Offbeat Postscripts is a series of short posts where we cover small topics of offbeat history in Northern Virginia.
By Matthew T. Eng, Offbeat NOVA
Hello again.
The absence of posts for Offbeat NOVA is 100% due to the purchase of a house and subsequent move during the month of November and the first half of December 2020. It’s been an exhausting month and a half, to say the least. Now that everything and everyone is settled in (for the most part), we can continue getting back creating. A Christmas miracle, indeed.
In the week since the hysteria reached a necessary plateau, we kicked around several ideas about a Christmas-themed posting. A cursory search on the Internet about Christmas in Northern Virginia yielded more dark and macabre results at first: Christmas morning murders in Falls Church from 2015, and a murder-suicide pacts in Stephens City. There was also quite a bit of information about the Mt. Vernon Antique Center fire from three years ago in Fairfax County. None of that really spoke to us on the timeliness of the holidays season. In a year where the shitter has been perpetually full, we decided to focus on something a bit happier: Christmas lights. In the age of COVID, Christmas lights are a refreshing way to find happiness and joy from a safe and secure distance.
An internet search on the craziest Christmas lights in the area brought me to one woman: Holly Zell. She is currently the web producer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Her original website, “Historical Tacky Christmas Lights,” began in 2003 as a database for the best and tastefully tacky Christmas lights in Northern Virginia. The site includes a map and addresses of the best lights, as well as suggested driving routes. This woman has remained a dedicated and organized purveyor of all things dealing with exterior illumination for nearly twenty years. She know runs “Holly’s Tacky Christmas Lights” over at FairfaxChristmasLights.com. Her LinkedIn page noted that the current website was part of her grad project at Strayer University as a showcase for scripting languages like PhP and MySQL. Whether intentional or not, the current site looks remarkably similar to the simplistic-yet-effective tripod site from sixteen years ago.
We found ourselves going back to the original site. Would the same addresses still have lights up, nearly two decades later? We took a look at the original 2004-2006 list and found the houses closest to our current neighborhood on the Fairfax County side of Alexandria. We were not disappointed.
3912 Lincolnshire Street, Annandale, VA — LIGHTS
Of the four we checked, this one was by far the most extravagant. (Holly Zell/Offbeat NOVA Photo)
5811 Ash Drive, Springfield, VA — LIGHTS!
This one still has all of the “plastic fantastic” displays that we love. (Holly Zell/Offbeat NOVA Photo)
7704 Wilbur Court, Springfield, VA — LIGHTS!
This was the classiest of the four we checked. There are significantly LESS reindeer than from fifteen years ago. (Holly Zell/Offbeat NOVA Photo)
6283 Wills Street, Alexandria, VA — DARK
This was unfortunately dark this year. (Holly Zell/Offbeat NOVA Photo)
We didn’t make it to the Collingwood house in Alexandria to take a picture because it was getting late, but we already knew that a recent injury stopped the owner from putting on a display this year. If you want to see the famous Collingwood Lights in their majestic glory, Covering the Corridor (RIP) captured the magic from two years ago:
Know any other great places? Let us know in the comment section.
Check out the rest of the pictures/video on our Instagram page HERE.
Happy Holidays. More Offbeat NOVA coming — stay tuned.
Ah, yes. Thanksgiving. The unofficial start of the holiday season. For many of us in the United states, it is that time-honored day when friends and families come together to share stories and a wonderful meal. Political arguments are forcibly made. An invisible 38th Parallel of maturity is drawn once the kids table is set out downwind of the adults. Somebody’s uncle gets drunk. Everyone eats enough carbohydrates to easily pass out on the couch in the early evening while the opening credits to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory comes on the television screen for the children who ate their body weight in sugar-soaked pies.
Magical.
Well, that was all before COVID. 2020 is a different year altogether, for a variety of reasons we don’t need to get into. With the pandemic reaching some of its highest numbers in Northern Virginia to date, hopefully most around the beltway will stay safe and hold their family meals in virtual form.
Even without COVID, there are some who do not have the option to head home to break bread with friends and family. For members of the United States military, having a meal at home is a luxury reserved for few individuals. The United States Marine Corps, an organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., but regionally centered thirty miles down I-95 in Quantico, have historically eaten their Thanksgiving dinners in locations all around the world in conditions we can only dream of. Whether it be on the tropical island of Guadalcanal in the Solomons in 1942, the frozen mountain landscapes of Chosin Reservoir in 1950, or the deserts of the Middle East, Marines have always made the best of whatever situation they encounter, especially during the holidays. They are the embodiment of their unofficial slogan,“Semper Gumby,” or “always flexible.”
But what do Marines eat stateside in Quantico? This year, the Clubs at Quantico and Crossroads Events Center is holding a special Thanksgiving brunch for families on base that want to have their meal taken care of. The menu includes all the trimmings, plus champagne for adults and even omelette station for those who shy away from the usual fare. Thinking about the hardships endured by Marines eating their special meal on the front lines, I find it hard to believe that there would be an omelette station back then.
Luckily, vintage copies of Thanksgiving menus exist thanks to the diligent work of historians and archivists. There is a menu from a Thanksgiving dinner held by the First Signal Company in Quantico on Thanksgiving 1937 that speaks to what Marines ate long ago.
Thanksgiving in Quantico, 1937 (USMC Archives/Flickr)
Looking through the menu, there are several items that stick out as either unusual or a remixed version of what is classically placed on tables today. The first (and most obvious) is the roast young turkey, a smaller version to the much larger male version (roast tom turkey). Oyster dressing has an interesting connection to military history, specifically with the Navy and Marine Corps. Oyster dressing was a common menu item on U.S. Navy menus throughout the 1920s-1940s. It’s origins in America dates back to the 18th century when oysters were the most commonly eaten shellfish in America. Oysters were stuffed inside turkeys as an inexpensive source of protein. Other dressing options for similar menus during the time period included caper dressing or giblet gravy. Snowflaked potatoes were a special form of mashed potatoes made with sour cream and cream cheese. According to the New York Public Library website “What’s on the Menu,” snowflake potatoes were included in restaurant menus between 1928 and 1954. The mince pie, a British-inspired sweet fruit pie, were traditionally served to service members throughout the 1930s and 1940s at the start of the holiday season. The “hot rolls” were most likely a mimic of the famous parker house rolls, a staple across all military branches since the early twentieth century.
There is one item missing from this 1937 menu that was often included during that time period: cigarettes or cigars served during the dessert course.
The following year, Quantico served similar fare, but switched up the young turkey for the “roast Maryland turkey” with oyster dressing. From what I have gathered, a “Maryland turkey” is cooked and served with roasting vegetables. Some other menus found on the NYPL website have the turkey served among the cold dishes. The mince pie was swapped for the marble cake, a far better choice.
If you are interested in tracing the culinary history of Marines and Thanksgiving, the USMC Archives Flickr page is an excellent resource. I also did something similar in a different life for U.S. Navy menus (of course, not specific to Northern Virginia) back in 2014 for the Naval Historical Foundation.
