My Neighborhood Discovered
Crystal City
Tucked between National Airport just west of the Potomac River (I can see the water from my balcony) and the Pentagon, the world's largest office building, to the north of it, Crystal City is an Arlington VA neighborhood about 1 mile long and half a mile wide. It was a quiet, collection of military and government contractor office buildings, sprinkled with residential condos and apartments. It was built in the second half of the 1960's -- a builder's grand vision of a modern city. Time passed, the government moved out and the vision aged not-so-well, making it not-so-attractive backwater when we discovered it in 1998.
It was in this funky, decaying state that we discovered that Crystal City was actually a very well kept secret. We were in search of affordable rents as I was returning to school for a couple of years. Like so many aging buildings, the apartments had lots of space and loads of closets, amenities complete with cityscape and water views -- and for less than on the other side of the river.
Like they say about old houses, Crystal City had good bones with a connective tissue that included a water park to calm my soul, an expansive athletic park to exercise my body, an underground of streets to let me escape the winter cold, metro service so I didn't have to park in the city, underground parking to keep the car snow free in the winter, and the Mt. Vernon Trail, an 18 mile path to test my running and biking endurance over water and through the woods. We've enjoyed Crystal City off and on for 20 years and now we've finally stopped moving, putting down roots in the same building where we first rented back in 1998. And, it's been renovated several times to keep up with changing tastes. Renting, we've come to learned, beats worrying about needing a new roof and mowing the grass.
Just after we settled this last time, the neighborhood began to explode. Crystal City was discovered! Amazon is coming to town! Crystal City is morphing into a major construction sight for the next couple of years -- some buildings are getting new skins and interiors, while others are being smashed to the ground and replaced with new construction up and down Crystal Drive. And, we're getting a movie theater, new restaurants, shops and a grocery all within three blocks of our apartment building. By the end of 2021 the neighborhood's famous brutalist tan and gray concrete will dissolve into a sea of modern reflective glass, color and metal. All we have to do is survive the dust, dirt, jack hammers and trucks full of steel and cement.
Why do I tell you all this? Because, to help us endure the change, our Business Improvement District (BID) ran a competition to set fire to Crystal City's artistic creative conscious. The target - a colorful mural to highlight our local dance company, the Synectic Theater (which, of course, can be reached through the underground or above ground). BID expected submissions from area artists, maybe even as far as New York, but received an unexpected application from Jay Shogo of Tokyo. This young muralist won by a landslide, taking the theater entrance from invisible to show stopping, with freehand spray painting, perfectly capturing the energy and personality of this theatrical dance company. Visit Jay's Instagram page for more views.
We like what's happening to our neighborhood. It's no longer a forgotten urban frontier or business district backwater. It's becoming a real city in it's own right. Crystal City will never have the history, architecture or gentrification complexity of D.C.'s Foggy Bottom, Capital Hill, DuPont Circle, Adams Morgan and the like.
The changes are creating a vibe, an energy, that will keep us guessing and keep us young. Crystal City has always had a diverse and international population and will continue to do so. I look forward to more young people, more children and more cosmopolitan life without leaving the neighborhood where we live.
If Mr. Rogers came to our neighborhood what do you think he'd say?