My City ‘Tis of Thee

The height of summer with an historic heatwave bearing down on us might seem an odd moment to be grappling with existential questions about pride in civic identity and what it means to belong to a place (given that these sorts of bleak ruminations would more typically be described as February Thoughts™) yet this is the mindset we find ourselves in on the eve of the republic’s semiquincentennial anniversary.

Why is that you ask? Oh, no reason really. It couldn’t possibly be the community theater production of The Devil in the White City currently taking place on the National Mall, or the DIY hydroponic scum farm at the base of the Lincoln Memorial, or the ham-fisted market manipulation via missile strikes, or the black-robed religious junta taking our rights away six votes at a time. It’s probably none of that. Or all of it. Or at the very least, the missiles thing. The point is it’s been a weird time to feel patriotic, especially at this particular time of year and in this particular milestone year.

At a moment when we are called to feel national pride, it’s instead been far easier to feel embarrassed. We are confronted every day by the ham-fisted bumbling of our current federal government in ways inconsequential (there is a giant gold eagle on the front of the White House now) and enormously destructive (flesh eating flies and long-eradicated viral illnesses are back). They planned a concert that could only get Vanilla Ice to agree to perform at and then even that was cancelled. Our president fell asleep at the G7 meeting and then signed a treaty (ok, whatever, a “treaty”) at a place whose track record on treaties is most similar to how the Nationals bullpen approaches a late game lead. Our spavined political parties and sclerotic legislature spends all their time texting us for money and delicately triangulating the correct podcast host to talk to as their One Weird Trick for staying elected. It’s all just tremendously, relentlessly, embarrassing.

And yet. Even as our country’s current leaders make us feel like we have to mumble “I don’t know her” about Lady Columbia anytime we’re around a much cooler country, we see the kind of stories that have abounded in the wake of our hosting the World Cup that remind us this country is so much more than its leaders. Stories like the people of Lawrence, Kansas embracing the Algerian national team and its fans. Or of a German fan finding the face of god in a Waffle House, of a Scot flabbergasted at a Buc-ees, of fans from every country discovering barbeque. Countless articles over the last month had lead with anecdotes of tourists and soccer fans from around the world finding hospitality and kindness and common cause with residents in every host city and beyond. These stories are capable of filling us with pride, of reminding us how fundamentally decent Americans are even as the atavistic America is currently dented and tarnished.

Ultimately this is yet another reason we feel grateful to live in Alexandria at this particular moment. It is easier to grapple with complicated feelings about how to still find a personal identity amidst the moral failings of a nation when you can proudly plant your feet in our community and be secure in what that means. Over the last decade and more our city has time and time again shown itself to be a place that is welcoming and inclusive, that invests in services that make us safer and healthier, that values the arts and culture, and above all else, understands that it’s important to have fun and to do the things that make people want to be here. Put differently—the Fourth of July is typically when we celebrate the ideals of America, and at a moment when it’s harder to see those values being implemented by our federal government we are deeply lucky to live in a city that actually lives those ideals day to day.

It’s important to have a place to put feelings of pride and patriotism. We should feel good about where we’re from. Caring about a civic identity—and doing the necessary work to foster and sustain it—is the bedrock of a strong community, whether that community is 160,622 people (new population update, bitches!) or 350 million. So as you make your way through this week of American remembrance and celebration but find yourself unsure what to celebrate—try looking right here close to home.

Housekeeping Note

We’re planning something a little different for an upcoming issue of ALXtra: we’re going *dramatic movie trailer narrator voice* FULL MAILBAG MODE!!! That’s right—no long-winded essays, no carefully constructed arguments [Editor’s note: if you’ve ever carefully constructed an argument in your life this is the first I’m hearing about it]. Just your questions, opinions, hot takes, manifestos, and intrusive thoughts. Whatever you’ve been sitting on and thinking, “I wish Jesse and Becky would explain this to me” or “I bet those two morons would say something really dumb in response to this.” Ask us anything. Compliment us. Challenge us. Confuse us (it’s not hard). We will almost certainly overthink at least one simple question and underthink one complicated one. That’s an ALXtra guarantee! Messages can be delivered via email at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com, on Bluesky, over text message, or by carrier pigeon (extra fees may apply).

Also! While we’re discussing administrative matters, just a quick note that we’re switching to a more relaxed summer publishing schedule after this issue, with our next installments slated for July 24 and August 21. Don’t worry, nothing important is allowed to happen around here while we’re gone.