Happy Thanksgiving from Offbeat NOVA. Wear a mask.
Offbeat Postscripts is a series of short posts where we cover small topics of offbeat history in Northern Virginia.
Confederate monument removal in Alexandria, now completely gone (Offbeat NOVA Photo)
By Matthew T. Eng, Offbeat NOVA
There was another march/protest yesterday.
For the DMV region, that’s nothing new. There is always somebody protesting something, especially in Washington, D.C. The 1963 Million Man March during the Civil Rights era, however, made making your voice heard and proving a point en masse a popular concept with national media attention. Much like the women’s suffrage movement growing from Seneca Falls to the steps of the White House decades earlier, the noise and activism started by a few noteworthy individuals grew to a collective effort of a large segment of the population.
Most recently, there have been a wave of protests, marches, and demonstrations in response to the Donald J. Trump presidency. In a grand wave of irony, they are marching for the same exact things they did previously: women’s rights, racial equality, and the unnecessary violence that stems from poor policy making.
And then there was the march yesterday: The Million MAGA March. In completely unoriginal fashion, the organizers literally took one of the most important names in Civil Rights history, the Million Man March, and added “MAGA” to it. Over a week after the 2020 election was called in favor of Joe Biden, Trump supporters flocked to the aptly named Freedom Plaza near the White House to protest the election results in support of the ideologue watching from his television. It’s like they are still yelling at people for sitting at a lunch counter. The lunch counter is just a lot longer with more seats.
Are you sitting or standing?
Despite the misgivings of Trump supporters, change has happened. Joe Biden will be the 46th president. After January 20, 2021, the government can officially begin to undo all of the harm the previous administration has done to large segments of the population in the United States. That being said, the activism of many have already made changes, especially with regards to the removal of the racist effigies of the Confederacy that feature so prominently in the state of Virginia.
Changing the Lee High School in Springfield to John Lewis (Offbeat NOVA Photo)
Monuments are coming down all around in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County. Loudon County. Alexandria. Symbols of hate are being removed. The Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield turned into John R. Lewis High School this summer. JEB Stuart Park is now called Justice Park. The Washington-Lee High School is now called the Washington-Liberty High School. The Fairfax High School mascot is a lion, not a rebel. It’s not removing history. It’s correcting a mistake. As a student of history by trade and profession, you can’t kid a kidder.
Thinking about everything that is going on, one of the things that pops in my head regularly is the film Pleasantville. In the film, the two protagonists are transported to a seemingly idyllic small midwest town set within a tv show, only to realize that their lives in black and what are anything but perfect.
(Pleasantville/New Line Cinema)
Slowly, citizens in the town slowly gain “color” as they come to dramatic realizations and new emotions and world views. Naturally, the townspeople react by rioting by destroying property, burning books, and harassing the “colored” people in the streets. They were angry, violent, and self-centered. Yet despite that emotion, there is no realization; no change in perception. They remain in black and white.
It’s been less than one hundred years since the Klu Klux Klan marched in a parade on the same streets where MAGA hopefuls did yesterday. Let that sink in. The irony would be dripping if it wasn’t so sad and terrifying. So where can we improve?
Many places in Northern Virginia. In case you were wondering where, I’ve come up with a list for you. If we just focus on removing the racist remains of the Confederacy, here is a list to start with:
GENERAL
Jefferson Davis Highway (various)
Lee Highway in Fairfax and Arlington
Lee Jackson Memorial Highway, Chantilly
PLACES
Alexandria:
Lee District Rec Center
Matthew Maury Elementary School
Manassass:
Stonewall Jackson Volunteer Fire and Rescue Dept.
Fairfax:
Lanier Middle School
Lees Corner Elementary
Mosby Woods Elementary School
Springfield:
Sangster Elementary
ROADS
Alexandria:
Beauregard Street
Bragg Street
Braxton Place
Breckinridge Place
Chambliss Street
Dearing Street
Donelson Street
Early Street
Floyd Street
French Street
Frost Street
Gordon Street
Hardee Place
Hume Avenue
Imboden Street
Iverson Street
Jackson Place
Janney’s Lane
Jordan Street
Jubal Avenue
Lee Street
Longstreet Lane
Maury Lane
Pegram Street
Quantrell Avenue
Reynolds Street
Rosser Street
Van Dorn Street
Wheeler Avenue
Annandale:
John Marr Drive
Lanier Street
Rebel Drive
Centreville:
Confederate Ridge Lane
General Lee Drive
Chantilly:
Mosby Highway
Old Lee Road
Fairfax:
Confederate Lane
Mosby Woods Drive
Old Lee Highway
Pickett Road
Rebel Run
Manassas:
Beauregard Avenue
Lee Avenue
We’re in the middle of a historical moment, and one day the existence of these roads and monuments will be an offbeat coda to a long-standing fight to eradicate symbols of hate and racism. Like the MAGA march, they will exist as a footnote to an embarrassing moment in our history.
One day soon. Here’s my favorite quote from Pleasantville:
“There are some places that the road doesn’t go in a circle. There are some places where the road keeps going.”
Offbeat Postcripts is a series of short posts where we cover small topics of offbeat history in Northern Virginia.
By Matthew T. Eng, Offbeat NOVA
We were going to wait until January 20, 2021, to write this short piece on Richard Spencer and his short stay in Old Town Alexandria. After recent events, however, it just felt like the right time.
On February 5, 2017, the Eng clan got into the family truckster and headed into Old Town Alexandria for a relaxing morning of shopping. It was cold that day, with the temperature hanging somewhere in the forties. Our daughter, Zelda, was just a few days shy of her first birthday. With two teeth poking out of the bottom of her mouth, she was very much the vision of a fussy 1-year-old. Admittedly, Angela and I were also a little fussy too. That morning was less than two weeks after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. As proud as I was for Angela and her friends to take part in the Women’s March the day after Trump took office, we still had to settle into the grim reality of a Trump presidency. We both thought the fresh air would do all of us some good.
You can basically separate Old Town Alexandria in a two sections, split between the north and south of King Street cut off along its Washington Street intersection. Everything across Washington Street towards the Potomac is the heavy-traffic area of Old Town where most of the restaurants and tourist traps are. Do you want to go to the Old Town Alexandria ghost tours or eat at a restaurant with overpriced appetizers? Head to the water. The other side towards the King Street Metro is much quieter with less foot traffic. There’s still a lot of cool shops and restaurants, just not in the same frequency.
Sign in front of BLOW Salon (Matthew Eng Photo/Offbeat NOVA)
That morning, I parked on a side street off the main road. Our first stop was the former location of Fibre Space, an excellent place for all your yarn needs if you are thinking about getting into knitting or crocheting. I waited patiently with Zelda as Angela shopped for supplies she needed for an upcoming project. After finishing up there, we decided to stroll up King Street to Misha’s Coffee on the corner of King Street and South Patrick St. Walking on the right side of the road on King, we kept noticing “No Vacancy for Hate” and “Everyone is Welcome” signs in the windows and doorways of shops and businesses. Almost every shop had at least one of these signs. A large dry-erase board in front of a salon called BLOW finally tipped us off to what was going on:
“The people who HATE the most are often the people who hate themselves the most.”
