Author: Matt Eng

Dad. Drummer. History Stuff. RomCom Enthusiast.

Categories
Arlington blog Matthew Eng

Arresting Great Value James Bond: The Aldrich Ames House

By Matthew Eng, Offbeat NOVA

I love everything about spies and spy movies. I love the cool gadgets, fast cars, faster women, and scarred villains that stand between our heroes and world destruction. 

Of course, every well-known popular culture spy is attractive, physically perfect, and has infinite money, skills, and abilities. We think of the Adonis-like figure of Daniel Craig stepping out of the water in Casino Royale, Jason Bourne throat-chopping Russian operatives, and Ethan Hunt blowing up a helicopter with bubble gum at the end of Mission Impossible.

Of course, that’s popular culture’s version of a spy. In reality, they look like Robert Hanssen, John Anthony Walker, Jonathan Pollard, Harold James Nicholson, and perhaps the most heinous American spy working for a foreign country, Aldrich Ames.

(Matthew T. Eng)

Ames is both the polar opposite of pop culture’s rendition of a spy and the perfect amalgamation of its reality. It’s as if you are showing a picture of James Bond to your mom, who sees it and replies that you have double agent spies at home. Yes. He is the Great Value version of a name brand spy. James Bland. Ethan Hunt’s Ketchup to Heinz. THAT is Aldrich Ames. 

Yet the more you look at him, the more you see the cold deadness in his eyes. The lack of remorse. They are the lifeless doll’s eyes of a shark that Quint talks about right before he is eaten by one in Jaws. He might not look it, but he is a cold-blooded assassin; one that dealt death with secrets, not force. He looks like somebody you’d see passing the checkout line of a convenience store, and wouldn’t know that he was the perpetrator of one of the worst betrayals in U.S. history — one that culminated with a nearly decade-long mole hunt that ended near a home he purchased with blood money in a quiet upper class neighborhood in Arlington, VA. 

Aldrich Ames was born in River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1941. He spent his childhood traveling with his father before settling near the CIA’s Langley headquarters in McLean. He later began his full-time career there in 1962. 

Ames and his wife Rosario (Paul Davison Crime)

On paper, Ames’ career and service at the CIA checks all of the boxes of somebody teetering the line between instability and the abyss. He had a lifelong struggle with alcohol and was financially ruined through a divorce between he and a fellow CIA agent. He was also placed in increasingly sensitive posts throughout his career. He met is second wife, Rosario, in Mexico City in the early 1980s. Despite several hiccups in his performance, he was nonetheless elevated to the chief of the Soviet branch of counterintelligence at the CIA. His job focused on the recruitment of foreign agents, the very people he would turn on in due time. 

In 1985, he sold the names of KGB officers working for the United States to a Soviet Embassy official for the amount of $50,000. He offered up more names for intelligence officials and military officers working against them in return for money. A trend developed in his routine at work. He continued to spy over nine years from Rome in the late 1980s to headquarters in Langley from 1990 to 1994.1 Many of these agents he exposed were captured by the Soviets and KGB and imprisoned. A handful were confirmed to be executed by USSR authorities shortly after their arrest and mock trial. In all, Ames betrayed at least twelve agents working for the United States within the Soviet Union and bloc countries in the 1980s and early 1990s. 

Why did he do it? In an interview after his arrest, Ames said he did it for reasons only known to him. If you asked former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, the “warped, murdering traitor” did it because he “wanted a bigger house and a Jaguar.”2 

Aldrich Ames House, 2512 North Randolph Street, Arlington, VA (Bigwig Digs)

And that’s exactly what he got for his troubles. Unlike the spies we see in Hollywood, Ames was careless with his spending habits. According to one report of evidence put together by the FBI, Ames and his wife Rosario spent nearly $1.4 million between April 1985 and November 1993.3 By the time of his arrest the following year, he had amassed a fortune totaling $2.5 million for nearly a decade of Soviet-financed espionage. The most egregious of his expenses came on August 1, 1989, when he bought a home in the Country Club Hills section of North Arlington on 2512 North Randolph Street. According to author Peter Maas, it was the first place that the realtor showed him. It was truly a brick and mortar representation of the new wealth he felt he so duly earned for his services. As Maas stated, “the immediate surroundings said upper middle class in capital letters.”4 

Ames bought the house outright and paid in cash. The seller first asked the realtor to ask for $540,000 and “negotiate down.” But Ames did not hesitate, offering the full amount up front. At first, the realtor thought they had perhaps gotten the money from drug-related activities because Rosario was from Colombia. Without taking out a mortgage on the house, he explained the unexplainable simply an inheritance. And just like that, Ames and his wife were instantly elevated amongst the doctors, lawyers, senior businessman, and government bureaucrats that lived next to him. 

Most popular culture spies are mobile, and you never really see where they live. Does James Bond own a toaster oven? We’ll never know because he is too busy putting armageddon on a temporary pause. Not Ames. He had it all and didn’t care about the optics. The North Randolph Street house was a statement. Rosario quickly put in renovations to the spacious five bedroom house to the tune of $95,000. The house had a spacious library and large living room. The best part was that there was no backyard access for anyone to see their activities because of a steep grade that led up to the houses on top of a large slope. Ames felt comfortable enough to build a large deck and hot tub. He made an in law suite downstairs for Rosario’s visiting family from Colombia. Along with the house came the fancy cars, clothes, and accessories, all of which he bought at a rate that far exceeded his paycheck. Either careless or naive, Ames carried on like he would never be caught. Until he was.5

CIA Mole Hunt Team (CIA)

All of these transactions made by Ames were quickly checked by a small team of CIA agents, working closely with the FBI, ultimately finding hundreds of thousands of dollars in deposits in Swiss bank accounts. This “mole hunt” team was created in 1986 after the first Soviet asset disappearances, was led by career CIA agent Jeanne Vertefeuille along with four other agents. By 1989, a lead came about pointing to Ames as the culprit. How did they know? As a friend of Ames, Diana Worthen noticed how far he and his wife were living beyond his means. The biggest giveaway was their luxurious house. After more digging and surveillance help from the FBI in 1992, they noticed a large spike in Ames’ accounts that would always come directly after his work-related rendezvous with Soviets. As a leader in the CIA’s Soviet/East Europe Division, it happened often. The FBI took over the case from there in 1993, gaining more information for his ultimate arrest, which came in February of the following year, ironically on President’s Day. 