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• A cool new city arts program called Art in Every Space will place local artists’ work inside Alexandria businesses and nontraditional spaces across the city. The poster advertising the program’s launch events says the idea “was created in response to a resident’s email outlining the opportunity,” so basically this is Mayor Gaskins telling you she wants you to send her more unsolicited ideas. She loves it, the weirder the better. Her whole life is just one big mailbag issue. Don’t hold back!
• Local media outlets are recognizing the many accomplishments of NBC4’s Northern Virginia bureau chief and longtime Alexandrian, Julie Carey, on her retirement. She’s been reporting on local issues since she moved to the city in 1992, just barely long enough ago to qualify her to have an opinion on zoning. That article quotes her as saying “It has been amazing to witness and cover all the changes” in the area over the years, like how the waterfront used to have warehouses and is now a park, Landmark was a mall but is about to be a hospital, and the city once had a lot of pizzerias and now has even more pizzerias. 
• Well shit. This is awkward. We made a pizza joke and now the next item in our list is a couple of buzzy new restaurants that just opened, neither of which serves pizza. Nor flatbread. Not even a solitary flammekueche or fugazza. Alexandria, you’re losing your identity!! WHO EVEN ARE YOU??? (The restaurants are Little Birdie and Finn & Fire.)
• Conveniently, we have an opportunity to work through this municipal existential crisis together at Alexandria’s 277th birthday party, next Saturday July 11 at Oronoco Bay Park. The event will include a reading by our poet laureate, the distribution of free cupcakes, and a group therapy session following the firing of the ceremonial cannons.
• In a pair of exciting news items, Crooked Beat Records announced that it’s moving to a new space on Mt. Vernon Avenue on the very same day that Neighborhood Restaurant Group said it was planning to open its own record store across the street in the space currently home to Mulberry Lane. Two places to buy vinyl less than 100 feet apart! Just when you think Del Ray couldn’t get more “43-year-old chasing the high of listening to Weezer’s Blue Album for the first time” it outdoes itself once again, well done everybody.

Local Discourse Power Rankings

1. 101 Croatians (Previous rank: 4). Our summer boyfriends from the Balkans have moved on to Toronto for their first World Cup knockout match, leaving our city reeling from a brief but intense connection that ended all too soon. We feel changed by the experience and the memories we made, but physically at least, the marks these men left on us are nothing that the passage of time and a round of antibiotics can’t cure. Emotionally… you can call us Carrie Bradshaw the way we can’t help but wonder, what did it all mean? Foremost Croatian national team local correspondent Ryan Belmore of the Alexandria Brief is clearly right there with us as he’s written a few nice essays this week reflecting on the team’s experience staying here, Episcopal’s experience as a host and the boost all of this gave to local tourism. While it’s great that we’re on international visitors’ radar in a way we weren’t before, and we’re certainly on board with lining up a new sister city to formalize this relationship (we vote for Rijeka, the port city of Croatia), we need to discuss some important details in that second article such as the fact that Episcopal kept running out of ice for the players’ ICE BATHS. What a bunch of absolute divas!! Lounging about in pools of gelid water and being driven around a high school campus in a golf cart, this is the kind of slothful behavior that gets you scored on twice by Harry Kane. Sorry sorryyyy, we didn’t mean that. We’re just feeling a bit abandoned and also jealous that we didn’t get a “THANK YOU ALEXANDRIA” banner like the Algerians made for Lawrence, Kansas. We’ll get over it [Editor’s note: we will never get over it]. Anyway, Croatia plays Portugal tonight and even though our many Lukas are no longer among us, we’re still rooting for them to kick Ronaldo’s ass.
2. Unnecessarily Aggressive Natural and Patriotic Phenomena (Previous rank: 3). This weekend’s holiday raises not just the philosophical and ideological concerns we addressed in this issue’s lead essay but logistical ones as well. Based on the conversations we’ve had with friends and acquaintances over the past couple weeks, it seems like a lot of Alexandrians are debating whether to flee the area to escape the hubbub or stick it out through the president’s attempt to break the world record for loudest big boy booms. If you’re in the former group, good luck researching whether the best time to leave town to avoid traffic is 2:21 AM on July 3, 4:59 AM on July 4, or two weeks ago. Those who are staying face similarly difficult planning decisions if they plan on watching the show. This year’s celebration is officially a Fireworks After Dark affair with the main event not happening until the middle of the dang night, not to mention you’ll have to endure a TSA strip search to get onto the Mall and the weather will be hot enough to melt uranium. Fun for the whole family!! It’s also critical to consider how concerned you are—on a scale from 1 to OH GOD MY RETINAS—that this administration will pull a San Diego and set off all 850,000 explosives prematurely while they’re still on the ground, igniting every parched blade of grass in a two-mile radius. Even if everything goes perfectly, this display will still produce a worrisome amount of toxic sky jizz that will probably cause the AQI to blow past maroon and achieve an unprecedented Code Boysenberry. Godspeed to everyone who stays in Alexandria for this, we won’t tell anybody if you decide to sneak a few doses of your dog’s Xanax.
3. It’s a Beautiful Day in the Gayborhood (Last week: 2). Neutral colors were officially banned in John Carlyle Square Park last weekend as ALX Pride took over in all its polychromatic glory. Alexandrians showed up and showed out in their most vibrant summer outfits while our local elected officials proved that multicolor stripes look great on any garment from a polo shirt to a kaftan. The city did a great job coordinating live music, dancing, drag story time, a bike parade, and displays by local organizations, all conveying an inclusive message of “you are welcome here.” It was one of those days that reminds you local pride isn’t just a bunch of tents in a field, it’s people showing up for each other, which is more important than ever right now. Joy is resistance, and not even the humidity could dampen this celebration. Congrats to everyone involved in putting on this fantastic event that we’re proud to award 5 out of 5 rainbow flags. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈
4. Come Sail Away (Last week: 1). Last week brought the shocking news that Tall Ship Providence is suspending operations, followed in rapid succession by an announcement that the ship might be taken over as part of a new national maritime museum next to Waterfront Park. It all came pretty much out of nowhere and was a lot to process for Alexandria’s dad community, especially coming so soon on the heels of Riggingpalooza Sails on the Potomac. The Facebook comments on the ALXnow article about Providence shutting down devolved into incoherent arguments about whether the whole “port city” nickname reeeally had anything to do with slavery, underscoring the maritime foundation’s point that more comprehensive historical education is needed. But if this plan ultimately comes together, it would be our city’s first “national” museum, so that’s pretty cool! Fairfax has the national army museum, and Arlington has the national DEA museum. If our neighboring jurisdictions are studying up on how to invade us with infantry and seize our assets in a questionably legal sting operation, Alexandria needs to prepare itself at the very least to beat a hasty retreat by sea! We’re tempted to write a sea shanty about all of this, but we can’t figure out how to work the Clerk of Court into it, so… fuck it, not worth the effort.

