The Life in Your Years

1749 was a big year. Denmark’s oldest continuously operating newspaper printed its first issue. Henry Fielding published his comic novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, and several famous European theaters burned down during performances. (It was an exciting time for the arts.) A “corpse riot” broke out in Glasgow after some medical students stole a body from a churchyard. The first recorded game of baseball was played! On this side of the pond, vast swaths of territory that would later become states were in various stages of being stolen from indigenous peoples; three different countries were fighting over Ohio [Editor’s note: yeah, we don’t really get it either]. And on the muddy banks of the Potomac, a couple of Scottish and English merchants successfully petitioned the Virginia House of Burgesses to establish a town called Alexandria.

A hand-drawn map of the future site of the King Street Taco Bell Cantina.

Fast forward 275 years and a handful of world-changing historical incidents, and all of a sudden we’re marking our bicenterquasquigenary. They say the days are long but the years are short and boy were they right. It seems like just yesterday the city’s main industry was [FILE NOT FOUND] and now it’s public art that squirts steam in people’s eyes. We truly have a lot to celebrate, and celebrate we plan to!

The city kicked off the festivities on April 6, and various commemorative events will take place through the actual anniversary in July. The city’s website doesn’t provide a lot of information on what those events will be, so it’s too soon to tell whether Alexandria will follow the lead of Fairfax County in bringing out an actual British lord (in their case, the 14th Lord Fairfax) to mark the occasion of its own 275th anniversary in 2017.

We gon’ sip imported Madeira wine like it’s your birthday.

No doubt about it, the history of this place is special and we’re lucky as hell to call it home. But living in the middle of all that history can feel a bit heavy, too—it’s a big responsibility to carry on hundreds of years of legacies and traditions. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know that we’re both pretty forward-looking people. And speaking for ourselves, it can be kind of hard to look forward while you’re also gazing backward. Unless you have eyes in the back of your skull. Or you can make your head spin all the way around on your neck like the girl from The Exorcist. So all the fuss over ALX275 got us wondering (in our best Carrie Bradshaw voice): What do we owe the past? And what does it owe us?

If Sex and the City took place in 1749 Alexandria, every episode would be about syphilis.

First off, it’s clear that maintaining a strong connection with our city’s history provides us with a lot of benefits today. Tourists come here because they like to see and learn about old shit—which there isn’t a lot of in America—and while they’re here they spend lots of money. Everyone who lives here benefits from this. It may not feel that way when you get stuck behind a group of slow-walking visitors as you’re running late to your dinner reservation at Vermilion, but overall it’s pretty clear that we profit from our status as a historical destination.

And in a less material sense, Alexandrians take pleasure in our city’s uniqueness, which it largely acquires from the particularity of its past. People place real value on being able to live in a place with a specific backstory that isn’t an anonymous suburb. It enriches our lived experience and builds civic pride. This may be part of the reason why so many locals feel a duty to keep history alive in the present. Everything that happened over the past 275 years made Alexandria what it is today—those who came before us created the place that we’ve all inherited, whether we were born here decades ago or we moved here yesterday. That’s worth appreciating. At the same time, the darker sides of our history provide lessons that we can learn from—for example, remembering the city’s history of slavery and segregation can help us teach and understand the importance of anti-racism in the present.

Not every city has 18th century ships that it found buried in the mud, dug up, and then re-sank in a stormwater treatment pond. Never take that for granted!

But while it’s easy to say what we gain from our history, what we owe that history is a little thornier. What does it mean for us to “keep history alive in the present,” as a practical matter? We can probably all agree that it includes remembering, learning, and celebrating—the city already does a great job helping us do that, for example through its nifty This Day in History webpage. (On April 19, 1900, a bazaar at the Odd Fellows Hall on North Columbus Street offered confectionery assortments, lemonade, and flowers. The Alexandria Gazette reported that the “evening was enlivened with fine music and singing”!) But it could also encompass a range of more concrete actions. Are we talking about preservation of our built environment, continuity of civic institutions, perpetuation of cultural traditions? Are we supposed to keep things the way they were in 1749–or 1864, or 1950? Which things?

Depending on how we answer that question, pulling the thread of connection between the past and the present too tightly can create some pretty uncomfortable tensions. For example, if we prioritize maintaining the “historical character” of our neighborhoods over other considerations, we prevent the modernizing change (new housing, upgraded infrastructure) that’s needed to accommodate today’s residents, and that can cause real people material harm. And if we create a cultural narrative that the past is the most important thing about this city, we end up centering certain segments of the community as “more legitimate” Alexandrians and potentially alienating both newcomers and people like our West End neighbors who don’t live right on top of our historic areas. Not only would that be a dick move, it would also ignore the reality that our city has evolved since 1749 in many important ways [Editor’s note: syphilis is not one of them].

