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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember one fall day in 1984 or 1985 my officemate Trudy had her car parked near Ballston so after work she took me to get pumpkins at a farm stand kind if place. It seemed far off but actually it wasn't, just that I was new to the area.
I know Meadows Farms is still on Rt 50 near 7 Corners, but I don't think it was that place. My recollection is a place right on the road, parking in front, on Rt 7 somewhere between Rt 50 and I 66. Whatever it was is gone now.

Meadow Farms. It’s still there right off the road. Across from my former childhood pediatrician (I’m 55 now).

Other Meadows Farms locations in Reston and Chantilly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the 80’s, Arlington was mostly lower level government workers. The houses were small and unrenovated. Clarendon was a dump and deserted at night. I remember returning my cable box to the cable office there and thinking what a deserted creepy place it was. There was nothing upscale ant all until Bread & Circus (the predecessor to Whole Foods) moved in in the mid-90’s. There was a dirt field across the street that is now the Apple Store & Crate & Barrel where you could park if the grocery store lot was full.

This is why it’s ridiculous when people compare real estate prices in Arlington in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s to now. It was not even close to being the same neighborhood.

Clarendon was also known as "Little Saigon". A lot of small Vietnamese businesses there from the resettled Vietnamese after the war. Those have mostly moved out to Eden Center. The Orange Metro Line and rising real estate moved a lot of the low performing businesses in the neighborhood.
The Whole Foods was a Sears Roebuck I think. I actually got a Geranimals outfit there. It wasn't a swanky neighborhood then. Now it's all dudes with pony tails and flip flops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the 80’s, Arlington was mostly lower level government workers. The houses were small and unrenovated. Clarendon was a dump and deserted at night. I remember returning my cable box to the cable office there and thinking what a deserted creepy place it was. There was nothing upscale ant all until Bread & Circus (the predecessor to Whole Foods) moved in in the mid-90’s. There was a dirt field across the street that is now the Apple Store & Crate & Barrel where you could park if the grocery store lot was full.

This is why it’s ridiculous when people compare real estate prices in Arlington in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s to now. It was not even close to being the same neighborhood.

Clarendon was also known as "Little Saigon". A lot of small Vietnamese businesses there from the resettled Vietnamese after the war. Those have mostly moved out to Eden Center. The Orange Metro Line and rising real estate moved a lot of the low performing businesses in the neighborhood.
The Whole Foods was a Sears Roebuck I think. I actually got a Geranimals outfit there. It wasn't a swanky neighborhood then. Now it's all dudes with pony tails and flip flops.

Oh, and Stein's Dancewear was in Clarendon. That's where I saw my first nipple tassels as a teenager.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ballston Commons came along at some point but it wasn’t ever booming that I can remember. It was odd. Kind of almost rarely known of for anything in particular. It always had such an odd vibe.

It opened in 1986 iirc. We had recently moved to Arlington. They gave holiday gifts if you bought a certain amount in the mall...we got a Time to Shop! mug I still use at Christmas and a silverplated round tray I use for cards.

I liked Ballston Common well enough. Walked through it twice a day going to Metro and home. Penneys had good towels and sheets. Macys always was creepy. Hechts was better.

We played putter golf a couple of times at a miniature golf course catty corner from Bill Peck Chevrolet..the building on the corner now has blue triangle trim as an homage to Peck.

Before it was Ballston Commons, it was Parkington Mall.
I left for college in 1986. Working backwards, in the early 80s, Parkington had JC Penny's, Danniman's Fabrics, Park Lane Hosiery. It was essentially a covered strip mall exposed to the outdoors but the stores faced each other on a pedestrian only path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL no people did not have southern accents in Fairfax in the 70s/80s! This is a very transitory area thanks to the govt/military.

That being said, Reston Town Center was a field in the 80s!

Uhh yeah they did. Something like the Virginia tidewater accent is/was very common with certain white people in the entire region (including Fairfax but not exclusively Fairfax). Old virginia/old Maryland families.

+1
My family has been in NoVa for several generations and there is absolutely a southern accent among many of us.

Some of my Arlington public school classmates had strong southern accents in the late 80s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:America was at its best in the 50’s and 60’s. What I’d give to go back to that time.

Well, that was because the post-war economic scenario put the US at the top. The other countries were still building back from the decimation of WWII.
I'll never forget a story I heard from an exchange student to England in the late 70s. The host mother was still rationing food. No late night snacks as all cookies were accounted for the weekday lunches. The kid felt a bit starved because all meals were pre-programmed and that was all the food she was going to get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ballston Commons came along at some point but it wasn’t ever booming that I can remember. It was odd. Kind of almost rarely known of for anything in particular. It always had such an odd vibe.

Ballston Commons is the most recent iteration of the original Parkington, given the name because of its attached parking garage. Hecht's was the anchor store on a triangle between Wilson Blvd and Glebe Rd. The facade had tall windows, and the store spelled community messages with individual letters in each window: School's Open-Drive Safe; Happy Easter; Santa Claus arrives on Dec 1.
There was a very good Chinese/Hawaiian restaurant with a long drinks menu. One drink was a "Suffering Bastard," and it had the tagline: "Name Bad, Drink Good."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ballston Commons came along at some point but it wasn’t ever booming that I can remember. It was odd. Kind of almost rarely known of for anything in particular. It always had such an odd vibe.

It opened in 1986 iirc. We had recently moved to Arlington. They gave holiday gifts if you bought a certain amount in the mall...we got a Time to Shop! mug I still use at Christmas and a silverplated round tray I use for cards.

