Postcards from the Edge (of the Potomac)

Hey Alexandria! Who’s got 318,204 thumbs and is the second best city on the east coast according to Travel+Leisure Magazine! That’s right, this guys city! We’re so excited to celebrate the Port City charting on yet another travel destination list that we’re almost willing to overlook that it’s also the latest in our long line of runner-up finishes to Charleston $&#@ing South Carolina [Editor’s note: we swear to god, you start one Civil War and everyone just decides you’re soooo charming and perfect]. 

And while we’ve certainly had our fun in the past joking about our top of the table placement on increasingly more oblique lists (Best Small Cities! Best Cities with Old Towns! Best Cities That Appear as Fictional Versions of Themselves on Both PBS and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe!) it’s both encouraging and important that we continue to get recognized by travel industry experts in this manner. Tourism is a crucial pillar of our local economy, and given that the other pillar of our local economy is currently being fed into a woodchipper by the clammiest Nazis this side of a men’s rights subreddit, we feel pretty damn lucky that travelers are still lining up to come and visit.

Just last week in fact, Visit Alexandria held their annual meeting and shared some exciting updates about our ongoing success as a host. The topline news out of this event was that for the first time ever, tourism spending from visitors that live more than 50 miles away exceeded [Dr. Evil voice] one billion dollars last year. We were up 8% overall compared to the year before, a rate which beat both Virginia as a whole as well as the rest of our region specifically (suck it, Fairfax!). Why is this important aside from [Dr. Evil voice again] one billion dollars being a cool benchmark and our embrace of any opportunity to make raspberry noises in the general direction of Falls Church and Reston? It’s important because tourism money is the closest thing to pure upside you can get in local government. That’s one billion dollars coming in from people that aren’t having their curbside compost collected, or their kids educated in our schools, or their storm drains clogged with 47 years of leaves cleared out. In other words, tourists use relatively few city services but contribute mightily to our bottom line, and create job opportunities for local workers while they’re at it. And let’s not overlook that point about comparative success—it feels significant that we are outpacing the rest of the region, and seemingly speaks to our balance of history, cultural attractions, all-ages activities, and robust transportation infrastructure. 

That’s not to say that our tourism success has been established as a thousand year Rei- [Editor’s note: Nope! Nope! Absolutely the fuck not! Not right now! Find a new metaphor!] that our tourism success shall long endure. All we have to do is look across the river and see how one poorly conceived deployment of national guardsmen as a flanking maneuver against unkempt topiary can wreck a hospitality industry. Ever since our capital city has been remade into a community theater production of Green Zone, DC restaurants and hotel stays have been dropping faster than the right side of the president’s face. So it’s highly encouraging to see Visit Alexandria (under the still relatively new leadership of Todd O’Leary) lean into the use of data to drive our strategy, as well as highlight more small business and tell a wider range of stories about what makes us interesting and attractive [Editor’s note: for example, we are home to thrillingly written and whimsically entertaining local newsletter content]. There’s a heightened focus as well on using events as tentpole opportunities to get visitors here, a strategy that many of us have noticed and applauded over the past couple years.

Visit Alexandria also announced a new initiative to bring tourism opportunities to neighborhoods across the city, with a particular aim to send people to the “West End”. On one hand this is great and long overdue. On the other hand, it’s a bit of a miss to classify everything west of [squints] the train station as the West End. Cartographical faux pas aside, this more expansive approach to tourism couldn’t come at a better time as we will need additional compelling destinations in the city to route people to during the forthcoming temporary closures of both Market Square and Waterfront Park; not to mention it’s high time we spread the benefits of tourism more equitably across our fifteen square miles.

In a moment when it is easy to feel glum about so many things, it’s downright revelatory to have this positive and exciting example of things going well to point to. Not only are the strategies and efforts being pursued by our visitors bureau working [Editor’s note: well except maybe this Virginia tourism bureau effort targeting Philly for some inexplicable reason—please don’t send us Philadelphians, unless it’s Gritty. Gritty is fine.] but it’s also concrete evidence that people still want to come here. And that feels really good! It feels good to know the decisions we are making about who we are as a community, the decisions about what we value, about the things that we want to share with others—that all of that is seen as worth the effort to come and experience, well, that feels pretty goddamn great. 

