Forget Paris: Tysons Corner is Where Irony Went to Die

Forget the black fly in your chardonnay. Thanks to Sharon Bulova, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, irony is officially dead:

“The Silver Line is going to be beautiful ride into Tysons,’’ Bulova said. “Because it’s above ground people are going to have a view to die for. It will be a beautiful trip and when they stop at the stations — Greensboro for one, they’re going to feel like they’re in Paris.”

Ha ha ha ha ha -- oh, wait. She's serious.

To be fair, there's some acknowledgement that the Tysons of today isn't quite the plastic fantastic urban nirvana of Tysons tomorrow:

Metro’s Silver Line is coming to Tysons, and when it does, one of four planned stations will attract as many as 17,000 daily commuters to what today is a rectangular slab of asphalt dotted with a liquor store, a Men’s Wearhouse and an adult boutique.

Actually, we like the idea of the Wal-Mart sandwiched between the Mercedes and Porsche dealerships ourselves, but that's clearly jealousy sparked by our Ford Focus lifestyle.

But fret not about your eyes being soiled by the sight of the "adult boutique" when you alight on the platform at a Tysons station, Gentle Readers! Tysons has, as they say in the movies, a plan:

The solution, some say, is something called a pop-up development: temporary shops, restaurants, even art galleries that can fill in the gap between the present and future. Such temporary ventures have grown in popularity and are enlivening corners of London, Munich and even Washington that otherwise might have languished in the wake of the economic slowdown.

Sweet! Maybe they'll even get their Morton's back!

To be fair, Reston's getting the same sort of thing in the shape of the "interim retail center" planned for the Wiehle Avenue Metro station, but that will eventually become the lobby of a planned hotel. And no one's comparing Reston Station to Paris (oh, wait -- they sort of did.) But here's an artistic rendering of the pop-up hotness planned for Tysons:

Yeah, that sure does look Parisian. Though the City of Lights is famous for its own distinctive pop-up buildings:

Vive la difference.