We have a few options for managing our relationship with our past, one of which is [checks notes] sitting on it.

Maybe instead of asking what we owe our history, we should be asking what we owe ourselves today. After all, we’re the ones who live here now, not some stinky old tobacco merchants with incomprehensible accents and complicated feelings about monarchies. Setting aside any sense of obligation for obligation’s sake, what balance do we want to strike between past and present? How should we navigate the path forward to grow and thrive while maintaining the unique character that residents and visitors love? To be clear, we believe it’s totally possible to do this! But we have to talk about it as a community, to muddle through it together inclusively and purposefully without just automatically defaulting to the way we’ve always done things. ALX275 is a great opportunity to check in on these questions. But the conversation can’t end after the fireworks in July—we have to make these choices on an ongoing basis.

So yes, let’s have the big party! Let’s celebrate our history. While we’re at it, let’s eat a shit-ton of cupcakes and set off some fireworks while pointedly reminding America they’re our kid sibling. But let’s also remember that the present is someday going to be looked back on as important history, too. We deserve to exist in our own right, we are more than servants to the memory of what came before, we’re allowed to put our own stamp on the world around us. We owe that to our future selves—the ones who are going to be around in year 276 and beyond.

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• Apparently some folks around here say they felt the “gentle shimmy” of the New York earthquake two Fridays ago, but we’re pretty sure it was actually the reverberations from the last issue of this newsletter thunking into readers’ inboxes around the same time. We apologize for any confusion our excessive verbiage has caused and we promise to be more concise in the future lol no we don’t.

• The ACHS team is competing at the FIRST Robotics championship in Houston this week and we don’t know about you, but we’re going to sleep easier tonight knowing that somebody in this town has the skills necessary to save us from the robot apocalypse.

• Agenda: Alexandria is having a panel discussion next week on the prospects for a retail cannabis market in Virginia, and they’re not holding it on April 20? You’ve gotta respect this organization for continually coming up with new ways to misunderstand the assignment.

• The Oscar Meyer Wienermobile was spotted cruising the streets of Alexandria. Everyone wanted to ketchup with it but it mustard been driving too fast. It’s a shame we couldn’t properly relish its appearance because we never sausage a vehicle in our lives.

One of the wurst selfies we’ve ever seen. For real, look at these three weenies. We don’t have a dog in this fight, but if we can be frank… this is some red hot nonsense.

Local Discourse Power Rankings

1. I Saw The Sign (Last week: NR). We’ve all encountered rules we don’t agree with. No shoes, no shirt, no service. Put two spaces after a period. You must be this tall to ride the ride [Editor’s note: sorry, not familiar with this one]. Newton’s Third Law. The list goes on, but our point is—recently a candidate for mayor encountered a rule that he didn’t agree with, regarding the placement of signs in the public right of way. And like all great iconoclasts before him he just… did whatever the hell he wanted. The incomparable Andrew Beaujon wrote it up at Washingtonian better than we ever could, so we’ll just say we’ll never forget the heady few days when we all wondered if Los Tios was in fact also a huge supporter of “Student Education” and “Again the Arena.”

2. All You Can’t Eat (Last week: NR). The legendary Royal Restaurant has reopened in Old Town with a facelift, more seating, and a fresh menu—all of which is fantastic. But what it didn’t reopen with is a breakfast buffet, and basically this is the worst thing to ever happen in Old Town??? [Editor’s note: please don’t fact check that.] We are a town that has 18 million pizza restaurants but basically no breakfast buffets which are, to be clear, the best fucking kind of buffet. Whomst among us doesn’t experience a deep and perpetual childlike joy when—still groggy-eyed and under-caffeinated—loading up a plate full of cheesy eggs, and sausage links, and some potato thing (is this a hash?), and oh hell yes waffles, and sure ok I guess I can put gravy on most of this, and OH MAN THEY HAVE MUFFINS?? Our point is, we shouldn’t finish this newsletter in the morning. Also, bring back the buffet!!

3. Phrasing! (Last week: NR). A group calling itself Communities for Accountable City Council (CACC) has formed to advocate for a return to ward-based elections in Alexandria. This is all fine and good and we’re in favor of people organizing and advocating for causes they believe in, but guys, we’ve been over this! Before you pick an acronym for your new group please pronounce it out loud at least once in front of your most juvenile friend! It’ll save us all so much time and effort and suppressed giggles. We’ve all been to Fenway Park when the Yankees are in town, we don’t need flashbacks to that every time you try to talk about your preferred local voting reforms.