During that holiday weekend, Ames was preparing for a trip to Moscow, no doubt to divulge more information on assets. The FBI asked his boss Dave Edgers to call and ask him to leave his house and come in to discuss something on the morning of Monday, February 21, 1994. They wanted him out of the house and separate from Rosario when they arrested him. Thankfully, Ames bought into it and told him he would be there at Langley momentarily. The FBI already knew that his typical work route meant leaving his driveway and the curve on North Randolph before turning right on North Quebec Street where he turned a left at the Nelly Custis intersection.6 

Several minutes after he hung up, Ames appeared in his Jaguar sedan with a cigarette in his mouth as he left his house and headed toward Quebec street, where he was approached by FBI agents and arrested. The nine-year manhunt was finally over. He later admitted in a television interview that he was completely shocked that he had been caught. 

Arrest Location of Ames, 1995 vs. Today
(FBI/Google Maps)

There’s one photo in particular used by the FBI to document Ames’ arrest. You can see from the photo Ames being escorted by FBI agents into a sedan. Using several sources, I discovered that the photo was taken near the intersection of North Quebec Street and Nelly Custis Drive, a short distance from his house. It looks much quieter today. I’m sure the residents of this upper middle class neighborhood feel much safer knowing the Ames’ aren’t there, even if he spent half a decade hiding in plain disguise as a Soviet-bought imposter.

Ames was convicted of espionage in 1994 and is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. His wife Rosario received a five-year sentence for tax evasion and conspiracy to commit espionage. She was clearly a co-conspirator in her husbands activities, as it was found she had as healthy a spending habit as Aldrich. When the FBI searched their house after the arrest, they found more than 500 pairs of shoes, sixty purses, and 165 unopened boxes of pantyhose.7 

There is a small silver lining to all of this. In 1995, Ames’s prosecutors presented a check in the amount of $549,000 for the victims of his crimes. The check included the price of the Randolph Street house as well as the other assets seized by the government, including his 1992 Jaguar sedan and property ranging from expensive suits to silver. According to the Washington Post, the sum only represented a fifth of the $2.7 million that Ames received for spying on behalf of Moscow.8 

So where does the house stand today?  According to public records, the home was last sold for $401,000 in April 1995. Today, the estimate of the household is listed at $1,184,351. Houses in the Country Club Hills neighborhood run from just under a $1 million on the low end to nearly $3 million.9 The median estimate for price in the neighborhood is just below this at $1.167 million. Take that against the median value for a house in Arlington, which is $751,000, still at the higher end in the entire country. You can see why Ames selected this particular neighborhood as his home base. According to one website, Arlington’s cost of living is 53% above the national average.10 

Former Residence of Aldrich Ames Today (Matthew Eng)

Looking at this house on North Randolph Street today, you would hardly guess it fits that description of domestic opulence. Driving through the neighborhood, Ames’ former residence sticks out like a sore thumb. The front yard appears overgrown and unkempt. Grass is growing between cracks in the driveway. The siding on the house is dirty and disheveled. Moss grows in sections on the roof near the second floor windows. The colors are altogether muted from its former heyday. 

Composite of Former Ames Household Over Twelve Years (Google Maps)

It wasn’t always that way. Thanks to Google Maps, there is a record of what the house looked like on four separate occasions: December 2007, September 2009, July 2014, and August 2019. You can see the slow decline of the look and feel of the house over time. It’s hard to tell if anyone is currently occupying the house. A traitor’s house does not deserve light and love. Perhaps it should remain this way — nearly derelict and devoid of charm or character. It stands as a reminder of the cost of secrets and information and the faustian bargain one must make to achieve an unearned status of wealth and prestige. 

Footnotes:

  1. Tim Weiner, “Why I Spied; ALDRICH AMES,” The New York Times, July 31, 1994.
  2. Weiner, “Why I Spied.”
  3. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, An Assessment of the Aldrich H. Ames Espionage Case and Its Implications for U.S. Intelligence, November 1, 1994. Accessed September 1, 2020, LINK.  
  4. Peter Maas, Killer Spy: The Inside Story of the FBI’s Pursuit and Capture of Aldrich Ames, America’s Deadliest Spy (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 104-105.
  5. Maas, Killer Spy, 105.
  6. Maas, Killer Spy, 213. 
  7. Maas, Killer Spy, 222-223. 
  8. Charles W. Hall, “Aldrich Ames’s Spying Booty Shifted To a Good Cause.” Washington Post, September 1, 1995.
  9. Zillow, 2512 N. Randolph Street. Accessed September 4, 2020, LINK.
  10. Education Loan Finance, “10 Most Expensive Cities to Live In for 2020,” March 2, 2020. Accessed September 4, 2020, LINK.
Categories
blog Instagram Matthew Eng

Offbeat NOVA Presents: NOVAcancy

By Matthew Eng, Offbeat NOVA

A long time ago, Justin Timberlake once described my hometown of Virginia Beach as “a desolate area of the world” with “nothing but strip malls and Chick-fil-A’s.” Personally, I take great offense to that. There weren’t that many Chick-fil-A’s in Virginia Beach when I grew up. 

It’s true that Virginia Beach has a seemingly endless stream of retail and shopping centers along its main thoroughfare, Virginia Beach Boulevard. From the main artery of the boulevard, retail veins spring from all directions, including the most important to my childhood, Lynnhaven Parkway. About a half mile up the road from my main childhood mall and shopping area stood Toy Castle, standing alone like a mansion on a hill in a valley of mediocre retail and chain restaurants. 

Since standalone toy stores have vanished in favor of small sections in larger retail stores like Wal Mart and Target, it’s hard to find a modern day comparison. When I was a kid, my mom would take me there every so often. I would go in, my ActionToy Guide in my hand, ready to pick out the latest and greatest action figure.

Formerly Toy Castle, Virginia Beach (Google Maps Screencap)

Toy Castle was definitely a place reserved for special occasions. Toy stores in the late 1980s were a paradise, and visiting one was a special treat reserved for accomplishments, like A’s on math tests. Toy Castle, however, was extra special. The large standalone building looked exactly like an old school Playmobil castle. The yellow exterior was flanked by two large turrets on either end of the building. The bottom of the structure was covered in rocks, giving the effect that the parking lot was a giant asphalt moat. The icing on the cake was the drawbridge door that led you into into its great hall of retail. 

But the magic wouldn’t last. When I was a teenager, Toy Castle closed and became something entirely different: a craft store. Paul’s Arts and Crafts stayed there for a number of years until it eventually became a Salvation Army, which is still there today. Remarkably, the turreted building never drastically altered its appearance. Sure, it’s had a few paint jobs over the years, but the structure’s bones have remained intact. 

This idea of retail rebirth is something that has always sparked my fascination. Businesses and restaurants close down. New businesses open, but the remnants of past establishments remain. If you look closely, you can see instances of this phenomenon all over the place. Wendy’s restaurants become a cash advance. Extinct department stores become grocery stores. Later, the extinct grocery store becomes a fitness center.

