Imagine driving your ginormous two-ton "sports coupe" into the New Towne of Reston sometime in the 1960s, eager to learn
what they were smoking when they decided to build townhouses out in the middle of the nowhere about this whole New Urbanism thing. And your journey begins... in a parking lot!
That's right. Do NOT drive your car through Washington Plaza. Leave it in the parking lot instead. Already we can see how RESTRICTIVE the HOA lifestyle can be. But there's no turning back, as we venture on foot to gawk in stupor at...
Never knew those were originally intended to be private homes. It's actually pretty funny to think that the kids sculpture was supposed to distract people from gawking at families watching "I Love Lucy" on their massive 14" black-and-white TVs on their way out of the Safeway.
Now we're confronted by the architectural gems of Washington Plaza. We've often called the plaza's adornments examples of the brutalist style, but here Cold War-aware marketers cognizant of its Soviet Bloc implications opt to describe it as "contemporary Gothic."
Yes, we've often thought of the Heron House as Reston's Eiffel Tower, but considering that the only other structures that tall in the Virginia countryside at the time were grain silos, it must have baffled the locals nearly as much as the integrated, diverse community being built around them.
Wait a minute. It's a BOAT, but it's not in the water that's 10 feet away? And it's made out of concrete, so it doesn't even float? MIND. IS. BLOWN.
So that's what all the water the Sun Boat isn't floating in is called! Wonder how many descendants of those original 30,000 bass and bluegill still ply its waters.
At this point, we've been so bowled over by the wonders of this bejeweled community that we're going to need to take a breather. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this exciting walking tour in next week's Reston Flashback. In the meantime, please don't feed the geese or the residents.
Flashbacks:
The RNGC Caddyshackpocalypse
Bollards!
'Wonder how many descendants of those original 30,000 bass and bluegill still ply its waters.'
ReplyDeleteIn the 50 years since its creation, the pristine ice cold crystal clear virgin waters of Lake Anne have been transformed by 100,000,000,000 tons of goose poop that has coalesced into a breathing green slim monster at the bottom that has been energized by hundreds of millions of sedative pills accidently dropped into the lake by the thousands of Lake Anne anxiety-ridden residents over the decades that was further mutated by the tens of thousands of Lake Anne food poisoned diners that rushed to the boat boat over the decades only to wage projectile vomit competitions to see who could hurl hazardous biological containiments closest to the Van Gogh Bridge. The results of the last 50 years of activities at Lake Anne have resulted in a descendant form of fish that speaks an ancient form of Russian and that eats human flesh and hands human-like hands that it uses to pick its teeth with baby bones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcFb4aAaTX4
We'll never know for sure what alien lifeform monsters lurk beneath Lake Anne...until the Reston National Golf Course does astrobiology a great service by finally draining the lake bone dry.
I thought I'd clarify my statement about Reston National Golf Course.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Hidden Creek Golf Course currently drains Lake Anne. In my anticipated throwback 50s sci-fi horror scenario, the Reston National Golf Course will drain Lake Anne of its slime green water to operate the 800,000 member condo association's kiddie pool. In 50 years, with the build-out of the Reston National Golf Course reaching its maximum density, the reanimated clone of Cathy Hudgins will spearhead the building of a $100 BILLION pipeline from Lake Anne to the development in South Reston because the proffered kiddie pool will have 98,000 underwater workforce housing units.
Gee, Mean Daddy. You mean all of that green slime in Lake Anne is the result of goose poop and not my youthful, drug-addled years of urinating from from the viewing towers overlooking the lake? My guilty conscience has now been assuaged.
ReplyDelete(Wait. Before the Peasant gets here, "My guilty conscience has now been assewaged."
Dear Convict,
ReplyDeleteNo, you see urinating from the concrete viewing tower at Lake Anne doesn't cause greem slim, but acid from human urine COMBINED with the goose poop does cause the rapid deterioration of the concret base upon which the Heron House sits, which explains why the Heron House at Lake Anne has multiple factors running up and down from top to bottom. When the Heron House finally topples over into Lake Anne, it will all because every toddler boy's dream of climbing the tower for the first time and peeing in lake was realized.
True story:
Years ago at Lake Anne I overheard a Consumer Protection Agency-type helicopte parent mother of a 3 year old who was crying to the heavens to climb the concrete tower unassisted by his mom say to her little boy the following: "The mean developer that build this dangerous thing clearly doesn't like babies! If you fall down you'll break your neck! How about we feed the ducks instead?"
True story. Robert E. Simon is a mean developer that hates babies, which is proven by that evil concrete tower that he allowed to be built at Lake Anne.
Convict, I think you meant to say "my guilty conscience has now been Julian Assanged", since you were talking about leaks, after all.
ReplyDeleteApologies to The Beach Boys:
ReplyDeleteLittle goose poop
You don' know what I goooooot
My boy fell off the 'stone house' and nearly cracked his head open. That thing should be torn down. The sign now says for kids not to play on it, but based on this it was built for children. It should be taken down.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought they should get rid of it. Concrete with sharp edges is just waiting to do damage to a child. Last time I was back there I stuck my head in and it is filthy inside - even worse than it was in the late '60s.
DeleteHaters gotta hate, and Restonian has to generate hits for his filthy weblog.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, let's trot out another post about Lake Anne!
Yawn. Restonian you are a bore.