4. Unnecessarily Aggressive Natural Phenomena (Last week: NR). It’s bad enough that tree spunk has been attacking our eyes, noses, and every other available orifice for weeks now, not to mention coating our cars with a thick layer of lime green sex dust. Enough with all the open-air plant fornication! We get it, you yearn to reproduce!!! But then on top of that? For nature to pelt us with hail? What is this, the ten plagues?? We know Passover is coming up but we’ve already been afflicted by the release of yet another Taylor Swift album, we’re pretty sure we’ve suffered enough.

Alexandria’s Hottest Club Is… Dogs

Last weekend Alexandria gathered to celebrate a universally beloved creature that digs in the dirt and has become the unofficial mascot of our city: Hazel the tunnel boring machine dogs. The second annual Del Ray Dog Fest was on Sunday, an event where people paid legal United States tender to wander around a middle school parking lot letting their pets sample artisanal biscuits and jump in the world’s slobberiest ball pit. Afterward, 19 different restaurants in the neighborhood offered food and drink specials for dogs so they could overindulge and puke in the gutter in front of Pork Barrel just like their humans do at the candy cane bar crawl.

Dogs in this city have swag, they have drip, they even–dare we say it–have rizz.

If you missed it, not to worry! The ALX Dog Walk, “the DMV’s biggest dog walk event,” is coming up on Saturday. The mayor’s going to be there! The emcee is NBC Storm Team4’s Chuck Bell!!! And if you miss that, we have fewer than 8 months go until dogs once again steal the show from bagpipers’ exposed knees at the Scottish Walk.

In short: we really, really love dogs around here. If you don’t, we’re so sorry to inform you that you are history’s greatest monster. Are you even allowed to live here? Does the city charter require you to get a special dispensation to exist without contributing to the canine population? Sometimes it does not feel like these are rhetorical questions, such as when you trip over 4 to 6 doodles just trying to walk from your car to the door of the coffee shop. In Alexandria, dogs go where people go. They go to the brewery. They go to the cidery. They go to the doggy salon and the Torpedo Factory. They go to Mount Vernon just—NO! NOT INSIDE GEORGE’S HOUSE! BAD DOG, SHOW HISTORY DADDY SOME RESPECT. They also can’t go into the school playground or the farmer’s market but that doesn’t stop them from trying.

They love dogs in Fake Alexandria, too.

Important disclosure before someone calls APD (the Alexandria Pup Department) on us: we both have dogs. They are both tremendous doofuses, although they’re also good boys. So trust us when we say that we’re well positioned to opine on this city’s hard-earned reputation as a mutt metropolis and a pooch paradise. But how do others see the matter? Let’s check the lists (because it’s always lists with us): Alexandria was recently ranked the 3rd best city for dog lovers as well as the 2nd best city for the dogs themselves. The only conclusion one can draw from these rankings is that this is the dogs’ city and the rest of us are just living in it.

But having all these animals living in our midst means that our city has extra dog-related needs. If we were running for local office—[Editor’s note: shit, uhh, let’s start this sentence over]—If Becky were running for local office, she would center her campaign around a promise to install public trash cans on every block so people would stop putting dog poop in each other’s personal bins. Seriously, why??? We could also use additional city resources for some officers to issue citations to unscrupulous owners who let their pups roam off-leash scaring the bejeezus out of people, not to mention all the municipal staff who are needed to design and approve the many ongoing dog park rehab projects. We need to be planning for increased dog density! Forget Zoning for Housing, let’s do Zoning for Hounds-ing (is this anything?).

More puppers, more friends.

If you somehow slipped through the cracks and were not automatically issued a dog upon your arrival in the city, you have various options for acquiring one. However, one of the best is the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, which also adopts out cats, rodents, and the occasional bun if dogs aren’t your thing (again, we don’t recommend admitting this in public). AWLA was recently nominated for a “best shelters and dog rescues” award, and we’re not saying their incredible profiles of adoptable pets were the main reason, but we’re also not not saying it. Their other programs are great too—birthday parties! summer camp!—but the profile pictures of these pets are serving looks that haven’t been achieved since we posed for portraits at the mall Glamour Shots in 1992. 

Aurora and Beau are working dogs, emphasis on *work.*

In conclusion, if Alexandria ever decides to update its city seal, we’d like to nominate a picture of a dog in a colonial-era wig eating a slice of pizza. And while we’re throwing amazing ideas around that aren’t even the slightest bit insane, why not elect a dog mayor to serve alongside our human mayor like other great American cities before us? Is it too late to add this option to the ballot? A dog mayor would unify us. A dog mayor would heal. After all, if anyone can bring integrity back to Alexandria, it’s man’s best friend. 