Toys R US/Aldi, Alexandria VA (2018/2020)

Fast forward to the present day. I have lived in northern Virginia for almost seven years, and in that time I have already seen a bevy of businesses change hands, leaving the shell of their former selves to molt and emerge from their cocoons as something entirely different. It would be an interesting project to document these businesses. Although the buildings may not hold the mythical grandeur that Toy Castle once held in my heart, it’s important to tell the story of the changing landscape of the area. It’s also a great way to get feedback from viewers reading this who know of a place that has undergone such a restoration. Surely there are hundreds of places in the area that have closed down and reopened as something else. We would love to hear your feedback. 

We are starting this new series on our Instagram, so make sure to check it out and check back often. Although we are documenting these buildings now, they might give us ideas for future posts of Offbeat NOVA. We are always looking for new ideas, and the list is ever-expanding.

Follow us as we update content in the next week and beyond with the hashtags #offbeatnova and #NOVAcancy. The first few we will debut this week are naturally in our neck of the woods in Fairfax County, but we’d love to hear what you have to say. Drop us a line in our Instagram DM or email us at offbeatnova@gmail.com. Enjoy NOVAcancy! 

Categories
Arlington blog Matthew Eng

Real and Stagnate: Arlington’s Fast Food Music Grail

By Matthew Eng, Offbeat NOVA

I have a confession to make. It’s going to be a hard one to admit to fellow music lovers. Here it goes. 

I wasn’t into Nirvana until much later in life. I know…I KNOW.  

I was very young when “Smell’s Like Teen Spirit” became the Seattle earworm that congested radio and television airwaves in the early 1990s. When Nevermind was released in 1991, I was only seven years old. My experience with music up until then had been whatever my dad listened to. If you wanted to mosh to some Dan Fogelberg, James Taylor, or Jackson Browne in the early 1990s, I was your guy. I knew all the words to “Somebody’s Baby” and “Run for the Roses” long before I committed the mantra-like meanderings of the band’s biggest hit inside a poorly-ventilated high school gymnasium to memory.  

My first real exposure to Nirvana came just before the end the band in 1993 for the televised Unplugged in New York concert on MTV. They played it on the station so much afterwards that I had plenty of time to sneak into our room above the garage to watch it. The entire concert blew me away. What impressed me the most, though, was their drummer, Dave Grohl. I didn’t know anything about him seeing him on stage for that televised concert. Throughout the concert, Grohl played an acoustic drum kit and sang backup vocals perfectly. He even picked up an acoustic bass for one of the songs. How could he be so good at more than one instrument? I had to know more. By the time I did my research about Grohl and the rest of the band (which in the early 90s meant combing through magazines at the local bookstore), Nirvana was over. Cobain died by suicide in April 1994 and the band broke up forever shortly after. Would I ever see my newfound musical hero again? As it turns out, I would. 

Grohl recording Foo Fighters (Photo by Michel Linssen/Redferns)

Unbeknownst to me, Grohl had been secretly recording his own songs while he played drums in Nirvana. Not only was he good at drums, singing, and bass, he was a hell of a guitar player. He could do it all. Six months after Cobain’s death, Grohl booked six days in a local Seattle studio to record what would become the first Foo Fighters record. Besides a few guest appearances, he recorded every instrument and sang every word. 

Foo Fighters was released on Roswell Records on Independence Day, 1995. When I heard about the release with my friends, all of which were now enamored with Grohl and grunge music culture, I begged my dad to go to the local music store to get it. He eventually acquiesced my request, and we went to Planet Music in Virginia Beach. I can remember bringing my SONY discman with me so I could listen to it immediately after ripping off the impossibly-hard-to remove shrink wrap encasing the compact disc. 

Keep in mind, Foo Fighters would not be my first grunge music purchase at that point. I had several already in my collection by July 1995, including Pearl Jam’s Ten, Soundgarden’s Superunknown, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, and of course, Nirvana’s Unplugged in New York. I had never been more excited up to the point getting a record than when I did with Foo Fighters. “This is a Call,” their first single, released on the radio a few weeks before, and I was in love with the overall sound. It sounded like Nirvana, but more polished. It was punchier and faster paced. One might say it had the existential qualities of punk rock music, a genre I would also embrace less than two years later. But for 1995, it was all about this release. 

Foo Fighters (Roswell Records/1995)

The first couple of songs were fantastic off the bat. To this day, there are very few first tracks that hit harder than “This is a Call.” The next two songs, which also became singles and iconic music videos to boot, still resonate with me. It’s the middle of the album that I continue to go back to, with one song in particular. Standing up among a three song set exploring some differing styles such as eighties post-punk nostalgia (“Good Grief”) and grunge-drenched shoegaze (“Floaty”) is the two minute and forty-six second brain melt that is “Weenie Beenie.”

“Weenie Beenie” was the first song I ever heard that felt truly aggressive to me. The aggression felt good, even for a middle class kid with a b-plus average. The song starts loud and ends louder. Grohl’s characteristic scream is put on display there for the first time. The drums are open ended with plenty of hi hat filling the empty space between the drones of bass and guitar. The snare hits like hammers on your ear drums. The guitars are tuned down and turned up to a nearly uncomfortable level. In the immortal words of Nigel Tufnel, the amps “go to eleven.” It’s a sound I would identify with for the rest of my life. Just because a song sounds angry, doesn’t mean it IS about anger. Without sounding too nostalgic, the song is an emotional one. Every music lover has a genesis to their obsession. Mine happens to be “Weenie Beenie.” 

My first experience with music, c. mid 1990s.

I couldn’t play a single instrument when the eponymous release came out in 1995, but it undoubtedly spurred me to pick up my first, a black and white bass guitar, for my birthday in 1996. I still own and cherish that bass to this day. Over the course of middle and high school, I made it a goal to learn all the instruments Dave Grohl could play. I can play all of them now, in varying degrees of precision (or lack thereof). 

It wasn’t until I was in college at James Madison University that I found out through some old archived interview that “Weenie Beenie” was named after a northern Virginia fast food stand nearby where Grohl grew up. I had to go. But geography, my lack of vehicle, and my studies (…right) kept me from making a pilgrimage to this fast food holy grail. After a while, I simply forgot about it, even if I continued to make that album part of my rotation throughout my high school years and beyond. 

It’s been twenty five years since Foo Fighters was released. What better time to FINALLY go to this iconic northern Virginia establishment than now? Once we started the Offbeat NOVA project, it was the first thing I wrote down. We had to finally go. I was not disappointed. 

Weenie Beenie is located just north of the Shirlington neighborhood in Arlington. The small restaurant, offering walk-up service only (no doubt a great boon for business in the currently pandemic) sits unpretentiously in a small parking lot across from a park. The restaurant is the last remaining of a chain of restaurants created by notorious pool shark Bill Staton and his uncle Carl in 1950. According to the Arlington Public Library, Staton funded the first stand alter collecting nearly $30,000 in earnings from a profitable gambling trip in Arkansas. The namesake of the establishment became the nickname of the pool player for the rest of his life.1 

The food tasted amazing (Angela H. Eng Photo)

I asked Angela to put the song on as we drove down Shirlington Road. where the restaurant was located. After twenty five years, I had finally arrived. 

