Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Westover History
The neighborhood that I'm covering is Westover, Arlington, Virginia. Westover was built in the 19th century. It started out as mostly farmland but began to expand as time went on. Westover neighborhood is located between Ballston station and the East Falls Church metro stations. When first founded, Arlington belonged to a man named Nicholas Febrey, who was a civic leader. After becoming more industrial with trains, in 1938, more apartment buildings began to construct so that allowed more people to populate Westover. Today, Westover still has family-owned stores that started up around the time that Westover became more populated and some changes have been changed but not much.
General Arlington History
Arlington County in Virginia is located across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. It was founded on February 27, 1801 and was initially called Alexandria County. In 1920, the name was changed to Arlington County since Alexandria County had become an independent city in the year of 1870. Some important locations that are standing in Arlington today are the Arlington National Cemetery, The Pentagon, and Fort Myer. Currently, in 2010, Arlington has a population of 207,627 residents.
Point of Interest: Lyon Park Community House
The motto of the Lyon Park Community Center at its creation, stated in its constitution, is, "A social, civic and recreative center: so democratic as to attract the humblest: so wholesome as to appeal to the exclusive: so broad in scope as to bring youth maturity and old age into closer companionship to the benefit of all."
The article below describes how the community center continues to have a greater role in the civic life of the citizens as of September 16, 1938. The article describes how the center was used for the meetings of several organizations including the Arlington Civic Federation, the Lyon Park Citizens' Association, and the Lyon Park Woman's Club.
The community center was developed by realitors Lyon and Fitch. The money to build the house was contributed by the members of the Lyon Park Community Center Committee, who each donated around $25.
The debt created by the building and establishment of the community house was finally paid off in 1938, after which they decided they should begin renovations on the center. The Lyon Park Community House is currently planned to undergo
renovations in 2011 to 2012.
Fairlington Then and Now
The above pictures show what Fairlington looks like today and the bottom images show what Fairlington looked like when it was first built. The main difference is that there is much more landscaping and the trees have grown quite a bit taller. Also if you look at the buildings you’ll notice that the houses did not used to have shutters on the windows. Fairlington has become a part of a more urban area and with the surrounding development came the installation of the parking lots. Although there are these slight changes, not much in the neighborhood physically has changed because it is on the Historic Register, which makes sure it stays the same way it was when it was first built.
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