Central Library says goodbye to its original neighbor to the south.
Demolition of the Arlington Funeral Home, a landmark in Virginia Square since 1956 (5 years before Central opened), began last week in preparation for nine story mixed use commercial building. When completed, the new building will include a multi-use performance space known as a black box theater.
That’s probably a fitting legacy.
As theology professor Thomas Long explained in a 2009 New York Times essay, funerals are “a form of community theater in which we enact publicly the journey from here to there, thereby enabling both the dead and the living to process the reality and meaning of mortality.”
So long neighbor…
The history of the Arlington Funeral Home:
I grew up when Arlington Funeral Home was a fixture. Many years ago. Arlington was a small towm (mostly residential) when I came to live there. I miss the “old” Arlington but know that times change and we need to keep up with them.