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• DASH broke its annual ridership record for the third year in a row, with 5.6 million riders from July 2024 to June 2025, though prospects for a fourth consecutive record-breaking year took a major hit with former Mayor Wilson no longer commuting downtown.
• The Commission for the Arts announced that the 8th installation of public art in Waterfront Park will feature two large billboards displaying the words NOW and NEVER. ALXtra is seeking comment as to whether the NEVER billboard will be pointed at Maryland, but at time of publication we had not yet received a response.
• There’s been an outpouring of dismay at the announcement that Starbucks is closing its 100 S. Union St. location and… you all know you can just use the bathroom in the Torpedo Factory, right?
• The Alexandria Clerk of Court will be officiating “Halloweddings” on October 31, giving couples just enough time to realize they’re going to need to schedule a Christmannulment.

Local Discourse Power Rankings

1. FederALEXpiration of Appropriated Funds (Previous rank: 5). As the home to 13,000 federal workers of both the essential and non-essential varieties, this week’s government shutdown has turned our city into a strange mix of “unseasonably warm snow day” and “unpaid internship.” It’s tough to see our neighbors suddenly sidelined from jobs that keep the country running, not knowing when they’ll see their next paycheck. But it is heartening, and emblematic of the big-hearted nature of this community, that local businesses are stepping in to help federal employees with everything from discounts on haircuts to free pulled pork sandwiches. Alexandrians look out for each other (and their split ends)! As we wait for Congress to get its ever-loving shit together, we hope that all the furloughed feds out there take advantage of those offers and use this opportunity to indulge in other self-care activities you wouldn’t normally have time for. Like listening to the new Taylor Swift album start to finish to find out whether it includes any breakup songs about being ghosted by your employer. Or watching footage of Chunk, the newly crowned champion of Fat Bear Week, who reminds us that it’s possible to thrive by doing nothing but eating nonstop. Shutdown role model?? However you choose to pass this very weird time, friends, hang in there!
2. Pumped Up (Last week: NR). Like Pete Hegseth seeing a picture of Winfield Scott for the first time, we were horrified to discover that the city is about to spend $150,000 to study whether we should spend another $25-45 million on the pumphouse project. To reiterate what we said last week, would it be nice if the pumphouse was in a location that 100% of involved parties found inoffensive? Absolutely. Is that trade-off worth $45 million in additional public investment? Absolutely not. The list of necessary capital investments our city faces in the years ahead is already dauntingly long, and rosy essay about our thriving tourism industry you just read aside, we know funds are going to be extremely tight. Moving a pumphouse half a block is simply not worth most some part of the cost of a new middle school. Hell, the study itself costs as much as some popular items considered during last year’s budget add-delete process! All of this is to say, if we don’t have enough money to buy another adorable tunnel boring machine the next time we really need one, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
3. YIADTRW (Last week: 1). We suspect that most local residents have no idea how many state and regional governmental bodies our local elected officials serve on in addition to their regular duties as councilmembers. Alexandria gets a seat on various boards and commissions that make major decisions about safety, transportation, housing, and all manner of quality of life issues. Sometimes that can feel like busywork, like our councilmembers are attending these meetings just to learn information that they share back with their colleagues and with the voting public in our city. But other times they get to cast extremely cool decisive votes, like Mayor Gaskins recently did on the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority to block their endorsement of new express lanes on I-495. Did she stick her thumb out and slowly rotate it downward like the emperor in Gladiator? Did she approach the rostrum and dramatically extend her arm only to drop it, like John McCain saving Obamacare? Did the politicians look up and shout “Save us!” and she whispered “no”? It’s impossible to say [Editor’s note: look, I’m sure there’s video] but no matter how she did it, it’s gratifying to know that she took a stance that put the interests of our city first.
4. Causes, Lost or Otherwise Misplaced (Previous rank: 5). An article about the latest phase of the city’s work to rededicate streets with Confederate names has generated hundreds of Facebook comments suggesting once again that the city should be focusing on other issues. These people have a point! Alexandria government famously can only do one thing at a time. That’s why the shift schedule at city hall is so complicated with all the employees having to take turns working. The volunteer commissions are on a strict monthly rotation (the Towing Advisory Board gets to exist in October). Did you know that when a crew goes out to repair a pothole the garbage collectors have to pull over and wait for them to finish before continuing their routes? But seriously… this topic hasn’t cracked the discourse rankings in over a year and a half and it’s almost kind of fun to see it back here. There are a lot of issues worthy of serious debate in this city, with legitimate arguments on both sides, but “should we have a road named after a Confederate military leader who wasn’t even good at it” (looking at you, Alfred Iverson Jr.) is not one of them. So yeah, we’re pretty sure the city can walk and chew gum on this—especially when the gum has the sweet, sweet taste of unambiguous moral superiority.
5. A Birb By Any Other Name (Last week: 4). It has come to our attention, after reading Andrew Beaujon’s latest investigative piece and talking to other friends who personally interrogated Amtrak personnel, that we owe the reading audience several retractions and corrections. We have been on record objecting to the use of “Gregory” to refer to the bird we were accustomed to calling Sir Alex and occasionally Pickles. However, upon learning that Amtrak staff selected this moniker because “he’s like an old man, elegant and reserved,” and furthermore that his full name is actually Gregory Alex, we rescind our criticisms wholeheartedly. Next, contrary to our accusations, Gregory was not in fact birdnapped but rather rescued from certain death at the hands of men with nets from New Jersey who wanted to turn him into some sort of soup or stew. Altogether this is one of the vanishingly rare occasions in which we are happy to have been wrong, and we regret our heated and borderline libelous words. Gregory, we’re glad you’ve found a happy home. We wish you a long natural life watching Animal Planet alfresco in your three-level enclosure. You brought us joy during a dark time, to which we can only say thank you—or, to put it in words your tiny brain would understand, oooo-ooo oo-oo, oo-oooo-ooo oo-oo.

