Arlington Public Library

local history news

Our Back Pages: The Nearby Hideaways

Shirlington Shelter Map

Nuclear attack was a constant boogeyman of the Cold War.

In the 1950s and 1960s especially, American citizenry was encouraged to be proactive in protecting themselves from nuclear fallout (remember “Duck and Cover”?).

Arlington was no exception. In late 1960s, the Northern Virginia Regional Planning Commission, which covered the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church and Arlington, Fairfax, Loudon and Prince William Counties, developed a civil defense plan for a possible nuclear attack. These plans included a fallout shelter program, mapping shelters in regard to population centers and how to get people to those shelters.

The Northern Virginia Region Community Shelter Program, published in 1968, outlined these plans and processes, and also published maps of shelter locations for subsets of the region. The Arlington Edition of the map sectioned the county into color-coded zones so users could find a shelter in their area and contained tips on creating and stocking your own shelter. The above image shows the fallout shelter locations for Shirlington, and the image below lists the names of these shelters. The map itself has the following introduction:

“In case of danger from fallout from a nuclear attack upon this country, you and your family would need to know WHERE TO GO and WHAT TO DO. This Community Shelter Plan contains this information for every citizen. It is based on making the best possible use of the fallout protection now available. If you and your family take action, as this Plan recommends, you will have maximum chance for survival from fallout effects.”

List of Shirlington fallout shelters, 1968.

What about you?

Did you have a fallout shelter in your home or neighborhood? Do you remember preparing for “the Big One”? We want to hear from you.

 

Video: Memories of Hoffman Boston

Reminiscences by Hoffman-Boston Teachers, Students and Parents

Presented on September 20, 2012, at Central Library,  as part of the Virginia Room’s ongoing Arlington Reunion series.

Hoffman-Boston High School was created in South Arlington as a segregated junior high school for African Americans.  It later served as the County’s first high school, and closed after graduating its last full class in 1964.

The school was later reopened as Hoffman Boston Elementary in the Oakridge neighborhood, and remains part of the Arlington schools system.

The program included screening of footage of the 1964 Hoffman-Boston Homecoming celebration, depicting the queen’s court, parade and homecoming football game, which Mr. Milton Rowe Sr.  has donated to the Virginia Room.

 

Learn more about Local History at Arlington Public Library.

 

From Marching Bands to Indie Rock: The Story of Gerald Lewis Recording

1979 Arlington County All-County Elementary Orchestra and Chorus album cover

In today’s music scene, it isn’t uncommon for those involved to wear many hats.

Artists crossover from performing to producing, find parallel careers in film, literature, and the visual arts with regularity. In earlier times, this phenomenon was less prevalent, excepting well-known performers such as Elvis and Frank Sinatra. Arlington’s own Gerald M. Lewis had a rich and varied career, being involved in many different aspects of music including performing, instruction, production, and recording.

From 1954-1979, Mr. Lewis served as a band director for Gunston and Stratford Junior High Schools, and Wakefield and Washington-Lee High Schools. At his home on 216 S. Pershing Drive, Lewis also owned and operated Gerald Lewis Recording. Housed in a mobile home adjacent to his residence, Gerald Lewis Recording was a mobile recording unit that offered him the ability to record performers and public events on location.

Operating from 1964-1991, a remarkably diverse customer base utilized Mr. Lewis’ recording service. Local Virginia and Maryland schools and churches recorded public events and concerts, including performances from high school marching bands and public speakers.

Local recording artists also took advantage of Lewis’ expertise. In 1985, Teen-Beat Records artists Unrest used the mobile studio to master their debut 7” single “So You Want To Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”/ “Zelda” (Side A) – “The Hill” (Side B), which was also the first Teen-Beat vinyl release. Unrest band member and Teen-Beat impresario Mark Robinson recalls, “He [Lewis] essentially was the broker for Teen-Beat to press our first record. He put the master tape together, sent it to the pressing plant, etc. I paid him, and he paid the pressing plant. I found his number in the Yellow Pages. He also recorded and pressed up the Arlington All-County Orchestra record that I was on back in 4th or 5th grade, so I knew that this guy knew how to make a record.”

