What did Northern Virginia look like back in the day (60s, 70s, 80s)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember when Alexandria & Arlington were so bad that you could get shot or mugged

+1

Definitely. Arlington was always very dumpy, and Old Town had a small nice spot, but mostly subsidized housing.

Manassas was about as hick as you could get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to high school in the 80s in Manassas with the 3 walled classrooms. The walls were like a tall cubicle to the ceiling with glass panels at the top to let in more fluorescent light. The chalkboard was opposite the open end. If you sat near the open end, you could lean your chair back into the hallway and see people in the other classes. It was noisy and there were only these few tall thin windows along the perimeter that didn’t let in much natural light. Despite the lack of room doors it still felt like prison because you couldn’t see outside.

Can’t imagine what Manassas PW county was like back then. Was it still overtly rural/country? I sometimes hear older folks speak with a twang in restaurants/stores; Were they the norm back then? I imagine many more farms in the are.

Hardly any Hispanics in Manassas, like it is now. In fact, not many in VA.

It was your typical southern city; Mainly whites with some blacks trickled in the mix. African Americans from Fairfax would be transported to PW County for school because FFx didn’t have an all black school.

Whoa. Until when, do you know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to high school in the 80s in Manassas with the 3 walled classrooms. The walls were like a tall cubicle to the ceiling with glass panels at the top to let in more fluorescent light. The chalkboard was opposite the open end. If you sat near the open end, you could lean your chair back into the hallway and see people in the other classes. It was noisy and there were only these few tall thin windows along the perimeter that didn’t let in much natural light. Despite the lack of room doors it still felt like prison because you couldn’t see outside.

Can’t imagine what Manassas PW county was like back then. Was it still overtly rural/country? I sometimes hear older folks speak with a twang in restaurants/stores; Were they the norm back then? I imagine many more farms in the are.

Hardly any Hispanics in Manassas, like it is now. In fact, not many in VA.

It was your typical southern city; Mainly whites with some blacks trickled in the mix. African Americans from Fairfax would be transported to PW County for school because FFx didn’t have an all black school.

Holy cow, what year was this?

During the 60s right before Virginia integrated. I believe in the final few years of segregation they built an all black school in Ffx, but it didn’t really mean much because it only lasted a few years. I remember Virginia was often in the news because governor Byrd threatened to shut schools down if they integrated; it was monumental when six black kids surrounded by armed guards walked into their all white school in Arlington.

Which school in Fairfax?

And which School in Arlington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to high school in the 80s in Manassas with the 3 walled classrooms. The walls were like a tall cubicle to the ceiling with glass panels at the top to let in more fluorescent light. The chalkboard was opposite the open end. If you sat near the open end, you could lean your chair back into the hallway and see people in the other classes. It was noisy and there were only these few tall thin windows along the perimeter that didn’t let in much natural light. Despite the lack of room doors it still felt like prison because you couldn’t see outside.

Can’t imagine what Manassas PW county was like back then. Was it still overtly rural/country? I sometimes hear older folks speak with a twang in restaurants/stores; Were they the norm back then? I imagine many more farms in the are.

Hardly any Hispanics in Manassas, like it is now. In fact, not many in VA.

It was your typical southern city; Mainly whites with some blacks trickled in the mix. African Americans from Fairfax would be transported to PW County for school because FFx didn’t have an all black school.

Holy cow, what year was this?

During the 60s right before Virginia integrated. I believe in the final few years of segregation they built an all black school in Ffx, but it didn’t really mean much because it only lasted a few years. I remember Virginia was often in the news because governor Byrd threatened to shut schools down if they integrated; it was monumental when six black kids surrounded by armed guards walked into their all white school in Arlington.

Which school in Fairfax?

And which School in Arlington?

Luther Jackson High School operated in FCPS from 1954 to 1965. Not sure if PP has another school in mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to high school in the 80s in Manassas with the 3 walled classrooms. The walls were like a tall cubicle to the ceiling with glass panels at the top to let in more fluorescent light. The chalkboard was opposite the open end. If you sat near the open end, you could lean your chair back into the hallway and see people in the other classes. It was noisy and there were only these few tall thin windows along the perimeter that didn’t let in much natural light. Despite the lack of room doors it still felt like prison because you couldn’t see outside.

Can’t imagine what Manassas PW county was like back then. Was it still overtly rural/country? I sometimes hear older folks speak with a twang in restaurants/stores; Were they the norm back then? I imagine many more farms in the are.

Hardly any Hispanics in Manassas, like it is now. In fact, not many in VA.

It was your typical southern city; Mainly whites with some blacks trickled in the mix. African Americans from Fairfax would be transported to PW County for school because FFx didn’t have an all black school.

Holy cow, what year was this?