Alexandria’s Hottest Club Is… Remembering the Titans

Believe it or not, there was other football news this week besides the announcement that Bad Bunny will headline the Super Bowl halftime show. This Monday marked the 25th anniversary of the movie Remember the Titans, which we all know was based on the true story of football coach Herman Boone and the newly integrated team at T.C. Williams High School (now Alexandria City High School) that went undefeated to win the state championship in 1971. The reason we all know this, of course, is because the moment a person is born in or moves to the city of Alexandria they are entitled to receive a special collector’s edition DVD of the film and a copy of the script signed by Jerry Bruckheimer. If for some reason you were not provided these items please report directly to the city manager and insist that he remedy the oversight. You can tell him we sent you.

We have to admit, we have a soft spot for this movie. Is it predictable and sappy, yes. Does it sometimes forget whether it’s supposed to be about racism or beating the George C. Marshall High School Stallions, also yes. But not every midsized city gets a Hollywood film made about its hometown football team and especially not a movie starring Denzel Washington. Its Wikipedia page includes a long list of historical “inaccuracies” that the screenwriters “made up,” but we’re not going to focus on the negative here. We will emphasize that the soundtrack is packed with wall-to-wall bangers thanks to the fact that 1971 was a killer year for music. There was also one original composition included on the soundtrack, a seven-minute instrumental piece called “Titans Spirit” that’s had an impressive run of being played at pivotal occasions in history such as Barack Obama’s 2008 election victory speech and the moment when Alex Ovechkin hoisted the Stanley Cup after the Capitals’ 2018 victory. Unfortunately since this song only seems to get played when good things happen we’re not likely to hear it again for a while [sad trombone noise].

The movie’s anniversary has led to multiple celebrations around town honoring the team’s accomplishments. On September 19, the high school hosted a “community tailgate” where players from the 1971 team signed autographs in the gym, then walked out onto the field alongside some of their former coaches and cheerleaders before that night’s football game. While the festivities were well attended, Denzel was not able to make it and Bad Bunny also did not perform at halftime. Keeping the fun going, the following evening Remember the Titans was screened at Cinema Del Ray. We have not yet received confirmation whether event sponsor Jen Walker appeared in costume as a teenage linebacker.

