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Post by htmb on Aug 11, 2012 2:31:37 GMT
The first time I drove down King Street, the boulevard running through the center of Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia, it was raining so hard I could barely see out the car windows. Fortunately, I was able to spend more time there later in the week, and was able to enjoy wandering the red brick sidewalks on a bright, sunny afternoon. King Street runs for several blocks down through Old Town. Government buildings may be found near the halfway point. The metro and George Washington Masonic Memorial anchor the western end of this historic area. If you look closely in the photo below you can just see the Metro tracks under the street light. The King Street station is to the south of King, and you can catch the yellow or blue lines which link to Reagan Airport, Washington, DC, etc. King Street ends at the waterfront on the Potomac. Looking out over the water Capital Hill is just visible on the horizon. While there is regular bus service throughout the area, there is also a wonderful trolley that is free and travels up and down King Street from 11:30 a.m.to 10:15 p.m. daily. The brick paved sidewalks are very friendly spaces to both pedestrians and dogs! In fact, in several places I saw water bowls filled with cooling ice water and many restaurants have outdoor seating so dogs can enjoy an afternoon stroll and Happy Hour, too! While I'm not much of a shopper, I did enjoy strolling at a relaxing pace and looking though items in the many different stores. More coming soon.....
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 11, 2012 4:13:37 GMT
Oh, this is great! It's nice to see that although they're definitely welcoming tourists, they must have some kind of anti-cutesy ordinance. The lack of frou-frou lets the clean, practical lines of the buildings catch the eye & helps imagine what Alexandria must have been like a couple of hundred years ago. Looking forward to seeing more, even if it includes bi-partisan mugs on mugs.
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Post by htmb on Aug 11, 2012 4:31:59 GMT
More mugs for the mug hoarders? That's the only political-type photo of the bunch, and I made sure it was bipartisan before I posted it. In fact, that store had the only political paraphernalia I saw all day. Old Town Alexandria is a working town with only a little bit of a touristy tone. It's also mixed use with many residences - townhouses and single family homes - located on the streets on either side of King.
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Post by bjd on Aug 11, 2012 6:48:13 GMT
Is this a suburb of Washington?
I like the brick buildings -- it looks much more warm and welcoming than whitish stone.
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Post by htmb on Aug 11, 2012 7:04:41 GMT
Is this a suburb of Washington? I like the brick buildings -- it looks much more warm and welcoming than whitish stone. Yes, Alexandria is across the Potomac River basin to the south west of Washington, DC, and directly west of Maryland. If you look closely at the picture with the large birds nest you can see the Capital Building in the distance (it sits up on a hill). I agree about the red brick. I've lived in red brick homes for the majority of my life. It's very traditional, especially in the southeastern United States. I often cringe when I see a painted brick building like the green one because I know there's probably beautiful red brick underneath.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2012 11:03:59 GMT
It's really nice to see a middle-sized downtown area that looks alive. We know how rare those are becoming in a lot of the United States. So many other places could have had this sort of charm if there were not the obsession to pull buildings down when they are 40 or 50 years old and replace them with something temporarily modern.
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Post by htmb on Aug 11, 2012 14:29:34 GMT
So true, Kerouac. I read somewhere that Alexandria planned very early on to protect the local heritage and developed historic preservation guidelines. The many shops on King Street are interesting to me because many are stores we might find is modern parts of the city such as Banana Republic and The Loft. The just make good use of old space. And even the one or two souvenir-type shops are interesting and tasteful.
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Post by htmb on Aug 11, 2012 22:37:06 GMT
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Post by nycgirl on Aug 12, 2012 16:45:24 GMT
Alexandria sure looks charming and well-preserved. I like how even Starbucks is housed in a quaint brick building. I see they have a NY deli.
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Post by htmb on Aug 12, 2012 17:00:40 GMT
They actually have TWO Starbucks tucked into old buildings I didn't try the "NY Deli," but caught that pic as I was driving out of town.