When I looked it up, Google said it was known for “BBQ sandwiches and hot dogs.” I wasn’t feeling a hot dog on a hot summer day, so we decided on grubbing on a pair of barbecue sandwiches and fries. As we ordered, our daughter Zelda charmed all of the waiting customers around us. It was so unbearably hot and humid that day (nearly 100 degrees), that all of us waiting for our food attempted to hang out in the small amount of shade the tiny orange eaves the restaurant provided from the direct sunlight. After about fifteen minutes, we finally received our hot bag of food. I brought it back to the car and cranked the air conditioning before eating my sandwich. The first thing I noticed was the bun. Normally a soggy afterthought to barbecue sandwiches, the bun was thick and toasted, holding all of the seasoned meat and cool coleslaw together. 

I took my first bite of the barbecue sandwich as Dave growled into the chorus of the song inspired by the place I was finally eating at. The meat was warm and well seasoned, with just a hint of spice to it. It also had a tang to it reminiscent of the North Carolina-vinegar style I love so much. The coleslaw was not unlike the restaurant itself, simple and unpretentious. The sandwich reminded me of a better version of a famous drive-in restaurant I grew up eating at in Norfolk, VA, Doumars. Whereas those sandwiches were small and soggy, the one dished up at Weenie Beenie was large, crispy, and filling.

Zelda and I patiently wait for our food (Angela H. Eng Photo)

But I’m not finished. I haven’t talked about the fries yet.  I don’t have a picture of the fries because we ate them too fast. Weenie Beenie serves large, wedge-cut fries with an addicting seasoned coating on them. Complimented by the sugary, umami taste of ketchup, they were crispy and perfect. By the time the song was over, we were halfway through our entire meal. It was gone completely in another two minutes. We drove away from Weenie Beenie still sticky with sweat but full and content with delicious food. It’s definitely not a meal you can have all the time, but surely worth waiting nearly thirty years for. Eating there closed a very important chapter of my life, when music was new and exciting. 

I highly recommend giving this local business your patronage. When you roll up on the unassuming establishment in your car, don’t forget to crank the seventh track on the first Foo Fighters album while you do. 

Footnotes

  1. Arlington Public Library, “The Weenie Beenie,” Link.

Categories
Alexandria blog Matthew Eng

Beyond a “Ruinous Condition:” Alexandria’s Historic Wilkes Street Tunnel (PART III)

(This is the last edition of a three-part series on Alexandria’s historic Wilkes Street Tunnel. Read PART I | Read PART II)

Matthew Eng, Offbeat NOVA

PART III: Out of the Dark and Into the Light

The Wilkes Tunnel, once a fixture of the local newspaper in the mid to late 1900s, lost its journalistic spotlight at the dawn of the twentieth century. The tunnel never made large headlines again and retreated to the minutiae of daily life. Minor repairs were done at the turn of the century, such as new safety signals in 1899 that regulated the speed of the incoming trains to a more respectable five miles per hour. Public opinion remained unchanged into the new century. By 1905, citizens still lodged ineffective complaints against the tunnel, particularly the east end. Under the headline of “A Dangerous Trap,” a May 12, 1905, article pulled out all the old theatrics of Alexandrians nearly two generations ago. “Sooner or later some careless child or nurse will precipitate a baby carriage and its occupant to the railroad track below, or a pedestrian tumble down the incline in the night, when a damage suit against the city will follow,” the article mused. Not long after that article was written, a young child happened fulfill the complaintive prophecy and fall into the tunnel. A young boy named Norton, a resident of tunnel town, fell into the tunnel just in front of his home off Wilkes Street in early September 1907. He as in fact the second child to fall in the tunnel that year. It became such an issue that the city Mayor at the time, F.J. Paff, to create a fence around the Western entrance. It was never confirmed if a fencing was put in place, as the complaints continued in the first decade of the new century. 

A collection of articles from the early 20th century about the Wilkes Tunnel (Alexandria Gazette)

Vagrants were caught playing poker in the concealed light of the tunnel’s entrances. Other children continued to jump on railcars and use the tunnel like some long-gone fortification to throw stones at railcars and pedestrians passing by. On April Fool’s Day 1911, the Gazette reported a prehistoric skeleton of a mastodon was “unearthed” from the east end of the runnel where the railroad company was making repairs. It was enough news for a small crowd of excitable residents to congregate at the tunnel the next morning, only to find the ruse a product of the mere changing of a calendar page and a forgetful public gullible enough to belief such a ruse.1  

During the First World War, the tunnel was deepened to accommodate higher boxcars for the war effort. A recent archaeological investigation by the Office of Historical Alexandria unearthed a second rail line curving at Union Street and converging at the eastern end of the Wilkes Tunnel near a recent park construction. According to Archaeologist Garrett Fesler, the track was built between 1921 and 1941 before ultimately disappearing by 1964.2 Four years later in 1968, the Wilkes Tunnel was included in the first state-wide survey conducted by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER). The sketches reside on the Library of Congress’s website. By this time, the surveyor sketching the drawing noted that the tunnel now lied “abandoned in the heart of Alexandria.” 

The tunnel continued in use until 1975 when the tracks were removed, this time for good. The tunnel was soon repurposed as the pedestrian and bike pathway as it stands today. Somewhere between then and today, a historical marker was placed forward of the eastern entrance, detailing the history and legacy of the tunnel. That faded sign, like the tunnel, has also seen its better days. Plaques on the western end of the tunnel tell more of the tunnel’s history and connection to the once influential railroad that traversed through it. It’s hard to tell if anyone notices beyond the casual tourist or the jogger taking a short breather. 

The closure of the tunnel was likely due to the decline of industrial activity on the Alexandria waterfront. The Old Town area has only increased in popularity in the years since the tunnel’s closure, becoming a Northern Virginia showpiece of new posh ships, stores, and restaurants still showing a feint veneer of the city’s past. The heart of this area is the regal intersection of King Street and Union the very road where the former Orange and Alexandria track once passed through before curving into the Wilkes Tunnel a half mile later. 