During the 60s right before Virginia integrated. I believe in the final few years of segregation they built an all black school in Ffx, but it didn’t really mean much because it only lasted a few years. I remember Virginia was often in the news because governor Byrd threatened to shut schools down if they integrated; it was monumental when six black kids surrounded by armed guards walked into their all white school in Arlington.

Which school in Fairfax?

And which School in Arlington?

PP is probably referring to the four Black students who integrated then-Stratford Middle School (later HB Woodlawn and now Hamm MS) in 1959.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when Alexandria & Arlington were so bad that you could get shot or mugged

+1

Definitely. Arlington was always very dumpy, and Old Town had a small nice spot, but mostly subsidized housing.

Manassas was about as hick as you could get.

I am still sort of surprised that Arlington is now considered desirable, when most of it was historically pretty dumpy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when Alexandria & Arlington were so bad that you could get shot or mugged

+1

Definitely. Arlington was always very dumpy, and Old Town had a small nice spot, but mostly subsidized housing.

Manassas was about as hick as you could get.

There were nice residential areas in Arlington. The commercial areas were dumpy in the 60s and 70s because the money had moved further west and then Metro tore up Wilson Boulevard, where much of the retail was located, for years. The Vietnamese revived Clarendon in the 70s/early 80s before getting pushed out. Ballston Quarter or whatever it's called now used to be called Parkington and was anchored by a Hecht's department store that was kind of like a J.C. Penney's but not as nice as the Woodward & Lothrop stores elsewhere in the area (Seven Corners, downtown DC).

[Anonymous]

One of the PPs here, but a few more observations I'll add.

- Until the 1970s, everything was very low-rise. Then the mid-rise office buildings in Tysons Corner and apartments kind of along 395 started going in.

- Arlington, I don't remember ever being a bad area, but it wasn't desirable. If you moved up in the world, you moved to McLean or Fairfax Station. Arlington has always been expensive though. My parents priced out a houses off Route 50 in the 90s (basic brick houses, nothing fancy) and they were in the mid-300K range even back then.

- However, when the Rotonda condos opened in Tysons Corner in the 70s, that was the "it" address to have if you were a Nova yuppie.

- Being a civil servant was a big thing, but the whole contractor industry didn't really start booming until the 90s, and then soared after 9/11. Before then, you could easily go your entire fed career and not encounter a contractor, particularly if you weren't in DoD.

- Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, it was always expensive to live here compared to most of the rest of the country. My grandparents bought their Great Falls split level in 1962 for around $40K, which was an insane stretch for them, and that's all they could afford at the time. They had wanted to buy in Arlington for a better commute to the District but couldn't afford it. A decade later their Great Falls house was already worth $150K and the neighbors started being diplomats, executives, etc. When my aunts and uncles started their families, all they could afford was way out in Gainesville or Sterling, and this was 30-40 years ago. Never in my lifetime has anyone thought that the DC area was cheap to live in.

- I don't remember anyone, family or friends, ever talking about the "lost cause" or revising history to justify the south. I certainly wasn't around it growing up. We all called it the "Civil War" and not the "War of Northern Aggression" and school taught that slavery was evil and that the south fought for the right to keep slaves. I remember some my cousins having confederate flag stuff like bumper stickers (mind you, I'm talking 30+ years ago), but it was never really in your face in public.

- Nova was very white, had some pockets of black (mostly in Alexandria), and that was basically it until the 1980s. There was a big Iranian influx after the Shah was deposed. But the thing I think has changed the most is not the demographics, it's the land use. This used to be a sleepy, rural region, and it's amazing to see it now be a bustling, diverse, cosmopolitain place. I think the changes have been positive, which leads me to my last point.

- Traffic has ALWAYS been the pits. Yes, it's gotten worse, but in my lifetime it's always been the bane of the Nova drivers' existence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when Alexandria & Arlington were so bad that you could get shot or mugged

+1

Definitely. Arlington was always very dumpy, and Old Town had a small nice spot, but mostly subsidized housing.

Manassas was about as hick as you could get.

Del Ray was absolutely undesirable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the PPs here, but a few more observations I'll add.

- Until the 1970s, everything was very low-rise. Then the mid-rise office buildings in Tysons Corner and apartments kind of along 395 started going in.

- Arlington, I don't remember ever being a bad area, but it wasn't desirable. If you moved up in the world, you moved to McLean or Fairfax Station. Arlington has always been expensive though. My parents priced out a houses off Route 50 in the 90s (basic brick houses, nothing fancy) and they were in the mid-300K range even back then.

- However, when the Rotonda condos opened in Tysons Corner in the 70s, that was the "it" address to have if you were a Nova yuppie.