The sign included a tongue-in-cheek “Let Us Make Your Hair Great Again” slogan complete with a Trump caricature. It was then that it finally clicked why all the signs were up. It wasn’t just because of the recent tenant in the White House. Old Town Alexandria also had a new member to its population: notorious white nationalist Richard Spencer.
Richard Spencer rented the top two floors of a large white building at 1003 King Street, on the corner of N. Patrick Street, in early 2017. The bottom floor tenant at the time, Blüprint Chocolatiers, had no say in her landlord renting Spencer the space. According to a Washington Post article, however, the owners quickly made it known to residents and visitors that she had nothing to do with their upstairs neighbor. She adorned the front of their shop with red and white ribbons and a sign that read “Everyone is Welcome Here,” which many others in the surrounding area had also done. This, along with the newest addition to Alexandria, was likely in direct response to the then-recent Executive Order banning foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim country from visiting the country for ninety days, and suspending entry of all Syrian refugees into the country indefinitely.1
Of course, we all remember what happened to Spencer on Inauguration Day:
Previously, Spencer and the National Policy Institute, his white nationalist think tank, were headquartered in neighboring Arlington, Virginia. Perhaps Trump taking the Presidency gave him the idea to seek classier accommodations on the busy Alexandria intersection.
Throughout his time there, Spencer had to endure a stable group of protestors and demonstrators below his apartment. He had plenty of time to nurse his wounded face and pride as he watched the throng of protestors through closed blinds and darkened rooms from above like a pathetic “man in the high tower.” According to WTOP, they would congregate to protest twice a month. The protests were organized by Grassroots Alexandria, a citizen-led group advocating for the safety and security of fellow Alexandrians.
So why did he move there? The Washingtonian said it best:
Why would Spencer, when he relocated from Montana, choose to pitch his tent in a deep-blue city whose diverse population is 51 percent minority? The answer is quite basic, actually. “It’s just a nice place,” he says. Spencer thinks Old Town is beautiful. He likes the restaurants. He likes “how it feels—the whole look.”2
The Washingtonian (August 1, 2017)
Spencer only stayed in Old Town for a year and a half. Throughout the course of his time there, we never saw much movement in the upstairs rooms of the white building any time we walked by or drove through the area. Hopefully he got the hint that he wasn’t welcome. There must have been a strong indication in May of 2017 when Spencer had his membership at the Old Town Sport & Health club revoked after the owner made a “business decision” to pull it. Spencer protested the decision, telling Buzzfeed that he was a “model gymgoer” who didn’t bother anyone. When the general manager, a professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, asked Spencer if he was in fact the same person, he denied it. She published photos of the confrontation in a blog post, adding, “not only are you a Nazi, you’re a cowardly Nazi.” Protests only increased in the wake of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right Rally,” which Spencer attended.3
Today, the shop beneath the apartment is a sock shop called the Old Town Sock Co. Blüprint Chocolatiers closed their doors on Easter Sunday 2020 after five-years. As of November 5, 2020, the floors above the sock sheet remain without a tenant.
Jonathan Krall of Grassroots Alexandria had no sympathy after Spencer’s exit from his prime real estate in Alexandria on King Street. In fact, he felt he played a part in him leaving. “Oh, I think we had an effect,” he said in the closing words of a 2018 interview with the Alexandria Gazette Packet. “We did our best.”4
Donald Trump has been voted out of office. People like Spencer no longer has a platform almost anywhere. His National Policy Institute was banned by YouTube in June of this year for not following the platform’s policies against hate speech. Free speech still (rightfully) exists, but thankfully fewer people are listening to his ilk.5
For others before him, like George Lincoln Rockwell, their presence was not welcome in this area. Northern Virginia can be many things. A cesspool of traffic. A white liberal cross-section of society filled with unaffordable houses. The bedroom community of government workers. The ends of the yellow, blue, orange, and silver Metro lines. And, most importantly, a suitable substitute for “D.C.” when you tell people you don’t know ask where you’re from because it’s easier geographically.
It is not, however, a place for fascists, bigots, and small minds. That goes double for the big white house just up the road from Old Town.
But it’s not over. For now, we can be happy and breathe for the first time in four years. Tomorrow, let’s put our masks on and get back to work.
Donald Trump: You’re Fired (Angela H. Eng Photo/Offbeat NOVA)
Footnotes:
Patricia Sullivan, “The chocolatiers and the white nationalist, coexisting in Old Town Alexandria, The Washington Post, February 17, 2017. Accessed November 5, 2020, LINK.
Kim Olsen, “This Virginia Town Can’t Get Rid of Richard Spencer, and It’s Driving Locals Crazy,” The Washingtonian, August 1, 2017. Accessed November 5, 2020, LINK.
NBC4 Washington, “‘Alt-right’ Leader Loses Gym Membership After Confrontation,” NBC4 Washington, May 22, 2017. Accessed November 5, 2020, LINK.
James Cullum, “A Vigil to Bid Farewell in Alexandria,” Alexandria Gazette Packet, August 20, 2018. Accessed November 5, 2020, LINK.
Kaya Yurieff, “YouTube removes Richar Spencer and David Duke a year after saying it would ban supremacists,” CNN (online), June 20, 2020. Accessed November 5, 2020, LINK.
It’s hard to think of Arlington, Virginia, as a hotbed for hate. Living near it has a remarkably price tag. According to one website, Arlington ranks as the eighth-most expensive city in the United States, with the 2020 cost of living sitting at 53% above the national average.1 As you drive through its premiere neighborhoods like Bluemont, Clarendon, and Ballston, you realize why it’s one of the most desirable locations to live in not only Northern Virginia, but the entire country. It is only a stone’s throw from DC, the houses are beautiful, and the landscaping is perfect. Where there are no houses, there are meticulously built high-rises and lush public spaces. As they say, location is everything.
But Arlington has not always been beautiful and perfect. It was know for darker things . . . other things that lived quietly inside its utopian ecosystem like a virus entering a new host.
George Lincoln Rockwell (Wikimedia Commons)
Arlington was the former epicenter of the Neo-Nazi/white power movement in the United States for over two decades beginning in the early 1960s. Less than two decades after the end of the Second World War, Washington’s premiere suburb became an enclave for a reincarnation of Nazi Germany’s beliefs when George Lincoln Rockwell came into town. For seven years, Rockwell ran the American Nazi Party from his headquarters on 928 N. Randolph Street in the busy Ballston neighborhood of Arlington. He also ran a barracks for his “storm troopers” at the top of the hill in a mansion farm house called “Hatemonger Hill” by local residents.