Nearby Hoof’s Run Bridge, on the National Register since 2003 (Matthew Eng Photo)

The tunnel is not currently listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Alexandria is a city where you can’t throw a stone without finding the rounded bronze plaque bequeathed by the Department of the Interior. In all, there are forty-nine properties and districts listed under the National Register in the city of Alexandria. That includes six National Historic Landmarks (like the Historic District itself or Gadsby’s Tavern). The Wilkes Tunnel does not apply to either. Interestingly enough, the only other surviving portion of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad present down the street from the tunnel, the Hoof’s Run Bridge, has been on the National Register since 2003. In the nomination form for the bridge, the author references the “tunnel in Alexandria” on multiple occasions but treats it as the lesser of two surviving structures to the now-defunct railroad. Perhaps those deep-seeded misgivings of the residents of “tunnel town” were too much after all.3 

That doesn’t mean the tunnel has left the public eye in recent years. In the Internet information age, the tunnel has made a resurgence of interest in travel websites, biking blogs, Yelp reviews, and Flickr pages. It’s a popular place for local couples to take wedding or engagement photos. If they only knew the irony of those photos given its history and connection to unchecked domestic violence. Less than a mile away from the Old Town Alexandria Ghost Tour hub on King Street, the tunnel has made its rounds among the macabre musings of several amateur writers such as this humble entry into the historical/pop culture lexicon. If anything, the tunnel is photogenic and short enough for light to pass through your camera lens, making it eerie, but not eerie enough. 

Define Irony: Taking engagement photos in a tunnel where a jealous husband tried to kill his younger, spendthrift wife (Google Image Screenshot)

Looking at Google Maps, the overhead satellite map shows the curved road where the track from Union Street bent sharply into the Wilkes Street Tunnel. That is where the high-priced townhomes are located today, standing guard like affluent sentinels standing guard over their not-so historic landmark. How many have actually contemplated the tunnel’s history before passing through it? 

High-priced condominiums nearby the tunnel’s eastern entrance off Union Street (Matthew Eng Photo)

A small park called Windmill Hill just over the bluff where Fairfax Street passes over the tunnel, providing the bookend to the overpriced homes of the city’s nouveau riche on the right of the eastern entrance. There is a spacious basketball court and playground where kids play; no doubt they are local to the area. One would highly doubt they refer to themselves as residents of “tunnel town” today as they did so long ago.

Walking through the tunnel, you don’t feel any “cold spots” that some bloggers love to pontificate about in their content. You can still see the simplistic vaulted sandstone walls as you walk into it. The farther you walk in, the more you take in the landmark’s dank, mossy bouquet, especially on a warm day. At the tunnel’s center point, approximately half of the one-hundred-and-seventy-foot distance, it is very dark, even in the daytime. Your mind does wonder if you are standing at the exact point where Private Scotten was murdered. Where they dragged the dead body to be crushed by a passing train during the Civil War. And, of course, where Mollie McKinley struggled with her violent husband before being shot four times. You walk in the same blood-soaked path she did in near darkness before she sought help out into the daylight. You don’t feel an otherworldly presence while you are in the tunnel, but your mind will at least wander with its strange and complex history carefully in tow. 

Graffiti inside the tunnel (Matthew Eng Photo)

Very little else of the historic track remains in Alexandria. But then again, Alexandria is no longer the type of city that sustains railroads, foundries, and tanneries as it did in its commercial and industrial heyday. The tunnel once attracted anything form concerned parents, drunkards, vagrants, to the occasional murderer. Nowadays, it’s a breezeway for runners and bicyclists’ daily workout regimen. The tunnel, in many cases, is one of the few remaining pieces of that city’s history untainted by gentrification and modern conveniences. The city that exists around it today is much different. Alexandria, for better or worse, has evolved into tunnel town’s polar opposite. “It wasn’t always high-priced townhomes, archaeologist Garrett Fesler once said. “It was a working, thriving city.” Whatever tiny part the Wilkes Tunnel played in that narrative; it kept its working class literally on track. 

Footnotes

  1. Alexandria Gazette, September 4, 1907; Alexandria Gazette, April 1, 1911. 
  2. Evan Berkowitz, “Construction Unearths 20th-Century Railroad Tracks,” Alexandria Times, July 20, 2017. Accessed 12 July 2020, Link.
  3. Virginia Department of Historic Resources, “Orange and Alexandria Railroad’s Hoof’s Run Bridge,” PDF Upload (April 2018), Accessed 11 July 2020, Link.

Categories
Alexandria blog Matthew Eng

Beyond a “Ruinous Condition:” Alexandria’s Historic Wilkes Street Tunnel (PART II)

(This is the second of a three-part series on Alexandria’s historic Wilkes Street Tunnel. Read PART I)

Matthew Eng, Offbeat NOVA

PART II: The Curious Case of Mollie McKinney

Naturally, the track fell into disrepair during the Reconstruction period, adding insult to the already dilapidated condition of the tunnel. At one point, there was a resolution that instructed the Committee on Streets to take steps to have the problematic east end of the tunnel walled in and filled. The resolution never gained any speed and was soon forgotten.1 

After the Panic of 1873, the railroad consolidated into the Virginia Midland Railway, one of the many times the tracks under the tunnel would change corporate hands before ultimately meeting its end as a rail tunnel over a hundred years later. The tunnel became a popular place for young boys and aspiring prepubescent vagabonds to congregate, arousing the suspicions of the citizens of tunnel town. The police reported several instances of vagrancy for these boys, who had the habit of jumping from the top of the tunnel onto the passing cards below. “This is an exceedingly dangerous practice,” said one concerned citizen, “and should be put a stop to by police before some of these bold children are crushed under cars.” Meanwhile, the tunnel continued to be as one person put it, “not only unsightly, but dangerous.” The people of tunnel town and Alexandria would soon find out how dangerous it could be on an unusually cool day in the late summer of 1882.2 

Alexandria Gazette, August 17, 1882

Twenty-two-year-old James Cliff walked with his young wife Mollie McKinney on the morning of August 16, 1882, to the Potomac Ferry Company Wharf. Mr. Cliff’s sixteen-year-old bride fancied a trip to Washington, D.C. Money was tight for the young couple. Mollie had allegedly come up with funds for a nice trip into the big city. At the time, the couple had only been married for about five months. Three months after they were married, Mr. Cliff was let go from his job as a tinsmith due to poor health, draining their cash flow considerably. Although he protested her trip that morning, he insisted on escorting his wife. Mr. Cliff suggested they take a shortcut to the ferry on King Street through the Wilkes Street tunnel. Midway through the tunnel, at its darkest and most concealed point, James slapped his wife and drew a small caliber pistol and proceeded to fire several shots at her. Mollie was hit in four places: on her right ear, on her head above the ear, in the fleshy muscle of her right arm, and her left hand. Ms. McKinney’s screams were heard by several people in the neighborhood, yet nobody seemed to detect foul play at first glance. Two young boys who happened to be walking through the tunnel at the time of the struggle had a visual on the struggle in question. Upon hearing Mollie’s cries, they approached the helpless woman before being told by Mr. Cliff to turn around and leave, who reportedly fired two shots at them. Mrs. Cliff emerged from the tunnel moments later, visibly weeping and covered in her own blood. Mr. Cliff followed close behind his wife, carrying himself cool and calm as if the recent burst of violence were merely a lover’s quarrel.3

Mr. Cliff stopped to chat with several parties in attendance nearby, admitting to them that he had in fact shot his wife. “So great was the surprise at his action,” the article stated, “that no one attempted to arrest him.” He proceeded to walk casually down Royal Street in the direction of the canal. Several women encountered the gravely wounded Mollie McKinney on the corner of Royal and Wilkes and escorted her home. After nearly passing out from blood loss, the helpful women brought her back to life until a doctor arrived to remove what projectiles he could out of her body. The doctor removed the balls from her hand and arm but waited to remove those in her ear and head until she had “calmed down.” The wounds were serious, but not fatal, thankfully.4 

Mollie was hit in four places on her body by her husband, James Cliff.