- Being a civil servant was a big thing, but the whole contractor industry didn't really start booming until the 90s, and then soared after 9/11. Before then, you could easily go your entire fed career and not encounter a contractor, particularly if you weren't in DoD.

- Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, it was always expensive to live here compared to most of the rest of the country. My grandparents bought their Great Falls split level in 1962 for around $40K, which was an insane stretch for them, and that's all they could afford at the time. They had wanted to buy in Arlington for a better commute to the District but couldn't afford it. A decade later their Great Falls house was already worth $150K and the neighbors started being diplomats, executives, etc. When my aunts and uncles started their families, all they could afford was way out in Gainesville or Sterling, and this was 30-40 years ago. Never in my lifetime has anyone thought that the DC area was cheap to live in.

- I don't remember anyone, family or friends, ever talking about the "lost cause" or revising history to justify the south. I certainly wasn't around it growing up. We all called it the "Civil War" and not the "War of Northern Aggression" and school taught that slavery was evil and that the south fought for the right to keep slaves. I remember some my cousins having confederate flag stuff like bumper stickers (mind you, I'm talking 30+ years ago), but it was never really in your face in public.

- Nova was very white, had some pockets of black (mostly in Alexandria), and that was basically it until the 1980s. There was a big Iranian influx after the Shah was deposed. But the thing I think has changed the most is not the demographics, it's the land use. This used to be a sleepy, rural region, and it's amazing to see it now be a bustling, diverse, cosmopolitain place. I think the changes have been positive, which leads me to my last point.

- Traffic has ALWAYS been the pits. Yes, it's gotten worse, but in my lifetime it's always been the bane of the Nova drivers' existence.

I'm going to edit you a little - please don't take offense.

The contractors started arriving in large numbers in the 80s with Reagan because the philosophy at the time was that the government should do less on its own and procure more from the private sector. The primary reason there is a TJHSST now is that the Republican Board of Supervisors thought it would help attract contractors to office parks in Fairfax, rather than Arlington or MoCo, if Fairfax could tout its special "science and technology" school. To be sure it just kept exploding in the 90s, especially along the Dulles Toll Road and Route 28.

Agree that NoVa mostly felt very White/Black until the 80s, but there were Black neighborhoods scattered throughout the county, including in Falls Church as well as Alexandria. By the mid to late 70s there were a significant number of Korean immigrants, along with the Vietnamese who arrived after the fall of Saigon and the Iranians who arrived in the years leading up to and after the overthrow of the Shah. Most of the Hispanics I went to school with in the 70s were the children of well educated Cuban refugees - it wasn't until the 80s that Central/South Americans from El Salvador and other countries began to arrive in large numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the PPs here, but a few more observations I'll add.

- Until the 1970s, everything was very low-rise. Then the mid-rise office buildings in Tysons Corner and apartments kind of along 395 started going in.

- Arlington, I don't remember ever being a bad area, but it wasn't desirable. If you moved up in the world, you moved to McLean or Fairfax Station. Arlington has always been expensive though. My parents priced out a houses off Route 50 in the 90s (basic brick houses, nothing fancy) and they were in the mid-300K range even back then.

- However, when the Rotonda condos opened in Tysons Corner in the 70s, that was the "it" address to have if you were a Nova yuppie.

- Being a civil servant was a big thing, but the whole contractor industry didn't really start booming until the 90s, and then soared after 9/11. Before then, you could easily go your entire fed career and not encounter a contractor, particularly if you weren't in DoD.

- Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, it was always expensive to live here compared to most of the rest of the country. My grandparents bought their Great Falls split level in 1962 for around $40K, which was an insane stretch for them, and that's all they could afford at the time. They had wanted to buy in Arlington for a better commute to the District but couldn't afford it. A decade later their Great Falls house was already worth $150K and the neighbors started being diplomats, executives, etc. When my aunts and uncles started their families, all they could afford was way out in Gainesville or Sterling, and this was 30-40 years ago. Never in my lifetime has anyone thought that the DC area was cheap to live in.

- I don't remember anyone, family or friends, ever talking about the "lost cause" or revising history to justify the south. I certainly wasn't around it growing up. We all called it the "Civil War" and not the "War of Northern Aggression" and school taught that slavery was evil and that the south fought for the right to keep slaves. I remember some my cousins having confederate flag stuff like bumper stickers (mind you, I'm talking 30+ years ago), but it was never really in your face in public.

- Nova was very white, had some pockets of black (mostly in Alexandria), and that was basically it until the 1980s. There was a big Iranian influx after the Shah was deposed. But the thing I think has changed the most is not the demographics, it's the land use. This used to be a sleepy, rural region, and it's amazing to see it now be a bustling, diverse, cosmopolitain place. I think the changes have been positive, which leads me to my last point.

- Traffic has ALWAYS been the pits. Yes, it's gotten worse, but in my lifetime it's always been the bane of the Nova drivers' existence.

