Photo Tour: Shirlington

[statecollege]

You missed the best historical landmark of the area--the Weenie Beenie at the corner of S. Shirlington Rd and S. Four Mile Run Rd! You must add that to your record of the area. I moved from Arlington almost 24 years ago and used to frequent the areas you photographed. The improvements are remarkable and to the better. Shirlington Village was just beginning its renovation then. I can remember Arlington's disappointment about Alexandria allowing the glass high rise monstrosity to be built just over the border in Shirlington. Arlington wanted to preserve the architecture flavor of the old Shirlington shopping area.

[normie]

Very nice photo tour! Shoot, I wish I had waited a few more days to do the master list, but at least this will be added close to the first post. Thanks for doing this!

[Alicia Bradley]

Thanks for the great photos, pseudo... reppy goodness is coming your way.

On the topic of NoVA planned shopping/lifestyle plazas (or whatever - the facilities we were discussing in the walkability thread ), the Village at Shirlington was arguably DC's first. From Wikipedia (which AFAIK is accurate in this case):

"The Village at Shirlington opened as Shirlington Shopping Center in 1944, and was the first large shopping center to open in the Washington, D.C. suburbs and one of the earliest in the United States. It is located along Campbell Avenue (formerly South 28th Street) at the intersection of Shirley Highway and Quaker Lane / Shirlington Road in Arlington, Virginia. The center has been known since the mid-1980s' as The Village at Shirlington."

So Shirlington Village was established basically à la KC's Country Club Plaza (♥♥♥), only smaller, less Moorish (it was the '40s, after all), and twenty years later.

I'm absolutely thrilled that Shirlington Village is in the midst of a revival - anyone know what it was like in the '70s, '80s, '90s (for instance)? Was there any period in which it was totally 'dead'? (statecollege, I'm looking at you.. and any others who have anything to add. )

[FairfaxGuy73]

Not a bad area if you don't mind concealed carry or taking a dog with you if you're a woman alone jogging. You did omit the station where illegals hang out. If you're biking by (it's near two bike paths) you have to jump off the curb and into the street because they block the sidewalk.

[statecollege]

Originally Posted by Alicia Bradley

Was there any period in which it was totally 'dead'? (statecollege, I'm looking at you.. and any others who have anything to add. )

I don't recall a whole lot, except the center has already started its decline when I moved to the area in the mid-60s and to next-door Fairlington in the 70s. Fairlington was a run-down apartment complex that mirrored the decline of the shopping center before it was renovated into yuppie condo townhomes in the 70s. Other garden apartment developments surrounding Shirlington, such as Park Fairfax followed suit and were converted into condos. The stores in the Shirlington Center extended one block from 31st St to S. Randolph along what is now called Campbell Ave. At the S. Randolph end was an area anchor department store at the time, Landsburgh's. It went defunct and was replaced by an up-and-coming local catalogue and department store, Best Products. One-by-one the stores were getting boarded up. The service station was a typical dirty fuel and auto repair shop--much nicer now. There was no bus terminal. None of the high rise apartments and condos existed on the center's edges.

[pseudo]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. I see many of the pictures did not make out too well during the resizing.
I did not make it around the corner to Weenie Beenie, the picnic shelter next door that smells like urine, and to show the new I395 bike/ped underpass. I was running out of light. I'll come back to this, and I need to go a bit east down the bike path to show the monstrosity that the ITT (?) building is (I was peering at it tonight on the way home).
I felt challenged to do this once I saw Normie's list of photo tours and saw that there was very little of this area. Or, perhaps the others were just trying to keep this wonderful neighborhood a secret.
BTW - In my world, I consider Shirlington to be bounded by King St to the south, I395 to the east, Columbia Pike to the west, and I have yet to delineate the northern boundary - South Glebe?.