Maggie's Farm

I had never banged around Alexandria, Virginia until this past weekend. Since we have been touching on one of our pet hates, urban renewal, in Old Town Alexandria we have a perfect example of how the absence of urban renewal has make it possible to have a downtown that everyone wants to go to to shop, to eat, to hear music, to see galleries, to maybe meet a new girl- or boy-friend, and to hang out on the street or on the piers with an ice cream cone.

People like to go to places which are crowded, have a human scale, have some history and a touch of shabbiness or at least randomness. In other words, real places. Tiny Greenwich Village in NYC is crowded every night, but it cannot hold a candle to Georgetown for quaintness or size (but it has way better music). Why so many people seem to enjoy totally phony, manufactured places like Disney World is another topic for another day.

Wikipedia has a nice little piece on the town's history, which of course includes its history as a major American port, its slave trade, and its role as a supply center for the Civil War. Washington considered it to be his home town.

My lame photo, as usual, does no justice to what a hoppin' and pleasant place the Old Town is.