A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine took the Metro down from Montgomery County, Maryland out to Vienna, Virginia, and I gave her a tour of Fairfax County. I’ve only lived here for five years, but I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge, much of which ends up in this newsletter.

It can be hard to get a sense of what you know when you’re just writing, alone, so it was fun to show someone around. I felt a little bit like a tour guide who drives around a group in a little passenger van. Nothing like that exists out here in the suburbs, but you know what? If it did, it might succeed.

Every time I do one of these drives, I see something new, even in the most seemingly boring suburban landscapes. But I also recognize an increasing number of buildings and landmarks, and can tell you what they used to be. Most people my age, I suppose, don’t know that trivia. (I’ve learned much of it from old-timer Facebook groups.) My dad used to tell me, when we’d visit Long Island where he grew up, what department store that Toys ‘R’ Us used to be, or what corner the Howard Johnson’s was on. Like father, like son.

We started, sensibly, in Vienna, one of only a handful of classic towns in Fairfax County. I think a lot of people have no idea there are any real towns in Fairfax County, i.e. places with main streets and little walkable downtowns. There actually are, so we started with one.

My friend wasn’t here to learn the history of every Vienna building I’ve featured in this newsletter—four, I think!—but I found it hard not to point them all out. I told her, I can imagine being profiled in one of those long newspaper articles where a young journalist takes a long drive with an eccentric character. You know, something like this:

As we drive down Vienna’s Maple Avenue—a pretty typical Main Street, by appearances—Del Mastro comes alive. “You see that pool showroom? That used to be a Kinney Shoes. They had a signature sloped roof—you can still see it if you look at the satellite view on Google Maps.” “That bicycle store was a movie theater. Say, up in Maryland, there’s a movie theater that closed in 2001, and the posters are still hanging out front.” “This intersection? The trolley used to run through here. Down in Fairfax, you can still see a little piece of the right of way behind the Texaco station. Well, of course it’s not a Texaco anymore. But they didn’t repaint the porcelain exterior.”

He’s a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge. But does anyone still want an encyclopedia?

I have to say, I’m very pleased with the audience I’ve grown/found here. When I started, a little over a year ago, I really had no idea what sort of audience there was for this beat. But there is one, and I’m very grateful for that.

Anyway, here’s Vienna: first the trolley trail, then Maple Avenue (Main Street), and lastly, a new traditionally styled building on Church Street, Vienna’s original, pre-automobile main street. Vienna is one of Fairfax County’s most expensive communities, and I guess there’s a reason for that. Read more about it here.

Our next stop was downtown Fairfax, i.e. Fairfax City. Technically, it’s an incorporated city, so it isn’t Fairfax County, but it’s in Fairfax County. And while many of its historic buildings are gone, it retains a historic area and a street grid. You could be forgiven for not knowing that there actually is a Fairfax City. Here’s what it looks like. (The highway running through here, though, is a different story.)

The next stop was Eden Center, in Falls Church, which I’ve just written about this week. It’s one of the most interesting places in the D.C. suburbs, possibly in any American suburb. It’s a large strip mall that has become a Vietnamese commercial and cultural center, and something of a tourism draw. If you put the same businesses in an urban environment, it would probably a much more famous neighborhood, like a Chinatown or Little Italy. But I think its suburban setting is part of what makes it so interesting.

There are also some really neat indoor-mall-style areas, where old storefronts have been subdivided into a bunch of small businesses.

We ended by driving down U.S. 1, the old north-south route before I-95. It’s an interesting corridor of contrasts—old motels and aging small commercial buildings, side by side with big new apartment buildings and box stores. There used to be a trolley that could take you down here, all the way to Mount Vernon. Today, there’s no rail transit this far south. There also used to be a little diner that was built to look like a giant log. A few of the old neon signs still remain. This is pure Americana, and like it or not, it’s a piece of our history. Me? I don’t dislike it as much as you might expect.

The building on the left here is an old Krispy Kreme bakery, with giant store windows now fitted into the old truck bays. Way up ahead, barely in the frame, is a bank that inhabits what used to be the restaurant on the property of a defunct motel. Not in the frame is the Rite-Aid that’s now a tiny Office Depot, and the duckpin bowling alley that holds an antique store.

This might all seem like a mishmash of different places, or non-places, connected by frequently traffic-choked roads. But I’ve come to see that as part of the appeal (well, not the traffic.) In fact, part of what makes these suburban landscapes interesting is that they have so much room to grow and change.

And they already hold layers of history, if you where and how to look.

Related Reading:

Unnerved in the City

America is 20 Miles of Route 50

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