It was from there that he drove the short distance to the Dominion Hills Shopping Center to visit the EconoWash laundromat on August 25, 1967. As Rockwell sat in his car, a disgruntled former party member fatally shot him from the roof of the building. Rockwell’s death marked a critical halt in his march towards white racialism at a time when the Civil Rights movement had reached its strongest point. It also stands as a bleak reminder of the resurgence of hatred into modern life today.2
George Lincoln Rockwell was born in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1918. He lived a privileged childhood, and was talented in many subjects. While studying philosophy at Brown University, Rockwell dropped out of school to accept a commission as an officer in the United States Navy in 1938, just three years removed from the United States’ entry into the conflict. He served as a naval aviator during the Second World War, operating in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters. As a lieutenant commander living in San Diego with his family during the Korean War, he became acquainted with Adolf Hitler and Nazism. He also applauded American figures like anti-Communist stalwart Senator Joseph McCarthy and General Douglas MacArthur. It was from the latter that he adopted his signature corncob pipe, an accessory he held onto until the day he died.
Later, he divorced his wife and married another woman with similar interests and sympathies of his own. By 1955, he was back stateside in Washington, D.C., publishing a periodical called U.S. Lady, a magazine made for U.S. service member’s wives that doubled as his mouthpiece for his racist ideologies. His racist attitudes and words grew more vocal and more popular in the latter half of the decade, gaining a following in and around his new home in Arlington County, Virginia. He gathered his thoughts for a new vision of racial purity. He called it the American Nazi Party. By the end of the decade, he had his first headquarters in Arlington inside a brick rambler at 6512 Williamsburg Boulevard. As author Charles S. Clark noted in his exposé on Rockwell, “through the window, neighbors could see his lit-up swastika on a red flag.” The home is now a private residence estimated in value at $758,000.3
ANP Headquarters on 928 N. Randolph Street, now high-rise luxury apartments (lindseybestebreurtje/Google Street View)
In 1960, Rockwell’s American Nazi Party moved to a new location at 928 N. Randolph Street, today the site of high-rise apartments. In front of the near-derelict building was a large sign that everyone could read from the road: “White Man…Fight! Smash the Black Revolution Now.” His numbers of followers continued to grow into the early 1960s. He eventually set-up a “stormtrooper barracks” inside a large hilltop farmhouse two miles away from his headquarters at 6150 Wilson Boulevard. Local residents came to call the location “Hatemonger Hill.”4
The American Nazi Party (ANP) spewed their racist vitriol inside the beltway and beyond. Rockwell used the party as a platform for advocating deporting Black Americans back to Africa, sterilizing Jews, and executing race traitors like President Eisenhower and Chief Justice Earl Warren. Famously, Rockwell and several of his followers drove a swastika-clad Volkswagen van from Arlington to New Orleans to protest the “Freedom Rides” like some low-rent, racist pilgrimage to Bonnaroo.5
Despite their media attention, the ANP was small. One estimate had them numbering only thirty “hardcore followers” and just over three hundred total during the Rockwell era. One of those followers was John Patler, a former United States Marine who was honorably discharged after being arrested at an ANP rally. Born John C. Patsalos, he changed his last name to Patler to sound phonetically like “Hitler.” He joined the party officially in 1960 and served as the editor and cartoonist for the organization’s magazine, Stormtrooper. He was expelled from the group in 1967 for harboring “Bolshevik leanings” after a disagreement with Rockwell over policy. Although Patler claimed he loved Rockwell “like a father,” and he to him “like a son,” Patler grew unwilling to see a world where the two were separated. Rockwell sullied on, spending most of his time atop Hatemonger Hill. Patler festered until the anger, frustration, and disappointment reached a boiling point in the summer of 1967.6
Dominion Hills Shopping Center Today. The silver sedan in the distance is where Rockwell was killed. (Matthew Eng Photo)
Around noon on Friday, August 25, 1967, Rockwell went down the hill with his laundry to visit the EconoWash, one of the many establishments in a small strip mall called the Dominion Hills Shopping Center. He was dressed in a white shirt and dark slacks. Parking his 1958 Chevrolet in front of a barber shop owned by Tom Blakeney, the two waved at one another before Rockwell exited his car and entered the laundromat. He appeared moments later, having forgotten his bleach. As he returned to his car, as Tom Blakeney remembers, he heard two shots ring out. “I thought a car had backfired,” he said. He continued:
“I saw Rockwell kind of jumping around in the front seat, and I thought he was having a seizure. I saw him point at the roof and then slump over the steering wheel.”7
Tom Blakeny, Tom’s Barber Shop Owner
Two shots traveled through the windshield. One landed into Rockwell’s heart and the other ricocheted off the seat and into the roof of the vehicle. His car knocked into another nearby vehicle. According to Charles S. Clark, Rockwell “fell and landed face-up in the parking lot, splayed beside his box of Ivory Snow and a copy of the New York Daily News.” The leader of the ANP was gone. A coroner later pronounced him dead at the scene.8
Where Rockwell died (Matthew Eng Photo/Offbeat NOVA)
Rockwell’s final gesture was for a very good reason. He was pointing at his killer, John Patler. Patler had used the vantage point from the top of the roof of the Dominion Hills Shopping Center to aim down and shoot Rockwell. Patler was a former Marine, who are as a rule expert in their marksmanship. Arlington police arrested the 29-year-old half an hour later on Washington Boulevard. A discarded raincoat and cap believed to be Patler’s was found in a nearby yard, and a German Mauser Semiautomatic pistol was recovered in the water along nearby Four Mile Run below a footbridge. He was convicted of first-degree murder in December 1967, and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was later paroled in 1975, serving less than half of his original sentence. As for Rockwell, he was given a military burial at Culpepper National Cemetery. Although the agreement for his military burial stipulated that there be no Nazi insignias to be displayed during his burial, his followers violated these conditions. He was secretly cremated the next day.9
Today, very little evidence of the assassination exists. There are no historical markings, only businesses that have come and gone since 1967. The facade of the entire complex has changed. The one business that still exists is the barber shop, now called Tom’s Hairstylist & Barber. As of 2010, Tom Blakeney, the original owner, was still alive, retired and living in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Looking through several pictures for references, we were able to pinpoint the exact spot that Rockwell died in August 1967. Neo-Nazi sympathizers have come to the strip mall’s parking lot for years to pay homage to Rockwell.
Hatemonger Hill is now a picnic area in Upton Hill Regional Park (Renegade Tribune/Parks Rx)
Hatemonger Hill, less than a mile away, is now a picnic pavilion where families eat in between trips to the batting cages, mini-golf courses, and swimming pool. The land was demolished and annexed to Upton Hill Regional Park in 1973, as the party members soon lost their lease after Rockwell’s death.10
Unfortunately, Rockwell’s death would not the end of the city’s relationship with hate and division.