I never heard War of Northern Aggression but I was absolutely taught,. As a student at Holy Spirit school in the 80s that the Civil War was about states rights and not slavery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when Alexandria & Arlington were so bad that you could get shot or mugged

+1

Definitely. Arlington was always very dumpy, and Old Town had a small nice spot, but mostly subsidized housing.

Manassas was about as hick as you could get.

Del Ray was absolutely undesirable

I lived in Old Town early 90s, and it had very much gentrified by then, but had friends who lived in Del Ray and people told us to be careful visiting them there after dark (advice we ignored, but whatever...).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when Alexandria & Arlington were so bad that you could get shot or mugged

+1

Definitely. Arlington was always very dumpy, and Old Town had a small nice spot, but mostly subsidized housing.

Manassas was about as hick as you could get.

Del Ray was absolutely undesirable

Aka there were black people there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when Alexandria & Arlington were so bad that you could get shot or mugged

+1

Definitely. Arlington was always very dumpy, and Old Town had a small nice spot, but mostly subsidized housing.

Manassas was about as hick as you could get.

I am still sort of surprised that Arlington is now considered desirable, when most of it was historically pretty dumpy.

Proximity to the physical center of one of the world’s super powers?

The fact that it was “dumpy” was an aberration of history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the PPs here, but a few more observations I'll add.

- Until the 1970s, everything was very low-rise. Then the mid-rise office buildings in Tysons Corner and apartments kind of along 395 started going in.

- Arlington, I don't remember ever being a bad area, but it wasn't desirable. If you moved up in the world, you moved to McLean or Fairfax Station. Arlington has always been expensive though. My parents priced out a houses off Route 50 in the 90s (basic brick houses, nothing fancy) and they were in the mid-300K range even back then.

- However, when the Rotonda condos opened in Tysons Corner in the 70s, that was the "it" address to have if you were a Nova yuppie.

- Being a civil servant was a big thing, but the whole contractor industry didn't really start booming until the 90s, and then soared after 9/11. Before then, you could easily go your entire fed career and not encounter a contractor, particularly if you weren't in DoD.

- Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, it was always expensive to live here compared to most of the rest of the country. My grandparents bought their Great Falls split level in 1962 for around $40K, which was an insane stretch for them, and that's all they could afford at the time. They had wanted to buy in Arlington for a better commute to the District but couldn't afford it. A decade later their Great Falls house was already worth $150K and the neighbors started being diplomats, executives, etc. When my aunts and uncles started their families, all they could afford was way out in Gainesville or Sterling, and this was 30-40 years ago. Never in my lifetime has anyone thought that the DC area was cheap to live in.

- I don't remember anyone, family or friends, ever talking about the "lost cause" or revising history to justify the south. I certainly wasn't around it growing up. We all called it the "Civil War" and not the "War of Northern Aggression" and school taught that slavery was evil and that the south fought for the right to keep slaves. I remember some my cousins having confederate flag stuff like bumper stickers (mind you, I'm talking 30+ years ago), but it was never really in your face in public.

- Nova was very white, had some pockets of black (mostly in Alexandria), and that was basically it until the 1980s. There was a big Iranian influx after the Shah was deposed. But the thing I think has changed the most is not the demographics, it's the land use. This used to be a sleepy, rural region, and it's amazing to see it now be a bustling, diverse, cosmopolitain place. I think the changes have been positive, which leads me to my last point.

- Traffic has ALWAYS been the pits. Yes, it's gotten worse, but in my lifetime it's always been the bane of the Nova drivers' existence.

I'm going to edit you a little - please don't take offense.

The contractors started arriving in large numbers in the 80s with Reagan because the philosophy at the time was that the government should do less on its own and procure more from the private sector. The primary reason there is a TJHSST now is that the Republican Board of Supervisors thought it would help attract contractors to office parks in Fairfax, rather than Arlington or MoCo, if Fairfax could tout its special "science and technology" school. To be sure it just kept exploding in the 90s, especially along the Dulles Toll Road and Route 28.

Agree that NoVa mostly felt very White/Black until the 80s, but there were Black neighborhoods scattered throughout the county, including in Falls Church as well as Alexandria. By the mid to late 70s there were a significant number of Korean immigrants, along with the Vietnamese who arrived after the fall of Saigon and the Iranians who arrived in the years leading up to and after the overthrow of the Shah. Most of the Hispanics I went to school with in the 70s were the children of well educated Cuban refugees - it wasn't until the 80s that Central/South Americans from El Salvador and other countries began to arrive in large numbers.

No offense taken at all, I agree with what you wrote. You are very right about the scattered black pockets, which were probably established by freed people post slavery, and your other observations about the demographic changes are spot on.