The Largest Whole Foods Market In The Region (Arlington, Chantilly: inspection, organic)

[FCNova]

Originally Posted by Old Guard

Where would you say Downtown Tyson's is? Like you are sitting around with your friends and say "Hey let's go downtown". Where exactly is that?

The intersection of gallows/international and route 7. Olive Garden, CVS, McDonalds, Jareds, gas station, bagel shop

[wycoff]

There are already two Whole Foods near Tysons- one on 123 in Vienna, one on 7 between Tysons and Falls Church. Both are small. I wonder if this is intended to replace both of those stores.

On the topic of local grocery stores, there's a huge Whole Foods in Fair Lakes. It has several good restaurant kiosks inside (seafood, BBQ, sushi, sandwiches, pizza), as well as a fun sports bar. It's by far my favorite grocery store.

I have a poor impression of Wegmans. There's a Wegmans off of 29 west of Fairfax. It's one of the least pleasant places in Northern Virginia. It's a crowded store full of sullen workers and rude, pushy, unfriendly customers, and I try to avoid it as much as possible. One of my favorite memories of that Wegmans is from last year- a middle-aged woman with a full cart spotted me and my family (two young children, and about 15 items) walking to a checkout and literally sprinted to cut in front of us. Just another day in friendly Fairfax County.

[tysonsengineer]

Originally Posted by Old Guard

LOL. I am not sure the circles you travel in. But I know for a fact that of the many people I speak with every day that if I asked them where NOVA's downtown was nobody would say Tyson's. That is what matters.

Nationally Tyson's is in a suburb of Washington DC which is part of Northern, VA.

Where would you say Downtown Tyson's is? Like you are sitting around with your friends and say "Hey let's go downtown". Where exactly is that?

No such thing as Tyson's so continuing this discussion is pointless. When you spell it right I might ponder your question.

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

No such thing as Tyson's so continuing this discussion is pointless. When you spell it right I might ponder your question.

Well, there should be an apostrophe. There isn't one only because the US Geological Survey prefers to avoid them, for some reason. This is in contravention to the basic rules of English punctuation, obviously. Same for (in Atlanta) "East Paces Ferry Road"--Pace being the person the ferry was named for, thus (correctly) "East Pace's Ferry."

[tysonsengineer]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Well, there should be an apostrophe. There isn't one only because the US Geological Survey prefers to avoid them, for some reason. This is in contravention to the basic rules of English punctuation, obviously. Same for (in Atlanta) "East Paces Ferry Road"--Pace being the person the ferry was named for, thus (correctly) "East Pace's Ferry."

Yes yes, ghosts of dc, we all love it.

Why Is It Named Tysons Corner? - Ghosts of DC

[spencgr]

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

No such thing as Tyson's so continuing this discussion is pointless. When you spell it right I might ponder your question.

While Tysons may not have an apostrophe, "it's" certainly does when referring to "it is".

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

We understand. You are arguing semantics. Let's just say its a place with 106,000 jobs, ....

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

It is binding, its just that its written so vague its not very difficult to achieve. .

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

Its definitely Fairfax's downtown. Tysons is not "a mall", it has more commercial real estate than Arlington in a smaller footprint. There are 6 fortune 500s located there, .......

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

Its based on the average commute distance and percentage of people who own cars also. If it was based on gas price only, .....

Seriously, I would have tagged you as better than to deflect with a grammar complaint.

[tysonsengineer]

@spencgr, lol alright I cop to the fact that I often leave out the apostrophe as made evident. I mostly didn't want to continue with Old Guard because it was going no where. I concede, the term downtown is a subjective term which depends completely on what point of view you are coming from. There are commercial downtowns (where offices are), there are populated downtowns (where a lot of people live), there are entertainment downtowns (where fun is). My view of Tysons comes from the commercial, which would be difficult for anyone to counter considering it is one of the most powerful and successful CBDs in the country, but others may see "downtown" as a place you go out at night which for many Tysons is not. Going around the semantics circle with him would have been pointless, and frankly his question wasn't in earnest, it was clearly rhetorical.