As recently as 2016, Arlington resurfaced again as a nucleus for hate when WTOP reported that alt-right talking head/inauguration punching bag Richard Spencer and the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist think tank, was based in town before moving to neighboring Old Town Alexandria a few years later.11 Charlottesville may be a few hours’ drive from Arlington, but I do not believe what transpired there was lost on residents who lived through the tumultuous years of the ANP in their city.
On August 25, 2017, a small group of Nazis showed up to the very spot where Rockwell was killed. Dressed in white shirts, black slacks, and black ties, they paid their respects to the former American Nazi Party leader. A guest at the nearby barber shop took a photo of the six individuals giving the requisite “sieg heil” salute, with one holding a large Nazi flag in the middle. The bottom of the flag touches the asphalt and the darkened motor oil stains left there over the years…well maintained machines slowly oozing out their excess and leaving an indelible mark for future generations. I can think of no better metaphor for the arrogance of the individuals in the photograph. As one Twitter user responded to the photograph with, “I count 6 losers & a flag.”
Six losers and a flag (NBC4/Aki Peritz Twitter)
I understand that journalistic integrity is built on a foundation of objectivity. That is clearly out of the window for this article. It was painful enough to expose the old wounds of such a great city once again, so close to a time when we are all near-broken and politically fragile. So if you are upset with the bias in this article because Offbeat NOVA is taking a political stance against the creeping Kudzu of fascism in the United States, we only have a few words to say. Like Rockwell, there will come a time when the hate will end, either by their own hand or the genuine good of others.
Today is election day, when the very soul of the nation is at stake. Whether you like it or not, this year is a mirror to Charlottesville in 2017. Arlington in the 1960s. Nuremberg in 1938. But like those other events, those involved will fail. Why? Because in the good words of Woody Guthrie, all you fascists are bound to lose.
Footnotes:
Kat Tretina, “10 Most Expensive Cities to Live in for 2020,” Education Loan Finance. Accessed November 1, 2020, LINK.
United Press International (UPI), “Rockwell, U.S. Nazi party leader, slain,” United Press International, August 25, 1967. Accessed November 2, 2020, LINK.
Charles S. Clark,”Close-Up Of An American Nazi,” Northern Virginia Magazine, November 28, 2010. Accessed November 2, 2020, LINK.
Clark, “Close-Up;” Mark Jones, “Nazis in Arlington: George Rockwell and the ANP,” WETA Boundary Stones, January 2, 2013. Accessed November 2, 2020, LINK.
Jones, “Nazis in Arlington.”
Frederick James Simonelli. American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Champagne: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Charles S. Clark, “Death of an Arlington Nazi,” Northern Virginia Magazine, December 30, 2010. Accessed November 2, 2020, LINK.
Clark, “Death of An Arlington Nazi;” UPI, “Slain.”
Michel E. Miller, “The shadow of assassinated American Nazi commander hangs over Charlottesville,” The Washington Post, August 21, 2017. Accessed November 2, 2020, LINK.
Mark Jones, Nazis in Arlington.”
Dick Uliano, “White nationalist, alt-right group calls Arlington home,” WTOP News, November 22, 2016. Accessed November 1, 2020, LINK.
We have been lacking a little in the content lately. Fortunately, there’s a reason: we bought a house!
The new Offbeat Nova HQ (Matthew Eng Photo)
Both Angela and I are very excited about this. It’s something we have talked about for a very long time, for sure. If we are going to be exploring northern Virginia history for the indefinite future, it made sense to truly put down our roots in the area.
So, instead of exhausting ourselves trying to put something out that we might not be completely happy with, we decided to let everyone know what is in on the short list for upcoming posts. Enjoy.
The Fairfax “Butt Slasher” (Fairfax County) For six months in 2011, a man known as the “Butt Slasher” terrorized women in northern Virginia in shopping malls. Women were warned to “keep track of their behinds” while shopping and pay close attention to their surroundings.
Bunnyman Bridge (Clifton) You may have heard about it. Is it an urban legend, real, or just a joke? We take a look at the “Bunnyman” of Clifton and the bridge where he supposedly hanged his victims. This will be a collaborative post with Uncanny America.
Top Golf Alexandria (Fairfax County) It was the first Top Golf in America. Now it sits abandoned and derelict near a busy shopping area in Fairfax County. We explore the history and complicated business plan of Top Golf Alexandria.
Offbeat Eats: Egg Foo Young in Suburbia (Gainesville) This new segments explores some of the best food off the beaten path. Our first segment will showcase a small and unassuming Chinese restaurant in Gainesville, VA, and the incredible egg dish with a unique connection to American history.
Offbeat Eats: Steak and Ale’s “Kensington Club” Recipe (Alexandria) If you’ve traveled anywhere near the Mark Center in Alexandria, chances are you have seen the abandoned Steak n’ Ale restaurant with its iconic sign. We look at the restaurant itself and recreate one of its signature steak recipes to taste test.
All You Fascists Bound To Lose (Arlington) We revisit the site of the murder of George Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, in a small Arlington strip mall. Just in time for the election.
Offbeat Postcripts is a series of short posts where we cover small topics of offbeat history in Northern Virginia.
George and Evy Doswell, Fredericksburg City Cemetery (John Hennessy/FredericksburgHistory)
By Matthew T. Eng, Offbeat NOVA
In a year that seems like twenty, I catch myself thinking about what life was like before Coronavirus. At the beginning of March, I can faintly remember hearing about the first reported case of Coronavirus in Virginia from a Marine in Quantico. That particular individual was of course not “Patient Zero,” but the first of many that tested positive for the deadly virus in the months since.1
I remember talking to others at work in January and February about how the virus had isolated itself in the Pacific Rim, and it would never make its way over here. Boy, was I wrong. I’m sure nervous Americans felt the same thing about the A/H1N1 “Spanish Flu” happening overseas in 1918, even if the first cases were likely in the United States. Well, no one ever said Americans were ever right, or could believe their own naivety.
But what do you do when it’s inescapable? Movies featuring deadly worldwide viruses treat it like some invisible monster wreaking havoc over populations, leaving death and destruction in its wake. It’s the Motaba virus in Outbreak. Captain Trips in The Stand. The T-Virus in Resident Evil. And now we have Coronavirus. But it’s not Hollywood. It’s actually happening, and the reality is far different and more terrifying.
I began to think about other epidemics in American history and their connections to Northern Virginia. Talking about the “Spanish Flu,” while tragic, is not necessarily offbeat.
Then I found a story first written about by John Hennessy, Chief Historian of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
The story involves a short outbreak in Civil War-era Fredericksburg of scarlet fever, a disease that acts much like Coronavirus, and the man who performed a large number of burials for the unfortunate children who fell victim to it between 1861 and 1862.