A crowd soon formed around the house of Mollie McKinney. Oddly enough, it took a great amount of time before anyone in the vicinity began to search for the husband who had walked away from the crime scene so calmly and casually. What kind of man was he, and what possessed him to make an attempt on his wife’s life? 

James Cliff had spent the better part of two months sick with consumption, which forced him out of his job, unfit and unable to work. Mollie, not one to shy for the finer things of life, asked for fine clothes, food, and companionship, which her husband answered with jealousy, physical abuse, and emotional abuse. This was all well documented by those that knew the couple. Neighbors reported that Mr. Cliff was known to “whip” his wife, but not in a manner that would suspect further efforts of deeper foul play. His friends said he was possibly insane. Yet in the realm of Gilded Age romance, Mr. Cliff and Mrs. McKinney had forgivable differences. Mollie’s habit of seeking “lively company” made Mr. Cliff insanely jealous, which was likely the prime motive for the attempted murder. Such behavior is never an excuse, however distasteful it may be to a sick husband strapped for cash at the beginning of an unhappy marriage, for murder. For all intents and purposes, he casually walked away from the city unmolested.5

After the altercation, James Cliff took the Washington Road outside the Alexandria jurisdiction where he waited until evening when he returned to the city feeling too weak from his illness to move further. He went directly to his sister’s house on Duke Street. His sister proceeded to call for the police who took him into custody. The Alexandria Gazette reporter met with Mr. Cliff in his jail cell the following morning to speak to him about what happened. When the reporter arrived, Mr. Cliff was reading the very report on the incident published that morning. He then preceded to tell his side of the story, correcting the report’s ostensible misinformation “in a very indifferent manner.”6 

Much of the offender’s account played out like the article from the previous day. Mr. Cliff insisted that it was his wife’s own idea to go to the wharf for the express purpose of borrowing money for a trip to Washington. Mr. Cliff stated that his wife had not secured money for a tryst in the big city quite yet. How she would get it was up for speculation. The tunnel route, in his eyes, was her idea. He also said that he had a very loving marriage with Mollie until he got sick. It was only after this that she “would never stay with a consumptive man, hoping God might paralyze her if she did.” He continued his tale of sorrows for several more lines, regaling the reporter with a litany of jealous notions and suspicious of infidelity. To him, whatever had happened in the previous morning, was justified. Meanwhile, down the street in their home, Mollie rested from her serious injuries, with one of the balls in her ear still lodged firmly in place. Sadly, the article summarizing the second day of the event ended on a somber note indicative of the time period:

“Mrs. Cliff, it is understood, does not want her husband punished for his crime, and is willing, like a woman, to blame herself entirely for the affair.”7

Alexandria Gazette, August 18, 1882

It was an ominous warning of things to come. If not prophetic.

Two months went by before there was a conclusion to the Cliff assault case. In the middle of October 1882, the Commonwealth set out to convict the prisoner James Cliff, who had the “intent to maim, disfigure, disable, and kill” his wife. Neither party had apparently seen each other since the incident in August, but circumstances that played out would prove that to be highly unlikely. After taking time for the selection of jury, witnesses were called, including Mollie McKinney herself. In a shocking turn of events, she refused to testify in court against her husband, giving no reply when asked about the events on the 17th of August. When she did finally speak up later on during questioning, she merely said that “she had nothing to tell” and objected to other leading questions that would have assuredly convicted Mr. Cliff. All the prosecutor could get from the witness after several attempts to get her to tell the truth was a smile. The smiling grew infectious, and soon laughter was heard in the courtroom. When asked if she had been talked to or influenced before the trial, she responded with a submissive and inaudible “yes.” She then refused to say anything else on the matter of the trial, which forced the prosecutor to send his star witness to jail for contempt of court for the evening. The trial reconvened on the follow day, October 16, 1882, with the witness in a hopefully better position for testimony. She agreed to “tell part, but not all” of her story. Whatever she said must not have been compelling as the end of the trial neared. Other witnesses were examined, playing into the hands of the defense, who asked for a plea of transitory insanity before the jury retired.8 

Sometimes, things do not go like you think they will, especially during the Victorian Era. (Alexandria Gazette, October 16, 1882)

A verdict was reached later that evening after a short deliberation. Foreman Joseph Kauffman presented a verdict of not guilty. James Cliff, now a free man, left the court room with his wife “arm in arm, as loving as if nothing has ever happened to disturb their domestic relations.” Applause could be heard audibly in the court room after the verdict was delivered. It was said that the insanity plea put up by the defense “was worked with a success in this case that even the family of the prisoner did not anticipate.” Who would? Such was the time and delicate circumstances that let a jealous man with anger issues get away with some of the worst instances of domestic abuse. It was the unfortunately product of the time period. The vehicle for that violence was eerily enough the Wilkes Street tunnel, which provided Mr. Cliff with the perfect location to strike her in a jealous rage. The Gazette later reported that Mr. Cliff met his end later on in the Wilkes Tunnel, but that could not be confirmed at present. 

If you or someone you know are being abused domestically, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-79907233. If you cannot speak safely, log onto thehotline.org or text LOVEIS to 22522.

Footnotes:

  1. Alexandria Gazette, November 29, 1871. 
  2. Alexandria Gazette, April 21, 1876. 
  3. Alexandria Gazette, August 17, 1882. 
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Alexandria Gazette, October 16, 1882. 
  7. Ibid.
  8. Alexandria Gazette, October 17, 1882. 
Categories
Alexandria blog Civil War Matthew Eng

Beyond a “Ruinous Condition:” Alexandria’s Historic Wilkes Street Tunnel (PART I)

(This is the first of a three-part series on Alexandria’s historic Wilkes Street Tunnel.)