In 1996, Mr. Lewis and his wife Elizabeth, a music teacher at Wakefield High School, moved to Tennessee where he continued to be involved in music, directing, arranging, and playing trombone for the Pleasant Hill Ensemble until his passing in March of 2008, at the age of 82.

What about you?

Do you have any memories of Mr. Lewis or his recording services?

What would Lee Tweet?

Follow the Civil War… On Twitter

 

The American Civil War started on April 12, 1861 with the firing on Fort Sumter, and ranged across the states from Pennsylvania to New Orleans. You probably know about the  many battles waged here, in Virginia and the DC area. But did you know that you can follow the events of the Civil War in real time?

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Washington Post developed a set of linked Twitter accounts that “tweet” events of the Civil War, 150 years after they happened. 

To experience the Civil War as it would have been tweeted, subscribe to the Tweeting the Civil War list on twitter, or bookmark the page link on your computer.

Tweeting characters include:

 

While we often think of history as incidents centered on explosive battles or an inevitable tide of history, the “Tweeting the Civil War” project reminds us in 140 characters that history is the collective experience of many individuals living their day-to-day lives.

 

Video: Urban Planning, Virginia Square and Transportation

Presented March 12, 2011 by Virginia Room Archivist Heather Crocetto, at the GMU Arlington Campus Library’s Open House.

Click on maps to enlarge, or view them on flickr.

Part 1

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poQiGkGR7C8[/youtube]

Part 2

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CclQIW6F8A[/youtube]

Part 3

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Il6XIgKnA[/youtube]

 

Learn more about Arlington on our Local History page.

 

 

 

 

 

A Garden to Remember

Photgraph by Pamela Powers

The Bon Air Memorial Rose Garden, located at the corner of N. Lexington  St. and Wilson Boulevard, was conceived by Nell Broyhill as a memorial for the many Arlingtonians who served and died in World War II.

In 1941, Ms.  Broyhill assembled a group of women from Arlington churches, civic groups and associations and formed the Arlington Rose Garden Association, now called the Arlington Rose Foundation. After ten years of fundraising they finally realized their dream when the rose garden opened on the grounds of what was then Arlington Hospital (now Virginia Hospital Center) in 1951.

Ten years later the garden was moved to Bon Air Park; the transfer was completed in 1964. Today the garden is maintained by the Arlington’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Resources. It contains approximately 135 different rose varieties and 2,500 plants on about one acre.

In the center of the garden is the famous Peace rose and the Veterans’ Honor ™ rose. The Peace rose is a yellow blend Hybrid Tea developed by Frances Meilland in France in 1935. When World War II began Meilland sent the rose to friends in Germany, Italy and the U.S. in the hopes of ensuring its survival. Called the Peace rose in the U.S. to commemorate the end of the war, it was formally introduced on April 19, 1945, the day Berlin fell.

The Veterans’ Honor ™ rose, a dark red hybrid tea rose, was created by Jackson and Perkins in 1999 to commemorate America’s veterans.

The Foundation sponsors an annual rose competition for growers. This year’s district competition, which includes 70 competitive categories, will be at held at Merrifield Garden Center- Fair Oaks location on September 22nd from  1 to 6 pm and September 23rd from  11am to 4 pm. See  www. arlingtonrose.org  for more details as well as for information about the Arlington Rose Foundation’s activities and rose advice.

Plans are also underway for a Bon Air Memorial Rose garden celebration day on Saturday, October 6. Along with docent-led tours, rose rooting classes and poetry inspired by roses, the legacy and unique gift that Ms. Broyhill bestowed to Arlington will be on prime display.

What About You?

What are your favorite memories of Bon Air Rose Garden? Or other wonderful rose gardens in Arlington?

 

 

Clarendon’s Trophy

Dan Kan Trophies, 1998

 

The building at 3100 Washington Boulevard in Clarendon is a visually arresting structure.