The worldwide pandemic of scarlet fever was among many of the deadly epidemics that occurred in Europe and North America in the early to late 19th century (one report approximates the years between 1820 and 1880). Symptoms of the streptococci bacteria in a human body include a sore threat, fever, inflammation of the lymph nodes, and, in some cases, abscesses of the throat and tonsils. Unfortunately, the majority of those who developed the sickness were young children, who would often succumb to the virus within two days of the onset of symptoms.2
Scarlet fever came to Fredericksburg beginning in September 1861. According to Hennessy, the first known death was Wilmer Hudson, an eight-year-old son of John and Pamela Hudson. The deaths continued to increase into the winter of 1861. Countless parents had to watch their children die in large numbers. The only respite for their anguish was the ferocity of the virus, taking those affected quickly. In all, there were forty-one known victims of scarlet fever from September 1861 to February 1862. The devastation of it was so bad that NPS historian John Hennessy said it might have been “the greatest human disaster to ever befall the residents of Fredericksburg.” That was, of course, until December of 1862.3
Alfred M. Randolph (Wikimedia Commons)
Either out of grief or worry of spreading disease, the majority of children were buried the following day in cemeteries around Fredericksburg. One of the most popular spots was the Fredericksburg City Cemetery, a small plot of land on the corner of Washington Street and Amelia Street in the heart of downtown Fredericksburg. Most people know the area next to it simply as the “Confederate Cemetery,” an equal parcel of land separated by an invisible dividing line that that splits the area. At least seven of the children who died of scarlet fever were buried there. These burials were performed by one man, a young minister named Alfred Magill Randolph of St. George’s Episcopal Church, less than a half mile away from the burial site. His position at St. George’s was his first after graduating from the Virginia Theological Seminary. He quickly climbed the ladder at St. George’s, becoming a rector after he was officially ordained at the age of twenty-two in 1860.4
When the war began in April 1861, the burials he presided over took a different tone. Sporadic fighting was occurred near Fredericksburg in Spotsylvania County, so the likelihood for Randolph to bury soldiers became a reality in the fall of 1861. The first soldier he administered a burial for was Francis Lewis of Company G., 1st North Carolina Infantry Regiment, on October 12, 1861. By the end of the month, Randolph also began burying children from the scarlet fever epidemic.
The rector’s first burial was Sidney Cavell, a two-year old child of Charles Cavell and Emma Huckey, who died on October 27th and was buried the following day. His next two burials were by far the most heartbreaking. Two prominent figures of the Fredericksburg community, J. Temple and Evelina Doswell, lost two of their children within nine days of each other. Randolph presided over the burial of five-year-old George Doswell on November 11, 1861. He did the same for his sister, two-year-old Evy Doswell, nine days later on November 20th. The Doswells were not the only family to lose more than one child, but Rector Randolph presided over the pair.
In all, Alfred Randolph performed burial rites for seven children between October 1861 and February 1862. The last was two-year-old John Edward Haydon.5
Malvina Meade Hart (5 years, 7 mos.) – Buried December 7, 1861 (Death Dec 6, 1861)
Susan Gill Mander (2 years, 6 mos.) – Buried Dec. 11, 1861 (Death Dec. 9, 1861)
Anne B.H. Scott (10 years, 9 mos.) – Buried Jan 5, 1862 (Death Jan 3, 1862)
Thomas Wolfe (6 years) – Buried February 7, 1862 (Death Feb 5, 1862)
John Edward Haydon (2 Years, 2 Mos.) – Buried February 24, 1862 (Death Feb 1862)
By February, scarlet fever had dissipated in Fredericksburg and Virginia in other hotspots like the Confederate Capital in Richmond. Today, you can see many of the gravestones and pay your respects to these children in the Fredericksburg City Cemetery.
Six-Year-Old Thomas Wolfe (FindaGrave)
The woes for Fredericksburg only had a brief respite once cases and deaths began to dissipate after Alfred Randolph presided over the burial of John Edward Haydon in February 1862. By autumn of that year, Federal forces were beginning to descend in and around Fredericksburg. A major battle seemed imminent in November. With forces at their doorstep, residents were given the order to evacuate on November 21, 1862. Randolph and his young family departed his wife and day-old son for Danville, where he became a Post Chaplain for the Confederacy until the remainder of the war. He held a number of positions in Alexandria, Baltimore, and Norfolk before passing away after a long career of service to God (and unfortunately the Confederacy) in 1918. He is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. No doubt he kept his thoughts on the turbulent winter of 1861-1862 in the back of his mind for the rest of his life, and the many poor children he buried as a result of an unforgiving disease.
Reading about this tiny event puts our current troubles into perspective. We cannot justify any death, but the loss of those younger than us are the hardest to bear.
Stay healthy and wear a mask.
Footnotes:
NBC Washington Staff, “US Marine in Virginia Tested Positive for Coronavirus, in State’s First Case,” March 8, 2020. Accessed October 2, 2020, LINK.
Alan C. Swedlund and Ann Herring, Scarlet Fever Epidemics of the Nineteenth Century: A Case of Evolved Pathogenic Virulence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 159-177.
John Hennessy, “The 1861 Scarlet Fever Epidemic,” Remembering, October 15, 2010. Accessed October 2, 2020, LINK.
St. George’s Episcopal, “Alfred M. Randolph.” Accessed October 2, 2020, LINK.
St. George’s Episcopal, “St. George’s Burials, 1859-1913.” Accessed October 2, 2020, LINK.
On June 22, 1993, John Wayne Bobbitt and his wife, an Ecuadorian immigrant named Lorena, discussed the possibility of divorce. The couple had issues. Many of these issues stemmed from the ex-Marine’s abusive behavior towards his young bride. She went to the police that day in hopes of obtaining a restraining order on her husband. Unfortunately, the process dragged and she left.
John Wayne Bobbitt and Lorena (Amazon Prime Documentary/ABC News)
That night, John and a friend went out for a night of heavy drinking around their home in Manassas, Virginia. The two returned, late and drunk, to the couple’s second floor apartment near Route 28 and Old Centreville Road. John stumbled into the bedroom and raped Lorena before falling asleep in a drunken stupor. That was enough. As Lorena went into the kitchen to get some water just before 4 am, she brought an 8-inch carving knife into the bedroom and cut her husband’s penis off. He was drunk enough to not immediately wake up or notice the large pool of blood that collected around him.
Lorena got into her 1991 Mercury Capri with the weapon and penis still in her hands and drove off out of the complex down Maplewood Drive. At the intersection of Maplewood Drive and Old Centreville Road, she finally realized her husband’s severed penis was still in her hand and tossed it out the window across from a 7-Eleven in a grassy field in front of the Paty-Kake Daycare Center. Shocked and scatterbrained, she drove to the only place she thought of going — her work, a nail salon approximately four miles away in the Old Centreville Crossing shopping center. Nobody was there, so she deposited the bloody knife into the trashcan next to the nail salon and proceeded to her boss’s house. Once there, her boss, Janna Bisutti, called the police. She divulged to authorities where the missing appendage could be found. The police eventually found it, brought the small measure of manhood into the nearby 7-Eleven, and placed it into a hot dog container on ice where it was transported to the hospital and reattached on John. The rest is history.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote that he went into the woods of Concord, Massachusetts, to “live deep and suck the marrow out of life,” and “cut a broad swath and shave close.” He did not pontificate how close he shaved in his time in solitude next to the pond. I don’t think he had John Bobbitt in mind when he wrote Walden, but it was for this reason that I, armed with the “essential facts of life,” ventured into the interior of Manassas to pique my newfound curiosity in one of Northern Virginia’s premiere sites of dark tourism.
