Old Town Alexandria Residence and Woodrow Wilson Bridge
- From: "Scott M. Kozel" <kozelsm@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 13:44:00 -0400
I have mentioned in the past having lived in Old Town Alexandria,
Virginia, near the I-495 Woodrow Wilson Bridge, as in less than a mile
from the bridge, and being able to see the Potomac River and the eastern
half of the bridge and the Beltway upgrade into Maryland from a small
urban park that is a block away from where we lived.
We lived on the 400 block of South Lee Street from 1969 to 1971, and
then my parents moved to the 400 block of Queen Street which is about 8
blocks west and a couple blocks from the old city hall buildings in the
center of Old Town. I moved away to college in 1972, and my parents
lived in the second location until 1986 when they retired and moved to
the Eastern Shore of Maryland where they currently live.
The following June 2007 aerial photos (taken by VDOT) show the area
around our South Lee Street residence, the river, the park, and the
Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
http://www.capital-beltway.com/WWB-Aerial-Jun07-27.jpg
The above photo is looking from above Old Town, across the river, the
WWB construction, with Maryland in the distance, and notice the National
Harbor buildings under construction in Maryland. The urban park is
named Pommander Park and is about one city block in size and is in the
lower right of the photo. The street immediately paralleling the river
is South Union Street, and all the visible townhouses between that
street and the river are new construction built between 1970 and the
current, and mostly since about 1990. The townhouses visible inland
from South Union Street are all historic homes dating from before 1900
and many from before 1850.
http://www.capital-beltway.com/WWB-Aerial-Jun07-28.jpg
The above photo is a slightly different perspective looking across
Pommander Park in the lower part of the photo, across the river, with
the eastern part of the old and new WWB in the right of the photo, and
the Beltway/I-295 interchange construction in Maryland visible in the
upper center of the photo. I recognize the townhouses in the very lower
left corner of the photo as being directly across the street from our
South Lee Street residence. The street paralleling the bottom of the
photo is South Lee Street.
http://www.capital-beltway.com/WWB-Aerial-Jun07-30.jpg
The above photo is almost the reverse perspective from the first photo
(#27), looking from over the river toward Pommander Park with the
historic part of Old Town inland of Union Street.
Those new townhouses along the river didn't exist when we lived there.
They were built on land that was reclaimed from abandoned docks and port
facilities. They are generally much larger homes and much more
expensive, than the historic Old Town homes, although the new townhouses
are architecturally nicely designed in a very similar way to the
historic townhouses.
The last photo also shows how the inland (Lee Street) side of Pommander
Park is on a bluff behind a masonry retaining wall. It is a good 30
feet above the elevation of the river. I could walk one block from our
house and have an excellent view of the river, and the Woodrow Wilson
Bridge. At night there was the interesting view of a sag curve of the
overhead lighting on the Beltway, as what is visible of the Beltway from
the park is from the top of the hill in Maryland to the high point of
the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
I can testify that in many places in Old Town, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge
is not visible at all from street level. It was not visible at all from
our house, although you could hear a faint drone of traffic on the
bridge which was (and is) part of the I-495 Capital Beltway.
--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Capital Beltway Projects http://www.capital-beltway.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com
.
- Prev by Date: Re: Commuter Parking inside of cloverleaf interchanges
- Next by Date: Re: Density, and Mass transit
- Previous by thread: Travel to Atlanta: Suggestions?
- Next by thread: Firecrackers in the beer can, watch it fly!
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
Loading