This Streamline Moderne-style storefront was the home of Dan Kain Trophies, which was the store in Arlington for trophies, ribbons and plaques for many years. Although Dan Kain Trophies is now located in Merrifield in Fairfax County, it still has a major impact on the community; so much so that although the building is currently a restaurant called Lyon Hall, many Arlingtonians still call it the Dan Kain Building.

The Dan Kain Building, shown above in 1998, was constructed in the mid-1940s for Frank Lyon, who rented it out to a series of businesses selling appliances, electronics and finally furniture. In 1963, Dan Kain moved his trophy business, which he had established in his home, into the building, and Dan Kan Trophies stayed there for 40 years, providing not just Arlington but northern Virginia with signs, trophies and other materials for government and private groups. In 1973, ads appeared in the Washington Post for “Special Prices for Bowling Leagues.” With its specialized products, friendly service and unique home, Dan Kain Trophies became an institution.

In 1988, the County Board unanimously approved the Dan Kain Building as a Local Historic District. It is an excellent example of the Streamline Moderne style of architecture, with its lack of ornamentation, streamlining, and distinctive wrap around to North Highland Street. The interior was renovated in 2004, and Dan Kan Trophies, now owned by longtime employee Jim Preziotti, left Washington Boulevard to relocate to 2207 N. Pershing Drive.

A GSA federal contract in 2009 to make trophies and signs was an indication of the business’s continuing vitality. However, the economy’s downturn hurt Dan Kain Trophies; budgets set aside for trophies, medals and plaques were diminished as belts were tightened. When the Pershing Drive location was scheduled to be torn down in 2010, the business ended up moving to Merrifield, where rent is cheaper. However, Dan Kain Trophies is still in business, marking people’s milestones and helping preserve memories. And the building to which it is linked still stands proudly, still a vital part of Clarendon’s business district.

What about you?
What are your memories of Dan Kan Trophies and its building?

Last Rites for a Funeral Home

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:

From Our Archives: Arlington Postcards

As a certain fictional ad virtuoso from the 20th century would say, an old postcard “takes us to a place where we ache to go again.”

Any old postcard works. But it’s the ones from home–maybe just a block away but with a distance of decades–that tug the most. A “Colorchrome” backstory can again make vibrant the most familiar, forgotten or repurposed neighbor.

The art deco Chrysler/Plymouth dealer becomes a Gold’s Gym. Small, boxey Clarendon Trust on McKinley now belongs to the fourth largest bank in the country.  And even a century back, sightseeing could overwhelm judging by a Luna Park visitor’s handwritten anguish: “Wish I was home am so tired/Momma.”

View Arlington in Postcards

Arlington Public Library’s Virginia Room has assembled an engrossing digital collection of local historic postcards–some from the Library’s holdings and others from collectors who generously wished to share their materials with the community.

Enjoy.

And note to Google Street View: Take a new trip down North Randolph . The former Super Pollo-Roy Rogers-Hardees-Red Barn is now lost to history, just like $1.29 “complete” fried chicken dinners for two.

The Library’s postcard collection was featured in the Washington Post Magazine on Dec. 5, 2012.

Through the Library website, our archives are always open. Find this collection and more online in our Arlington’s Story Digital Archive.

How to Preserve Arlington’s Past

The Virginia Room at Central Library is the County’s official history archive.

But how does the Library keep a steady flow of history coming in? Donations, from people like you.

Scott McCaffrey of the Sun Gazette was on hand for a recent donation by the Potomac Women’s Club, just one of several civic groups that now has its newsletters, yearbooks and scrapbooks preserved for future generations of Arlington residents and researchers.

In the case of the Potomac Women’s Club, the records go back to the early 1950s and create a fascinating timeline of both dramatic changes in the County and the evolving influence of women’s organizations nationwide.

See more images from the Potomac Women’s Club donation.

 

Learn more about the Virginia Room and local history. 

 

Download the Library App