I liked Ballston Common well enough. Walked through it twice a day going to Metro and home. Penneys had good towels and sheets. Macys always was creepy. Hechts was better.

We played putter golf a couple of times at a miniature golf course catty corner from Bill Peck Chevrolet..the building on the corner now has blue triangle trim as an homage to Peck.

Macy's moved into the Hechts building after that chain closed. Hecht's was there during the heyday of Parkington when the mall was much nicer and then all of the stores became creepy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone remember the Hot Shoppes at Tysons Corner? My mom and I used to go shopping at the mall after school and would have dinner there. Such wholesome, delicious food. I'd always get the fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, spinach, and chocolate milk.

Also remember the Hot Shoppes in Arlington, the site of the recently closed Walgreens, opposite the Lyon Village shopping center.

It had an area where you could order meals to eat in your car. They were delivered by waitresses, sometimes on roller skates, to your car. The inside was very family friendly and the food was delicious. I still make the "Teen Twist."

Because it was a drive through, it had two curb cuts. This now makes the site very valuable because Arlington Co. is stingy with curb cuts and these are grandfathered in. When the pawn shop and closed restaurant are torn down for Arlington's water management site, that will be an even more valuable corner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL no people did not have southern accents in Fairfax in the 70s/80s! This is a very transitory area thanks to the govt/military.

That being said, Reston Town Center was a field in the 80s!

Uhh yeah they did. Something like the Virginia tidewater accent is/was very common with certain white people in the entire region (including Fairfax but not exclusively Fairfax). Old virginia/old Maryland families.

+1
My family has been in NoVa for several generations and there is absolutely a southern accent among many of us.

PP and I was born in Fx County. I wrote a long post about growing up with true local kids - their families arrived in the Colonial era and operated small farms that dotted the roads. Their parents and grandparents attended Fairfax HS in the 30s-50s. When we moved to a new build in 1980, there was a dirt road behind our house, several abandoned cottages and one house with chickens in the yard.

Yes, these classmates of mine had what you’d think of as a Southern accent - but different from my DC-born grandmother and uncles (they sounded almost like Baltimorians). My dad purposely learned to drop his “working class accent” as a young man.

One of the larger farms was Cobb Farms which is now the subdivision Cobb Estates. Mavis Cobb was a descendant of the original farmer and became the first woman from Fairfax County to become a lawyer and admitted to the Virginia bar.

The Crossman dairy farm, spanned an area in western Arlington into Falls Church. The family donated the land for Tuckahoe Park and Elementary School and Crossman Church which made a large addition to the church. A number of the old farm houses are scattered through the area.

[Anonymous]

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?

Many elementary schools for blacks that operated out of churches or were built by parents and the community throughout the area. The Vienna Colored School closed after de-segregation and was merged into Louise Archer School.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My working-class grandparents moved the family out to Great Falls in 1962 because it was the only place they could afford a big enough house for the family at the time. They were originally from Falls Church but had been priced out. Yup, even in 1962 that was a thing. It was the middle-of-nowhere back then, surrounded by dairy farms, and Tysons Corner still was a tiny rural outpost.

In general, there used to be a lot more working class whites until the 80s, and some not-so-great white areas. Pimmit Hills had a really bad rap back then. The Pagans motorcycle gang was based there. Lots of rednecks. Manassas was considered hick country, very redneck. Lorton was pretty similar. Arlington wasn't redneck but was kind of dumpy (okay, maybe it still is). McLean was always a nice area.

Accents...there definitely is/was one here, a lot of my relatives have one. The transplants don't have it but it's definitely still around. I'd call it a faint southern accent though not particularly twangy and with some Appalachian thrown in. It's kind of hard to describe. My grandparents said Warshington/warsh but they didn't have that sort of genteel Richmond accent either.

I lived in Pimmit Hills in the early 90’s after college in a house with some college friends. It was working class and mostly white and the “Pagan”reputation was still a thing. Our rent was $875 for a 875 square foot house. 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. I think the lot was 1/3 acre. I think homes in iPimmit sold for $140-$150K in the 90’s. Should have bought one…

I avoided Pimmit Hills for many years because of the incident where the boy got chased from Pimmit Hills and killed in the parking lot at Marshall. When I finally decided to see what it looked like, I realized it was just a regular neighborhood of smaller houses. Of course many have since been torn down and replaced with larger houses.

Greg Garcia is from Arlington, and Pimmit Hills was the model for the town in which his "My Name is Earl" tv show was set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clarendon and Ballston were sketchy AF, low rent districts.

Full of random foreign auto shops. Everywhere.

Parts of Ballston were called Greektown because of the small stores and delis set up by Greeks who worked for the US Army during WWII.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Virginia had de facto redlining, racial covenants, and housing segregation long after DC and MD. Virginia essentially forced its black residents to move to Maryland, as their kids could be safer and get a better education. The racial composition of NoVA prior to the 1970s was very intentional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Virginia had de facto redlining, racial covenants, and housing segregation long after DC and MD. Virginia essentially forced its black residents to move to Maryland, as their kids could be safer and get a better education. The racial composition of NoVA prior to the 1970s was very intentional.

Redlining was exacerbated by the FHA loan program started by Franklin Roosevelt. FHA did not want to give loans to those they considered poor risks, so they drew red lines around segregated areas where black lived and excluded those areas from the FHA program. Eleanor Roosevelt came to Arlington to give house keys to the first couple who bought a house in Lacey Forest using an FHA loan. The irony is that the house was built on land once owned by Robert Lacey, a carpetbagger from Ohio who bought land at tax sales because the Confederate widows could not pay the taxes.