Matthew Eng, Offbeat NOVA

There is an ordinary looking tunnel one-half mile away from the heart of Old Town Alexandria’s bustling King Street waterfront. The tunnel, approximately one hundred and seventy feet long, extends between South Royal and Lee Streets, passing under Fairfax Street. Long ago, the citizens that lived in its proximity referred to the area as “tunnel town” after the aforementioned structure. Nowadays, it’s better known by the name of the street it passes through: the Wilkes Street tunnel. The street and its tunnel are named after John Wilkes, a radical English statesman who championed the cause of the American colonies against King George III.

The tunnel’s connection to the city and Northern Virginia is not unlike the structure itself, with beaming rays of light peaking at either end amidst long periods of murky gloom and blackness. After awakening some of its past ghosts, maybe this in depth look at the troubled history of the Wilkes Street tunnel will coax others out of the darkness and into the light. 

PART I: Tunnel Town 

To tell the story of the Wilkes Street tunnel, you have to start at the creation of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, the first set of tracks to pass through the tunnel’s arched walls. The Orange and Alexandria Railroad Company chartered the railroad in 1848. This first incarnation ran from the Potomac River docks at the far end of Union Street in Alexandria to Gordonsville in Orange County. At its peak just before the American Civil War, the railroad extended to an expanse in the Commonwealth nearly one hundred and fifty miles from Alexandria to Lynchburg.1

Bridge on Orange & Alexandria Railroad (Library of Congress Image #LC-DIG-ppmsca-33468)

T.C. Atkinson, Chief Engineer of the railroad, put a notice in the local newspaper in February 1850 for Alexandria’s portion of railroad construction, including a tunnel “about 360 feet in length with support walls, bridge, and culvert masonry.” According to former Alexandria City Archaeologist Pamela Cressey, the local firm of Malone and Crockett won the contract and soon began work in earnest.2 George H. Smoot, then President of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, stuck a shovel in Wilkes Street between Fairfax and Lee (then-called Water Street), which became the first work done for the tunnel. By April of the following year, the American Telegraph reported that the tunnel was proceeding “with vigor” and would soon be completed. By that time, the company had already laid the rails for the Orange and Alexandria railroad on Union street.3 

On May 6, 1851, the first locomotive was placed on the track for the Orange and Alexandria Rail, traveling “from the north end of Union Street to the tunnel on Wilkes Street.”4 The news snippet reported that “the performance was good, and gave general satisfaction.” The dutiful work of Malone and Crockett, however, decreased in quality after the initial victories of the tunnel design. It deteriorated so much that they were eventually taken off the project, according to chief engineer Atkinson. It was not until October 1855 that the Gazette reported that the railroad company, now in charge of construction, planned to complete the eastern end of the tunnel overlooking the Potomac River. By early July 1854, locals hoped for a speedy conclusion to the tunnel’s initial construction, as “it should not be suffered to remain in its present condition any longer.”5 

The tunnel was officially completed in 1856, over budget and over schedule. The tunnel’s original intended purpose was as a route service and major connector to the railroad carrying supplies and goods from wharfs and warehouses on the Alexandria waterfront to all points south. A nearby large depot and roundabout house was located up the track in the present-day Carlyle/Eisenhower business district. The tunnel’s sandstone vaulted walls stretched to nearly sixteen feet in height at the top of its brick arch. The western end of the tunnel featured a long ramp with brick wall sides. Architecturally, it is known as a “cut and cover” bridge, a common technique later popularized by the highly unpopular Washington Metro Area Transition Authority in Northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

Order for the Superintendent of Police to enforce improvements on the Wilkes Street Tunnel (Alexandria Gazette, August 14, 1857)

Problems with the tunnel’s “completed” construction began almost immediately. In 1857, the Alexandria Committee on Streets reported in the Gazette about the poor condition of the tunnel, particularly the drainage and its already decaying eastern end that faced the Potomac River and Union Street.6 The tunnel’s condition became a pressing issue that continued well into the summer of 1857, coming to a head in August. The shoddy craftsmanship came up once more in a Board of Alderman meeting proceedings in the August 14, 1857, issue of the Gazette. The Superintendent of Police had given notice to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad Company to “put the work near the eastern part of the tunnel on Wilkes and Water Streets, in good order.” The work to be done included the replacement of decaying wooden flooring with new timber and better protection on the tunnel’s front. The same order was later published in the newspaper in November and April of the following year, so it is unclear when the work was actually finished, if at all. 

Alexandria’s location to the proximity of Washington, D.C., made it an important political stop for many candidates seeking victory in the hotly contested election of 1860. Locals came out to support then-Presidential candidate and Alexandria native John Bell and the Constitutional Union Party in a torch-light procession and meeting on September 28, 1860, less than two months before election day. With a large sign emblazoned with an eagle declaring, “The Constitution, the Union, and the Maintenance of the Laws,” a train carrying Bell traveled through the Wilkes Tunnel on its way to the White House amongst a throng of “Tunneltown boys” carrying big bells and cheering huzzahs and other garish exultations. This is the first instance that you see a newspaper refer to the area around the Wilkes passageway as “tunnel town.” The article ended with a conclusive “assurance” that Alexandria would “speak for the Union in November next, in thunderous tones.” It was hardly thunderous. Bell was embarrassed in the election, and Alexandria voted to secede in 1861 at the start of the American Civil War.7

During the war, Alexandria was a city with Confederate sympathies that quickly fell back into the watchful eye of the Union across the river on May 24, 1861, remaining in Federal hands until the end of the conflict. During that time, the Union Army made the city a major center for troops and supplied being sent to the front lines. Wounded soldiers were brought back to local hospitals in the area, like the Lyceum and, perhaps most famous, Mansion House Hotel depicted in the short-lived PBS series Mercy Street. The Orange and Alexandria Railroad, like so many others at this time, were also taken under control by the Union Army for the war effort, which included the use of the Wilkes Tunnel. 

It was not until this brief period of Federal occupation that we begin to see the dark history connected to the tunnel. The Alexandria Gazette, a paper that decidedly leaned its journalistic integrity towards the Confederacy, included several stories of odd occurrences and malfeasance by Union soldiers in the dark tunnel. After the first major battle in Manassas (Bull Run), the newspaper reported that a woman threw rocks collected in her apron at “panic-stricken” Union Zouave soldiers as they escaped through the tunnel onto awaiting gunboats along the Alexandria waterfront. It was the first “baptism of fire” for these men, but hardly the last casualty in Alexandria during the war.8 

Under the heading of a “SERIOUS ACCIDENT,” the Gazette reported on the first major incident involving the tunnel in occupied Alexandria on August 26, 1862. According to the brief writeup, a soldier’s right leg was cut clean off above the ankle after lying on the railroad track at the eastern entrance to the Wilkes Tunnel the previous night. He was undoubtedly under the “influence of liquor” and, in an attempt to cross the track, fell with his leg across the rail as a locomotive passed over it, too drunk to move out of the way in time. He was later taken to a hospital and treated for his injuries. It was never reported on the condition of the soldier afterwards. It’s clear from this incident and other snippets from the paper that the Federal occupying force were adept at finding new ways of causing trouble as time dragged on and idleness set in. The newspaper also reported on the necessity to clear out Union stragglers around the city “who had thronged the streets” outside of their encampments.

