This route ran around the Ashland Park neighborhood and Woodland Park area, mostly covering Main and Central. The streets here were surprisingly wide for an area that predates car dominance. In some instances, streets had wide parkway areas, a common theme here and in nearby areas (see Mentelle Park, for example). It’s hard to tell whether these areas are generally significant from a public space perspective though the area enclosed by Desha and Fincastle streets has a tire swing and a bench.
Tag Archives: Main
Day 90-Timeless
Today took me to a historic area, the Western Suburb neighborhood. I walked through most of the western portion of the area of the neighborhood. Some of the houses in this neighborhood are 200 years old while others are much more recent. My entrance into the neighborhood along Old Georgetown road began with a series of condo buildings that are less than 10 years old. Since the neighborhood is historic, there is more information available than the average neighborhood, including a list of historic buildings in the district from the neighborhood’s website.
I imagine that to a certain extent, if you live in a historic district you probably have to imagine yourself as part resident, part curator. In spite of this, this area generally doesn’t feel very self conscious though in certain places it does feel curated. In any case, there are a lot of beautiful houses here and it is worth visiting.
Maybe more interesting to me was the way this neighborhood interacted with with it 21st century surroundings–the car-oriented businesses along Main, industrial property along Newtown, public housing on Second Street. Perhaps not surprisingly, the historic district feels equally impacted by its location in space as its location in history. Here are early 1800’s homes behind a gas station–this is a little jarring. It feels like a panel from R. Crumb’s “A Short History of America”. Nonetheless, this neighborhood feels vibrant and at peace with modernity in a way that many newer neighborhoods don’t.