Truthfully, I didn’t know much about the Lorena Bobbitt case—besides all the jokes wrapped in fragile masculinity and fear that gave comedians months of content in the early nineties. It wasn’t until the Jordan Peele Lorena documentary came out last year that I fully understood all the facts about the case, the biggest of which was that it occurred nearby where I lived in Northern Virginia. The documentary centered on three main places that Lorena visited on the early morning of June 23, 1993: her home, the field across from the 7-Eleven, and her place of business where she deposited the weapon.
I decided to visit these three places in 2020 and retrace her steps from that night. Although I took several pictures of these places during the day several weeks ago, I wanted to go back at night and retrace the steps Lorena did 27 years ago. The first thing I had to do was figure out the starting point: her apartment.
Maplewood Park Apartments
Looking through old newspaper articles, as well as the recent video taken for the documentary, I was able to piece together her location in the Maplewood Park apartments off Route 28 in Manassas. She lived on the second floor of a front facing apartment at 8174 Maplewood Drive. The complex, both during the day and at night was always crowded with cars and activity. It’s a far cry from the dilapidated state often written about in stories. The area is well-kept, even if its location is flanked by countless liquor and vape stores off the main road. It’s as if the idea of John Bobbit’s douchebaggery blanketed the surrounding area like some deadly airborne pathogen of Axe body spray laced with Aristocrat vodka and menthol cigarettes. Looking into the second floor apartment at night, I couldn’t help but run through the sequence of events in my head and reflect on the courage it took for her to act against her aggressor.
It’s only a short drive down the street to the 7-Eleven. I got to the stop sign at the intersection where she threw the appendage up and over her car into the grassy field and chuckled. Based off of the images of the location where it was found, it was a hell of a throw. Good for you, girl. It looks like they are clearing the area for a construction project at that corner location. Soon, the location will turn into something entirely different, so I feel fortunate to record the area before any new buildings spring up.
The hardest location to find was the nail salon she went to after ejecting the penis out her driver side window, the Nail Sculptor. Put simply, the location as it was in 1993 and in the documentary does not exist anymore. Simple Internet searches yielded me similar results. They always talked about the salon and the city it was located in, Centreville. But that was it. No address could be found anywhere. So, once again armed with a business name and location, I went on DOBsearch and reverse engineered the information to give me a physical address. The location is in the middle of the Centreville Crossing Shopping center roughly four miles away from her former apartment in Manassas.
The Nail Sculptor over the years (Google Maps/Eng Photo)
When I drove there at night, I carried a screenshot I took from the documentary in my phone. Sure enough, all the details matched up, including the stone sitting area on a small slope right in front of the shop. The location seems to have been a revolving door of beauty salons and establishments since Bisutti left sometime in the 1990s. The location was something called Amore until 2015 when it turned into what it is still today, a Korean makeup retailer called Aritaum. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but there is a trash can still right next to the shop — the same location where Lorena dropped her bloody knife on top of a KFC fried chicken container in 1993. Intentional or not, I thought it was a nice touch.
But that’s not all that I did in my visit to Lorena’s greatest hits. Don’t worry. I saved the best for last.
How many of you know what it’s like to eat a hot dog at the same place where mortified men put a penis on ice? My guess is not many of you. But I had to know. So I went recently got one at that exact location, eating it a few feet from where Lorena alley-ooped her abusive husband’s dismembered member out the window onto a grassy field with a Kareem Abdul-Jabar hook shot. The experience was surreal to to say the least.
“Hot Dog Bag” (Eng Photo/Offbeat NOVA)
The 7-Eleven itself looked like any other one you’ve walked into. I immediately started thinking about the officers that carried John’s penis into it, frantically looking for ice and anything to hold it in. I can imagine them looking straight at the hot dog rollers and put two and two together before pleading to that poor employee to hand them one. No big bite for the officers. They would take theirs to go.
So I got a hot dog in honor of Lorena and ate it in the parking lot. It tasted like any other 7-Eleven hot dog you’ve had before. I had to stop thinking about why I was there to enjoy it as much as I could.
Offbeat Postcripts is a series of short posts where we cover small topics of offbeat history in Northern Virginia.
By Matthew T. Eng, Offbeat NOVA
There is a flagpole in the middle of a garden and brick path in the desirable Montclair neighborhood in Dumfries, VA. A small set of benches sit nearby like restful sentries waiting for neighborhood residents to take in the patriotic tableau in quiet reflection. The small area is located directly in front of the Montclair Property Owners Association, Inc. The flagpole, unassuming in its position off the road near the busy intersection of Waterway Drive and Cardinal Drive, is even more mysterious in its true purpose.
A Blue Star Memorial marker shows the location as a “tribute to the Armed Forces that have defended the United States of America.” On the brick path leading up to the flag are the names and short messages of Montclair residents who have served in foreign wars and conflicts from World War II to the present day. It’s a nice way to honor the men and women who lived locally but served globally.
If that was the real reason why the flagpole was there, we would certainly not be covering it here for Offbeat NOVA. There are countless flagpoles and Blue Star Memorial markers around the region with similar stories and purposes.
This one is different.
Resting on the ground on the opposite end of the flagpole is a small rock, largely obstructed by some of the overgrown grass on its edges. The inscription highlights the true reason why the flagpole was erected:
“DEDICATED TO THE BRAVE MONTCLAIR RESIDENTS WHO SERVED OUR COUNTRY IN
OPERATION DESERT STORM.
JULY 4, 1991”
The flagpole was dedicated in 1991 in honor of those who served in Operation Desert Storm. What is most interesting is the date it was dedicated: July 4, 1991. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.
One of the things I can remember about the Gulf War was the overwhelming sense of patriotism Americans felt for those fighting in the Middle East. Although the Cold War ended that year, the one big moment that stands out for me was Operation Desert Storm. I had a relative who served over there during the conflict and it was a big deal for my family to show our support. I remember the ticker tape parades. The trading cards. The patriotic songs. Dedicating the Montclair Veterans Flagpole on Independence Day, only four months removed from the end of the brief war, is a testament to the patriotic fervor many felt back home. Although 650,000 Americans served in the Gulf War region between 1990-1991, there are not many monuments to it today, even if plans are supposedly underway to create a national memorial up the road in Washington, D.C.
Now that we are currently in the thirtieth anniversary of the conflict, we felt it was the perfect offbeat anecdote to the United States’ Cold War farewell tour.
If you happen to be in Dumfries, VA, stop by this unassuming flagpole. Who knows. Maybe you’ll love it so much you’ll want to live there. Judging by the location of it, you’re already halfway there.
