Eminent Arlingtonian John Paul Stevens brought down the house. The unassuming retired Supreme Court justice wowed Arlington’s Committee of 100 last Wednesday with wit and sportstalk on top of the expected legal insight. Freed to speak his mind at age 93, Stevens also hazarded predictions on the high court’s next [...]

It takes a village to raise a new school. In Arlington that means running the blueprints by a million stakeholders and pushing through a few split-the-baby decisions. For two years, Arlington Public Schools has been racing the demographic clock to create a new 600-student elementary school on the campus of [...]

Whenever I drive past Arlington Hall, I’m reminded that if it did not exist, neither would I. It was there, at the intersection of Arlington Boulevard and George Mason Drive, that my parents met during World War II. Today the 100-acre complex is a fenced-off home to the Army National [...]

County history activists, with little fanfare, have been busy breathing new life into Fort Ethan Allen, the Civil War-era protector of Chain Bridge from invading rebels. The results, which the public will see this November, combine fresh archaeology with modern museum exhibition techniques in a well-tended natural setting. And like [...]

It was a bumpy week for the visionaries of a revitalized Columbia Pike. Arlington got mocked by national media for spending $1 million on the first in a series of fancified bus stops that don’t provide decent shelter (the project was then put on hold). News broke that the Federal [...]

The word “radio,” I’m reliably informed, was first used by broadcasters a century ago this year, right here in Arlington. The transition from the quainter “wireless” was accomplished at the Naval Radio Station, the area’s first such facility, located at what is now South Courthouse Road and 7th Street, according [...]

The weeping-and-wailing budget season has enveloped Arlington. And though the Columbia Pike trolley and travails of the Artisphere draw much commentary, smaller line items spark debate that drives home at least three observations: Many citizens are suspicious of the county board’s agenda; much commentary abounds with misinformation; and spending is [...]

Utilitarian Arlington may not look like a hothouse for musical talent. But over the decades, we’ve spawned our share of tunesmiths and instrumental notables. I’ve assembled a rough list with a little help from my friends. Perhaps most legendary is Virginia-born Kate Smith, the alto who belted out Irving Berlin’s [...]

Who knew that Arlington for months has been home to a cutting-edge experiment in cinema innovation? If you’ve caught a flick recently at the AMC Courthouse theater, you couldn’t miss that you were transported to movieland while lying on a plush, Barcalounger-type recliner. Unless you fell asleep (the fault of [...]

When the comic video “Arlington: The Rap” conquered YouTube three years ago, one line that got big laughs was the tough guy’s reference to “my book club.” Last week I had the privilege—without a lick of preparatory reading—of being a barfly on the wall at one of those rare literary [...]