Some time later in 1864, it was also reported that some “fiends” who murdered an individual put his dead body on the tracks near the western end of the tunnel. The corpse’s head was crushed as an oncoming train on the rail passed over it. It was never specified if the individuals responsible were Union soldiers or local citizens.9 

Pvt. Scotten walked into this entrance and never walked out. (Matthew Eng Photo)

The most heinous and unsettling event of the war period occurred two years later in March 1864. On Friday, March 11, 1864, James Scotten of Company G, 4th Regiment, Delaware Volunteers, walked into the Wilkes Tunnel at around six o’clock in the evening and never walked out. According to the report, Scotten was approached by an individual and stabbed in the back of the neck five times. One cut severed his jugular and made a “considerable incision” in his windpipe. One cut from the autopsy report showed the instrument entering the spinal column, which ultimately killed him. Despite his windpipe being cut, one civilian near the tunnel was able to hear Scotten’s pain-stricken groans. By the time he arrived, he was dead. 

Scotten was seen walking into the tunnel with another individual who became the prime suspect, John Rush of the 72d Regiment, New York Volunteers. Scotten had just received four months’ pay on the day he was murdered, with very little money found on his person at the time of his death. Rush was arrested on suspicion of murder where he awaited examination. “The victim wore new clothes and there was every reason to suppose he had enlisted in order to procure several hundred dollars bounty,” the report noted. According to Army records, Rush later mustered out of the war several months later on June 8, 1864, in New York City with the rest of his battle-hardened unit. It is safe to say he was never convicted of any wrongdoing. A perpetrator of the crime was never found, and Scotten is listed as “murdered” on Delaware Civil War veteran logs and online registers today.10 

Private John Rush was mustered out of the military in June 1864, indicating he was never convicted of a crime. (Matthew Eng Image)

Life continued on for the city after these two incidents in 1862 and 1864, respectively. Complaints included in the local newspaper also continued for the sake of safety after a child fell through a set of broken blanks in the tunnel and was considerably hurt. By the time the war ended, the Gazette was back to reporting on the “ruinous condition” of the tunnel that was becoming more dangerous with each passing day.11 

Footnotes

  1. Pamela Cressey, “Wilkes Street Tunnel is Important Piece of Past,” Alexandria Gazette Packet, October 19, 1995. Accessed July 11, 2020, Link.
  2. Ibid.
  3. The American Telegraph, April 14, 1851.
  4. Alexandria Gazette, May 7, 1851. 
  5. Alexandria Gazette, July 1, 1854. 
  6. Alexandria Gazette, June 1, 1857. 
  7. Alexandria Gazette, September 28, 1860.
  8. Alexandria Gazette, March 31, 1922.
  9. Alexandria Gazette, March 10, 1909.
  10. Alexandria Gazette, March 12, 1864.
  11. Alexandria Gazette, September 24, 1864; Alexandria Gazette, January 10, 1865. 
Categories
blog Matthew Eng

Don’t Run Away, It’s Only Me

Matthew Eng, Offbeat NOVA

When the COVID-19 quarantine began in the middle of March, Angela and I were faced with a number of new realities:

  • How do we entertain a 4-year-old while still maintaining a relatively normal work schedule for telework?
  • How do we maintain our sanity stuck at home for weeks on end with said 4-year-old who wants nothing else to do but go outside, see family, and play with others?
  • What will we do with everything in between that will feel like fun, teach our daughter a few things, and keep us from going insane?

We could only do so much at once, so we spent most of March and April working on the first two of those problems. I will be the first to admit that it was very hard at first. It was hard for everybody. But we persevered after stumbling through the first few weeks to establish a good rhythm to our daily work schedule. But how would we control our “off time,” when we’re at home 24/7?

We did watch a lot of television at first. In some ways, it was nice to catch up on shows we either forgot to watch or always wanted to. Naturally, we watched Tiger King like everyone else. We took the opportunity during the episode where it was clear that Carole Baskin killed her husband to down a bottle of wine together. That was the first time that we allowed ourselves to relax during the entire quarantine. It felt good, but we knew it wouldn’t last. Watching lots of television got old real fast.

(imgur)

One of the other shows we watched during this time of quarantine was Mindhunter. I actually started it almost a year ago, but stopped after four episodes once Angela discovered that I had straight up Netflix-cheated on her. She wasn’t happy, but I remedied the situation, using the opportunity in quarantine to get Angela’s trust back. We started watching it in early May and blew through both seasons within a week and a half. The show got both of us thinking about what strange events and occurrences happened around our area. But how could we search those out in quarantine?

The one way we took back some of the freedoms we used to have without being an entitled asshole who thinks life should go on regardless (if you’re one of those people, thanks for reading but you’re a huge selfish asshole) was to get in our car and drive around. It’s something we both agreed would be both productive and let us “stretch our own legs” in relative safety. Most of the time, we would go into Washington, D.C. Angela loves to drive around the city and people watch. Only there weren’t many people to watch from our car. Once the tragedy of George Floyd happened at the end of May, much of the district was restricted (either by closed roads or a punk-ass wall around the White House). We had to look for other options.

We spent most of June driving around our neck of the woods in Northern Virginia. With such a big territory to cover (over 1,300 square miles), we had to start planning where we were going, so Angela sought out sites that drew her interest. I did the same. We found two or three places that each of us that we wanted to go, packed up our car with our daughter, water, and snacks, and hit the road.

With a car, we could go essentially anywhere to look for whatever clues we could about the area’s past. At first, these targeted drives were a sheepishly fun act of mild historical voyeurism. It was only when we got home that things really started to connect. At night, I would think about the places we went to our weekend drives, wondering how they might fit together in a story or video. When I stayed up at night looking at my phone, I was not chatting with good friends or being sociable. I was feeding my curiosity and secretly filing them away in Google Chrome tabs and scattered notes on my tiny 6.1-inch iPhone screen.

It turns out Angela was doing the same thing. This was the beginning of Offbeat NOVA.

Here’s what you can expect from Offbeat NOVA in the near future:

  • A local legend that doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how creepy it is.
  • There’s a tunnel in the heart of NOVA’s gentrified mecca with a dark and mysterious past filled with intrigue, abuse, and murder.
  • What is it like getting a soda and Cheetos at the same 7-11 where police put John Bobbitt’s dick on ice in a hot dog container?
  • Did you know that Northern Virginia had its very own theme park one hundred years ago?
  • Just how many dead bodies are found in local area motels? It turns out…a lot.

Stay tuned.