I find it humorous that he brought up the example of Manhattan though. Downtown Manhattan (FiDi) is a dead zone for night life and one of the least populated areas of Manhattan relative to midtown. Same thing for DC actually, downtown DC (ie federal center area) versus Golden Triangle where everyone lives and all the restaurants are. So actually, by most definitions of where a downtown is in an urban ecosystem, Tysons fits the mold quite well.

[Carlingtonian]

Jiminy crickets, people. "Downtown" in popular usage means "the place where everyone goes to shop." Traditionally there was only one such place in a given city. Obviously, there are now cities (e.g., NYC, Atlanta) with more than one such area (thus the need for a "Midtown" to distinguish the "second downtown" from the original one).

At the same time, you can't ignore the context of the locally understood meaning. If a neighbor said to me, "I'm about to head downtown," I would infer that they mean DC--even though Arlington's original downtown was Clarendon and even though there are even bigger shopping areas in Arlington, such as Pentagon City and Crystal City. (And a ton of people here shop in Seven Corners and Bailey's Crossroads. Yes, I added the apostrophe just then.) And yet no one refers to any of those places as "downtown."

Although Tyson's Corner is not the historic downtown of anywhere, no one would deny it's a huge shopping area (as well as an area where people live and work) and a hugely important nexus of commerce. By the traditional definition, it's definitely a downtown. But due to the history of this area, in our local NoVA patois, no one calls it "downtown." So it's a downtown, but it's not Downtown. Got it?

On that note,
here's a song for you all to start your evening with.

[car54]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Jiminy crickets, people. "Downtown" in popular usage means "the place where everyone goes to shop." Traditionally there was only one such place in a given city. Obviously, there are now cities (e.g., NYC, Atlanta) with more than one such area (thus the need for a "Midtown" to distinguish the "second downtown" from the original one).

At the same time, you can't ignore the context of the locally understood meaning. If a neighbor said to me, "I'm about to head downtown," I would infer that they mean DC--even though Arlington's original downtown was Clarendon and even though there are even bigger shopping areas in Arlington, such as Pentagon City and Crystal City. (And a ton of people here shop in Seven Corners and Bailey's Crossroads. Yes, I added the apostrophe just then.) And yet no one refers to any of those places as "downtown."

Although Tyson's Corner is not the historic downtown of anywhere, no one would deny it's a huge shopping area (as well as an area where people live and work) and a hugely important nexus of commerce. By the traditional definition, it's definitely a downtown. But due to the history of this area, in our local NoVA patois, no one calls it "downtown." So it's a downtown, but it's not Downtown. Got it?

On that note,
here's a song for you all to start your evening with.

Yep, when my mom took us clothes shopping, "downtown" meant DC....F St NW, I believe. When Seven Corners opened in '56 or '57, there was no more need for that. The Woodie's at Seven Corners was far cooler for kids....they had monkeys!

[JD984]

This is of slightly older vintage, but perhaps it can be dusted off to become the new theme song of Tysons, America's Next Great City:



The song prompted a Mad Magazine parody, which is perhaps appropriate in a thread about a new supermarket (and, for bonus points, also demonstrates correct punctuation of "it's"):

"When you eat meat but hate the meat that you're eating
then you've surely got, GROUND ROUND
It's so unnerving when they're constantly serving
in an eating spot, GROUND ROUND
It may be called a chopped steak, a salisbury or beef patty
No matter what it's called it's always overcooked and fatty
What can you do?
Go up to your waiter there, and loudly pound on your table,
stand up on your chair, and shout:
GROUND ROUND, always you're serving me,
GROUND ROUND, always you're conning me,
GROUND ROUND, why must it always be,
GROUND ROUND, Ground Round, ground round..."