A baby boy toddled onto my daughter’s front yard in North Arlington this month. Badly in need of a wardrobe change, the kid was alone and crying. With no parent in sight, my daughter – herself the mother of a two-year-old – sought to comfort the child as passing motorists […]

Just over the footbridge, behind those dense deciduous trees, lies the interior of Roosevelt Island. Centuries before that bully memorial to our 26th president was begun in the 1930s, the 88-acre island once known as Analostan was glimpsed by Captain John Smith and inhabited by Native Americans. But this same […]

The famed Arlington Way got a workout last week. County Manager Mark Schwartz, after a five-year community process, disgorged a recommendation dreaded by many in the neighborhood around Williamsburg Middle School. Atop the two recently added artificial turf fields to the campus along with Discovery Elementary School will be six […]

A vacant lot and an adjoining home bear noteworthy “for sale–contract pending” signs where Military Road meets the road to Chain Bridge. After a scheduled mid-July settlement, that property in my boyhood neighborhood of Rivercrest will be the site of “real nice homes,” I’m told by agent Timothy Clasen of […]

A century ago this month, the first U.S. “doughboys” hit European battlefields to help win the Great War. Downtown near the Willard Hotel, Pershing Park is being redesigned to honor all the soldiers, not just “Black Jack” John Pershing. The congressionally chartered World War I Commission doing the remake tells […]

It may have been the quietest rollout of a tax hike ever in what conservatives call “The People’s Republic of Arlington.” This spring, the Commissioner of Revenue’s Office got its quacks-like-a-ducks lined up to begin charging a 7.25 percent transient occupancy tax (informally called the hotel tax) to guests staying […]

The Civil War continues to reverberate around Arlington, known during that conflict as Alexandria County. Though our resident ancestors hosted no battles, Arlington was a vital strategic defense line and thoroughfare to epic points south. There was no shortage of local drama in the 1860s. This May 20, the county […]

I marked Memorial Day with a stroll around the Arlington site that has been called the “exclamation point” to the symbolic line across the Potomac to the National Mall. The six-decade-old Netherlands Carillon– though looking a bit worse for wear—offers touching patriotic music and a spectacular view of the downtown […]

If I make it to my 90s, I hope some younger scribe squires me around my boyhood haunts for some history-invoking reminiscing. I recently spent an afternoon in the car driven by Arlington homebuilder Scot Harlan, scribbling snippets from running commentary of his father Jack, age 92, and mother Jean, […]

I’m duty-bound to congratulate Erik Gutshall for his resounding win in the Democratic “firehouse primary” for county board last week. He achieved a victory that in the past has commonly gone to those who try a second time. And his prospects for winning the seat in full in November are […]