One Awesome Thing in ALX

Longtime ALXtra readers may remember that waayyyy back in 2023, in our second-ever issue, we featured a very large under-construction sewer tunnel and all the local notables who descended into it for underground hard hat selfies. It’s hard to believe that in the time since then, we’ve written hundreds of thousands of words while AlexRenew has finished the tunnel and its accompanying 12-story-deep pumping station, these two accomplishments being of roughly equivalent value to society. 

Yesterday morning marked the final milestone for this project as the community gathered to declare it fully operational. The occasion was commemorated with speechifying, ceremonial ribbon cutting, Mayor Gaskins lengthily quoting the AlexRenew children’s book Cloe Builds a Tunnel from memory, and colored chalk exploding all over the attendees like a wastewater engineer’s dream gender reveal party. Surprise, it’s a boy girl 2.2-mile long subterranean chamber underneath Old Town!

But seriously, this effort—the single largest infrastructure project in Alexandria’s history—is a massive accomplishment in which our entire city should take enormous pride. It will keep over 120 million gallons of combined sewer overflows out of the Potomac every year, contributing to cleaner waterways here in Alexandria and downstream. AlexRenew completed it within an extremely ambitious legislatively-mandated timeframe that even some state and federal officials doubted was achievable. But now it’s done (with some attractive aboveground architectural flourishes to boot) thanks to the hard work of hundreds of people. The teamwork that made it happen is truly inspirational and represents the best of what our community can do. So get out there on the river this summer, and enjoy and appreciate what this project achieved for us and for future generations.

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.

ALXtra is a free-to-read newsletter about current events in Alexandria, Virginia. Subscribe to get it delivered directly to your inbox. Paid subscriptions give you access to the comments. Revenue from subscriptions gets used in the following ways: 1) a third goes into a charity fund, and every time that fund hits $500 we’ll make a donation to a local nonprofit in the name of ALXtra’s readers and we’ll feature and write about that organization, like we did here, here, here, here, here and here; 2) another third of the money will go toward investments in the newsletter; and 3) the final third of the money goes toward self-care for your two intrepid authors.