Not unlike the history-shaping year we are currently having, 2001 altered the course of American history when the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11, 2001. I was just starting my senior year at First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach, VA. I didn’t get my news and information from the Internet back then because I had my parents and the television. I was in school when the attacks occurred, so I didn’t see anything about it with my own eyes until that afternoon. After watching the planes crash into the World Trade Center a few times, I was done with it. I don’t think I processed it, but I was at least finished with learning more about it at the time.
The Internet looked much different in the early fall of 2001. The majority of Americans did not have broadband Internet. Most of us, like my family, used AOL and a dial-up modem to get online. I talked with imaginary friends in chat rooms. I left tacky away messages on Instant Messenger. I printed off driving directions from MapQuest. To be completely honest, I mostly used the Internet to get one thing: illegally downloaded music. Just kidding, of course.
(Vice.com)
News websites in 2001 look blocky and archaic by today’s standards, yet I still remember them well. In the process of thinking about a post to do for this week, I began thinking about any connections the 9/11 terrorist attacks had to Northern Virginia. As a relatively recent import into the area, I had no prior knowledge save from what I have gathered on the subject over the years. Truth be told, the facts surrounding the actual attacks are still an open wound for most of us.
In a year where we are still hemorrhaging from emotional bleeding, I felt another angle was needed. In my research, I discovered an interesting connection between two of the terrorists that flew a plane into the Pentagon and the means in which they gained credentials to purchase a ticket for American Airlines Flight 77. It involved a DMV in a slowly-approaching dead mall about ten minutes from where I live now. This is the story of how I found that DMV Express location today, using the modern Internet to recall the halcyon days of the digital age.
Let me tell you a quick story.
The 7-Eleven off Leesburg Pike where Hanjour and al-Mihdhar bartered for false IDs. (Eng Photo)
On August 1, 2001, Saudi Arabian nationals Hani Hanjour and Khalid al-Mihdhar traveled to Falls Church, VA, to a 7-Eleven off Leesburg Pike to obtain fraudulent documentation. One of the employees there, Luis Martinez-Flores, was willing to openly expose a very broad loophole in the process for obtaining Virginia identification for a price of $100. The three men proceeded to the DMV Express in the lower level of Springfield Mall. Hanjour and al-Mihdhar used a false address provided by Flores, 5913 Leesburg Pike, just a short drive from the 7-Eleven where Flores worked. The address, once verified and falsely signed by Flores as truth, provided the necessary criteria for Hanjour and al-Mihdhar to claim themselves as legal residents in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They received their identity cards that day.
IDs in hand, both were able to purchase tickets on American Airlines Flight 77, which departed from Dulles International Airport for Los Angeles, California, at 8:10 am on September 11, 2001. These two men, along with three other Saudi Arabian nationals, hijacked the flight, crashing it into the western side of the Pentagon an hour and twenty minutes later at 9:37 am. Fifty-eight passengers lost their lives. An additional 125 fatalities occurred on the ground at the Pentagon.
I want to focus less on the horrific tragedy of the day and instead explore what occurred a few miles down the road from where I now live. Where were those places? Specifically, what happened to the DMV Express? We have been going to the newly renovated Springfield Town Center since it reopened in 2014, and have never seen a DMV in the mall. Like the majority of the structure itself, it seemed that the DMV Express was swallowed in the mall’s closure in 2012 before cocooning itself in a two-year construction phase. What emerged, Springfield Town Center, looked nothing like its shabby predecessor. The DMV Express was gone, alongside most of the previous stores in it. The posh space has now shed all its drab architectural insecurities for clean lines and a bland color scheme that would make most asylums blush.
How could I recall the past and pinpoint exactly where the DMV Express was located? I can go to the same place I go for the answers to all my problems….the Internet! But where to start?
A quick Google search on “DMV Express, Springfield VA” leads you to the DMV Select, located caddy-corner to Springfield Town Center Today. No information on the former DMV Express exists in the search results, even on the first four pages. In fact, it looks like there are no locations named “DMV Express” in the state of Virginia.
I had to unpeel another layer of the Internet. I wasn’t ready to go to the core just yet. If possible, I hoped to avoid places like Reddit and 4chan, the figurative center of Dante’s Internet inferno where simps sit frozen in ice suffering next to unabashed “Karens,” anti-vaxxers, and people who chew too loudly.
The next step was video. Thankfully, I found something. I typed in “Springfield Mall 1990s” into the search bar. The first hit was from a user by the name of “SignalsOverTheAir” who reminisces about the original Springfield Mall before it closed in 2012. Sure enough, the very first thing he mentions is the DMV Express. I can finally see what it looks like. But the shop as it existed in 2012 was closed up, so I had no bearings to go on. I had to go further.
Results from DOBSearch (Screencap)
My next step was to look it up on a website I have used before for looking up businesses, dobsearch.com. Upon searching, I was able to find the business inside the mall. But the address it gave was not specific to any shop. The telephone number was old and dead. Another dead end.
Through the number, however, I was able to find an old PDF document from the DMV that listed different customer service centers around the country. It had a slightly different address for the one in Springfield.
6691-A Springfield Mall Springfield, VA 22150
Unfortunately, when you type in that address into Google, it takes you to a Taco Bamba Taqueria down the road. As delicious as those tacos are, it did not quench my curious appetite for answers. Then it hit me. If I wanted to find the old Internet, I had to go to the one place that stores it for safe keeping, the Internet Archive!
The problem was I couldn’t use on a search team like today. I had to have a website in mind. What would it be? I put in the stupidest and simplest answer I could think of: www.springfieldmall.com. Bingo.
Springfield Mall Website, c. 2002 (Internet Archive)
Apparently the mall slogan back in 2002 was “Turn up the fun.” No wonder they wanted to gut the place and start over. Looking at the menu on the right, I chose the “Service and Financial” hyperlink, which gave me an old school list of relevant businesses. Seven businesses down from some place called “Back Rubs USA” was the DMV Express. I finally found it! It had a different 1-800 number and everything! The best part was, the directory finally showed it’s location, on Lower Level A section. Thankfully when I clicked it, it took me to a c. 2002 map of the mall. Looking at the map, I was able to decipher exactly where it was, and what happened to the location of arguably one of the most famous DMV locations in American history.
The former DMV Express is now Eyebrow Designer 21 (Eng Photo)
The former DMV Express was located just outside the lower level of the Target store underneath the escalators. Today, the location is currently a beauty spa and salon called Eyebrow Designer 21. In the few times I would peak out to get footage for this video after making a Target run, the place always seemed busy. It looks like a nice establishment. Good Yelp reviews. I wonder if they know what happened there nearly twenty years ago.
I am thankful that modern technology allowed me to reach back two decades into the past to find what I was looking for. In a year when everything is crushing us down, rehashing the sordid details of 9/11 seemed too much for me. Using the Internet for an offbeat scavenger hunt, however, is another story.
Offbeat NOVA 