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Post by htmb on Aug 13, 2012 21:08:06 GMT
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Post by htmb on Aug 13, 2012 22:32:38 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 14, 2012 16:52:34 GMT
Super report. Those are indeed tobacco plants in the plaza garden. The first time I saw tobacco growing was driving through S. Carolina. My first thought was, "Eww ~~ sick collard!" It's not a pretty crop.
Alexandria should be held up as an example of how a city can keep its culture without turning it into kitsch and making it interesting. Love the historical intro to the Torpedo Factory, for instance, and all the way through it looks like a great town that people really enjoy.
Love that close-up of the paddle wheeler.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2012 17:06:52 GMT
That brick building is really excellent.
And now I'm wondering if bricklayers are a dying race, because placing little bricks in little rows, one after another, cannot possibly be considered an efficient building technique in the 21st century, even if it looks so nice.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 14, 2012 17:24:08 GMT
I dunno. When I moved to Mandeville, La. in the early '90s, there was a building boom there. The houses were actually brick-clad rather than built of brick, but it was the prevalent style. All of the brick crews came over from New Orleans. There were a few older guys still working, all of Italian descent, but the younger masters and apprentices were all of African descent. I knew that in New York it was common for certain ethnicities to dominate in various building fields, but that was the first I knew about it in Louisiana. The brick work being done at that time was really excellent, varied, & interesting. As the building boom continued, the brick work wasn't nearly as nice. I'm sure contractors were just putting together their own crews & not using the more skilled (& probably more expensive) true masters from across the lake.
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Post by lugg on Aug 16, 2012 18:17:55 GMT
Great report - it looks a really charming place
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Post by htmb on Oct 23, 2012 22:59:56 GMT
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Post by mossie on Oct 24, 2012 13:27:28 GMT
And I thought Alexandria was in Egypt, how wrong I was. Nice to see a proper old town with proper shops. Pity about the Starbucks, they are in very bad odour over here because they have a legal way of not contributing any tax. Seems commonplace among the big multi-national companies. I have generally avoided them because I don't like burnt coffee, but will absolutely avoid them now.
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Post by htmb on Oct 24, 2012 16:32:03 GMT
Mossie, the name Alexandria actually dates back to Scotsman John Alexander. Early European Settlement and the Founding of Alexandria (1669-1749)
Much of present-day Alexandria was included in a 6,000-acre land grant from Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, which was awarded to Robert Howson, an English ship captain, on October 21, 1669. This land overlapped a 700-acre patent that had previously been issued to Dame Margaret Brent in 1654. The Howson-tract extended along the Potomac River, from Hunting Creek on the south to the Little Falls on the north. The grant was made by authority of King Charles II in recognition of Captain Howson's bringing 120 people to live in Virginia. Less than a month later, Howson sold the land to John Alexander for 6,000 pounds of tobacco.alexandriava.gov/historic/info/default.aspx?id=29540#founding
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 24, 2012 17:15:26 GMT
You must have had such a delightful day there -- beautiful weather, beautiful town.
Your quote in #18 set me off on another tangent in my ill-organized and ongoing genealogical quest, as the original bearer of my paternal last name entered what's now the US through Virginia.
I thought this item was interesting in light of the reference to transporting people & attendant land grants.
“Old Somerset On The Eastern Shore Of Maryland” by Clayton Torrence, 1935, Richmond, VA. Whittet & Shepperson, pg 477 The following persons were entitled to 50 acres of land each for coming into MD to settle. In some instances they assigned their “right” to the 50 acres to others, who received grant there. In other instances the parties were transported by others who therefore received the “right” of 50 acres.
I assume the persons brought in didn't just give over their acres to the ship captains out of benevolence, rather in trade for passage.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2012 7:19:03 GMT
Beautiful, but if only they could take the impossible next step -- pedestrian zones.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 25, 2012 14:25:27 GMT
Well, that wharf area and the lovely park are of course pedestrian zones, & what Htmb has shown of Alexandria seems to have very wide sidewalks. And look at the 3rd pic from the bottom in Reply #7 -- it's surrounded by a wide apron of pedestrian area.
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Post by Suzanne_K on Feb 18, 2018 23:50:01 GMT
I will be going to Alexandria in 6 weeks. Old Town looks like the perfect place to stay!
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