The Future of Route 1

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

That was the motto of my basic training squadron.  Scott Surovell, State Delegate who represents the 44^th District of Virginia, is leading the effort to make Route 1 a better place to live and work.

You can follow him at his blog, Dixie Pig (yep, a nod to the ol’ NC-style ‘cue restaurant in Groveton).   Scott’s latest news is the funding for the U.S. 1 Multimodal Transportation Study he helped obtain.   As he notes,

This study will analyze and recommend the appropriate mode of transit from I-495 to the Occoquan along U.S. 1.

The project began in May and will take about a year.    It is known as a “centerline” study and must be done before any action can take place.

Virginia’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation provides information.   

 Scott has an excellent primer on the topic of Route 1 at his official website.    If you wonder why improvements to Route 1 have taken so long, read this.

 

Contrabands and Freedmen's Cemetery Memorial

Also took a minute to see the progress of the Alexandria Contrabands and Freedmen’s Cemetery Memorial. They’re passed the May deadline but making good progress.    

Alexandria African American Heritage Park

Verifying this morning at the Alexandria African American Heritage Park.    This is one of my favorite places.    It combines history and art with a natural setting.    The walk winds around a wetlands portion, a calming soulscape, if you will.   

 

 

Jerome Meadows did a stunning job with the art.  I suppose the markers are not technically historical markers, but they incorporate detaled information from Alexandria’s black history.