We Get Letters

First up this week we have a letter from reader Matt B.:

I would love to see your thoughts about what the Arena site should include.  Maybe a vision that the community could rally behind, and be economically viable as well. We keep talking about the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, and an innovation district, but it feels like no one has any ideas on what that might include.  

As a STEM professional, I could very easily envision things like a community makerspace (buildmo is cool, but way far away and not really a makerspace); a lecture hall for interesting speakers; flexible work spaces for tech startups; an elementary school; a library branch; hackathons; a dogpark; a digital music & arts venue; group/co-living apartments, a makerfaire; robotics companies that test at NRL; a daycare; more healthy restaurants (can we get a Sweetgreen in Alexandria somewhere). Put enough of these together on top of the VATech building; Amazon; Patent and Trademark Office; DoD contractors; and we've got something really special and unique that adds to our tax revenue base, builds and enhances the community; and doesn't strain the traffic and infrastructure situation.

First of all, this is sweetgreen erasure, there’s one right in the heart of Old Town on King Street. Separately though, we love this line of thinking—and it’s exactly what we need to be doing. Not just for Potomac Yard, but also for the area near the Eisenhower metro (and we just saw news that there is in fact a new coordinated development district plan moving for that area), the Braddock metro, and Cameron Run. We need to set those visions now, so we’re ready in the future. Matt B is nailing some of the necessary elements of an innovation district, tell us in the comments what else you’d want to see.

And here’s a letter we forgot to include in our last issue [Editor’s note: you’d think we’d get better at this over time, but no] from reader Jonathan K. in response to our essay about asymmetrical motivation to participate in public dialogue:

For what it's worth (and we think “a lot”), Alexandria city staff are capable of using “pop up” outreach to reach representative samples of Alexandria residents. This post from Grassroots Alexandria is a good example that contrasts typical online survey outreach with pop-up outreach.

Love this, and we definitely want and need to see more of these efforts by policymakers to meet people where they are, rather than assume all residents have the time, means, and social capital to come to policymakers. Another example in this vein was how DASH went out last year and surveyed riders on buses, the results of which can be viewed about halfway down this slide deck. 

One Awesome Thing in ALX

One of our favorite days of the year is coming up on April 24, and we’re not talking about National Pig in a Blanket Day (except to the extent that on some level we’re always talking about National Pig in a Blanket Day). Spring2ACTion isn’t just our most typographically chaotic local event, it’s also our biggest citywide day of charitable giving. The pretty genius theory behind it is that you can get people to do basically anything if you apply enough peer pressure. Like, if a herd mentality can get Alexandrians to attend a parade every other weekend and initiate their children into a recreational soccer cult, why not use it to raise money for charity?

Of course, we could all be making contributions to local organizations at any time, and many folks do it throughout the year. But having one specific day when everybody talks about donating can bring exposure to lesser-known or newer groups that would otherwise have a hard time attracting attention, and puts philanthropy at top of mind for all of us busy people. Not to mention that there’s a competitive element to get everyone fired up: the organizations with the most donors also get an additional cash prize. There’s an online leaderboard and everything! It’s like the March Madness of generosity except that nobody’s bracket can get busted.

Us watching the leaderboard as money rolls in to support our favorite ALX-based orgs.

Spring2ACTion has been going on for 14 years now, and it’s made a huge impact. Not only does it give people an easy way to donate—last year, 8,331 donors gave almost $3 million to 186 nonprofits—but it’s also a window into all the amazing stuff that organizations are doing in Alexandria. Did you know that there are local orgs empowering young girls through carpentry, employing people with disabilities to make dog treats (again with the dogs, we get it already!!), teaching elementary schoolers about healthy watersheds, and providing free cancer screening exams to Latinas? And so many more! Literally hundreds. It’s incredible.

We’re excited to participate, and we’ll be donating $500 to Casa Chirilagua on behalf of ALXtra readers. (Reminder: all our paid subscription revenue gets split into three equal pots: (1) a dedicated fund from which we make a donation to a local charity every time the fund hits $500, (2) investments in the newsletter, and (3) desperately needed self-care.) Casa Chirilagua provides support and mentoring to kids in the Chirilagua neighborhood to help them succeed in school, as well as helping families with food and rent when emergencies pop up. We encourage everyone else to participate in Spring2ACTion as well, no matter whom you choose to support—the minimum donation amount is only $5, so even if you don’t have much to give, it can still add up towards a collectively meaningful contribution to the organizations that are working hard to help our community.

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.