Ugh "National Landing". I really hate the generic place names of the modern real estate industry. Somewhere I have an essay on it that I need to finish and find a publisher for.
One thing that I've come to believe is that we're wrong to criticize new neighborhoods on intangible or insubstantial things. We should restrict our criticisms to architecture or design. When we complain that a neighborhood that has only existed for a few years feels "souless" or whatever, I think that what we're really doing is complaining that it's new. Of course it doesn't feel like a neighborhood that's been around for 100 or 300 years if it's only 10 years old, it's only 10 years old. It's like being disappointed in a baby because you can't discuss Spinoza with them.
At the same time, we need to stop building places as though they can or should remain the same forever -- and this is the real trouble with a lot of new places. In 100 years a lot of new office buildings won't be able to be anything other than office buildings, abandoned or demolished. If you're turning 50 and you're still a baby, something has gone wrong.
100%. Newness vs. adaptability. That's what I was trying to say here - the real question is whether places like this can grow into anything, or whether they're just a faux-urban skin on the same development/financial pattern as sprawl, basically. And a lot of them are probably the second.
I am still baffled that this area doesn't capitalize more on its transportation links. How many places in the US (or even the world) have within walking distance BRT, Metro, commuter rail service, national rail service AND AN AIRPORT. It's the royal flush of transport (is that the right connection? I'm not a card player). This could be the hub of all hubs. But the region's ability to use that? Eh, let's build a corporate campus there and be done with. So frustrating.
Just as an aside, there used to be a Safeway and a small movie theater originally in the Crystal City Underground in the 70a and 80s. I find it telling that you didn’t even explore the still-extant Underground, which, as the name implies, is underground and largely invisible to the outside world. It’s our very own Montreal Underground, with some shops and a food court hanging in there.
I've attended functions at the Marriott, which is connected to that Underground, which is connected to the Metro. The Crystal City Underground has some great places to grab a bite to eat, that are not all that expensive too.
I lived for four years at the Concord, in the southern part of Crystal City. I loved it! The restaurants are a nice mix of nicer chains and independent, iconoclastic places. There were office workers during the day, and young professionals around in the evening. The metro was super convenient. I was a little sad when Amazon moved in, because I knew I'd eventually get priced out (and surely enough I moved to Dunn Loring two years ago).
But I agree- Crystal City did a good job of taking a drab, soulless office overflow area and making it into a textured place worth living in
I lived in Crystal House my junior year of college because at the time it was the most affordable neighborhood to live without a car within a reasonable commute of my classes at Georgetown and my internship in Rosslyn. Later on, my wife and I lived in Pentagon City in an older building near the Whole Foods for similar reasons. I came to really like the place and felt like the "soulless" criticism I would hear from my acquaintances in trendier neighborhoods was kind of off-base.
It's true that it didn't then and doesn't now have historic character and isn't particularly trendy, but it was a decent neighborhood that was changing for the better. Later on I would live in popular neighborhoods that resisted change, and it felt worse - it turned out that I was happier living in a decent place that was improving than a great place that was stagnating.
I worked in Crystal City 2018 - 2020. It's getting better, but the walk from the Metro station to the 2700 block was dreary. Lots of brutalism or US 1. Technically walkable, but a joyless experience. On gross days. I'd navigate the underground for most of the walk.
Crystal Drive atmosphere is better than it was, but should really revert to one-way car traffic like it was prior to 2006 or so. The bike lane is always blocked. Overall, the UX is bad for all users.
In Alexandria, the NIMBY/BANANA crowd invokes Crystal City to oppose anything development that isn-t single-family homes. Of course no modern devloper would go that direction but the existential fear of that lives in the minds of some.
Pentagon City is downright quaint compared to Crystal City.
Ugh "National Landing". I really hate the generic place names of the modern real estate industry. Somewhere I have an essay on it that I need to finish and find a publisher for.
One thing that I've come to believe is that we're wrong to criticize new neighborhoods on intangible or insubstantial things. We should restrict our criticisms to architecture or design. When we complain that a neighborhood that has only existed for a few years feels "souless" or whatever, I think that what we're really doing is complaining that it's new. Of course it doesn't feel like a neighborhood that's been around for 100 or 300 years if it's only 10 years old, it's only 10 years old. It's like being disappointed in a baby because you can't discuss Spinoza with them.
At the same time, we need to stop building places as though they can or should remain the same forever -- and this is the real trouble with a lot of new places. In 100 years a lot of new office buildings won't be able to be anything other than office buildings, abandoned or demolished. If you're turning 50 and you're still a baby, something has gone wrong.
100%. Newness vs. adaptability. That's what I was trying to say here - the real question is whether places like this can grow into anything, or whether they're just a faux-urban skin on the same development/financial pattern as sprawl, basically. And a lot of them are probably the second.
I am still baffled that this area doesn't capitalize more on its transportation links. How many places in the US (or even the world) have within walking distance BRT, Metro, commuter rail service, national rail service AND AN AIRPORT. It's the royal flush of transport (is that the right connection? I'm not a card player). This could be the hub of all hubs. But the region's ability to use that? Eh, let's build a corporate campus there and be done with. So frustrating.
Just as an aside, there used to be a Safeway and a small movie theater originally in the Crystal City Underground in the 70a and 80s. I find it telling that you didn’t even explore the still-extant Underground, which, as the name implies, is underground and largely invisible to the outside world. It’s our very own Montreal Underground, with some shops and a food court hanging in there.
I've attended functions at the Marriott, which is connected to that Underground, which is connected to the Metro. The Crystal City Underground has some great places to grab a bite to eat, that are not all that expensive too.
I lived for four years at the Concord, in the southern part of Crystal City. I loved it! The restaurants are a nice mix of nicer chains and independent, iconoclastic places. There were office workers during the day, and young professionals around in the evening. The metro was super convenient. I was a little sad when Amazon moved in, because I knew I'd eventually get priced out (and surely enough I moved to Dunn Loring two years ago).
But I agree- Crystal City did a good job of taking a drab, soulless office overflow area and making it into a textured place worth living in
I lived in Crystal House my junior year of college because at the time it was the most affordable neighborhood to live without a car within a reasonable commute of my classes at Georgetown and my internship in Rosslyn. Later on, my wife and I lived in Pentagon City in an older building near the Whole Foods for similar reasons. I came to really like the place and felt like the "soulless" criticism I would hear from my acquaintances in trendier neighborhoods was kind of off-base.
It's true that it didn't then and doesn't now have historic character and isn't particularly trendy, but it was a decent neighborhood that was changing for the better. Later on I would live in popular neighborhoods that resisted change, and it felt worse - it turned out that I was happier living in a decent place that was improving than a great place that was stagnating.
I worked in Crystal City 2018 - 2020. It's getting better, but the walk from the Metro station to the 2700 block was dreary. Lots of brutalism or US 1. Technically walkable, but a joyless experience. On gross days. I'd navigate the underground for most of the walk.
Crystal Drive atmosphere is better than it was, but should really revert to one-way car traffic like it was prior to 2006 or so. The bike lane is always blocked. Overall, the UX is bad for all users.
In Alexandria, the NIMBY/BANANA crowd invokes Crystal City to oppose anything development that isn-t single-family homes. Of course no modern devloper would go that direction but the existential fear of that lives in the minds of some.
Pentagon City is downright quaint compared to Crystal City.