So We Were Wrong: Maybe Reston Is Becoming 'Another Manhattan' After All

In the early days of this fancy "web log," back when we had to web log by candlelight and the server was run by steam power, we chronicled the preponderance of news coverage in which Restonians expressed "trepidation" that our beloved earth-toned community was about to turn into "another Manhattan," only with even more midscale chain awesomeness. And while we've gotten the odd mauvescraper in the years since, Reston still bears only a passing resemblance to Gotham these days. Our fancy new "subway" is even above ground, for Pete's sake, like the ones in also-ran cities like (shudder) Chicago. (And is "for Pete's sake" something they'd say in Manhattan? Only if they added the f-word to it, we guess.)

But we digress. In the otherwise unremarkable news brief that the old American Press Institute building, one of Reston's original concrete shrines to brutalism, has been sold, we noticed an interesting detail:

The new owner of the modernist structure is Francis Rooney and Rooney Holdings, according to Fairfax County land records.

Rooney is the majority owner of Manhattan Construction Company, which has led such projects as George Washington University Hospital, Founders Hall at George Mason University, the US Capitol Visitors Center, Dallas Cowboys Stadium and the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

That's right -- the Manhattan Construction Company.

There are no words.