Not only have Alexandrians been turning out to commemorate the film’s big milestone, they’re also flocking to ACHS football games because the Titans are having a hell of a season! While the scoreboard indicated that they lost their first game, the other team had to forfeit due to a rule violation. The Titans are now officially undefeated after winning their next four matchups. At that special September 19 game, they beat their opponents 71 to zero. We’re not experts but we’re pretty sure that’s considered “good.” Their next game is October 10 against West Potomac at home, so consider swinging by Parker-Gray Stadium and cheering them on. Nothing like those Friday night lights, right? Clear eyes, full heart… [touches finger to ear] wait, we’re being told that’s from a different football movie. Is that the one with Sandra Bullock? [touches finger to ear again] Goddamnit. Anyway, with any luck the Titans will keep the momentum going and repeat the magic of the 1971 season. Who knows? If they make it to the state championship, maybe Denzel will stop by and Bad Bunny can perform at the— [Jesse rips the keyboard from Becky’s hands and throws it out the window into the street where it’s run over by a landscaping truck]

Overheard in ALX

Last issue’s letter about how to pronounce the name of the ParkMobile app struck quite a nerve with our readers, inspiring a wide range of responses in the comments and on Bluesky—for example:

“It's parking, mobile! bc you’re on your mobile phone! Park, Mobile! The distinguishing feature of the app is that it's on your phone! Parkmobile? Like ‘park your automobile’? What else would you be parking?!”

“If it is indeed ParkMobile (like Automobile), I *DEMAND* we start spelling the rest of the words correctly: AutoMobile, SnowMobile, BatMobile, and PizzaMobile. Either that or make a correction in the next newsletter; sorry, NewsLetter.”

“Joke’s on you I pronounce it with a posh hoity-toity accent ‘Mo-bile’ like the Brits do.”

“I might go with mo-bi-lé with the accent on the third syllable.”

Just delightful all around. We’ve learned a few valuable lessons from this exchange: first, the English language’s arbitrary rules are a fickle mistress; second, we’re all desperate for low-stakes controversies to distract us from the weightier problems of These Times; third and most importantly, this newsletter (sorry, NewsLetter) will publish submissions on any topic no matter how trivial—something we hope our readers will keep in mind moving forward.

We Get Letters

But of course we love to publish submissions on non-trivial topics too, like this important message that reader Matt B. shared with us this week:

For the third year in a row, our son has had a technology teacher leave less than a month into the school year. (Computer science, electrical engineering, and aerospace engineering.) The departure letter from his Aerospace teacher makes it clear that it is ACPS staff that drove him to leave, not better jobs or terrible students. I’d like to know what the school board and superintendent are doing to recruit and retain technology teachers. Given our city’s focus on becoming an innovation hub, how will we achieve that if we can’t even staff the classes we offer to our children?

We can’t speak to the specifics here (given that we aren’t familiar with or privy to the details) but the higher level issue the writer raises here is a good one. Our region puts intense pressure on our local school systems when it comes to retaining talent, given the relative ease of switching teaching or school administration jobs without uprooting your life because of how geographically close so many of these different school systems are. And it goes beyond education—we see this same pressure in all of our public safety agencies and some of our transportation and city administration roles as well. A strategic plan to address public sector talent development and retention, including creative incentives to keep employees here in ALX, would seem a worthy task not only for ACPS to tackle but City Council as well. 

One Awesome Thing in ALX

One of the sadder developments of the past year has been losing the ability to go to the Kennedy Center without having to stand in the lobby bar line next to Kristi Noem before seeing Deporting Miss Saigon in the Kid Rock Concert Hall. Fortunately, we have performing arts at home: the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra! Not only does the ASO put on fantastic and unproblematic concerts right here in ALX, they also do great work in the community through their Sympatico program, which provides free music instruction to Alexandria kids before and after school.

This program qualifies as an awesome thing in and of itself, but what’s especially awesome at the moment is that the ASO just received a grant from the Genesis Inspiration Foundation (via Alexandria Hyundai) to expand the program to an additional school. While they’ve been working with students at John Adams Elementary since 2012, they can now provide lessons at Francis C. Hammond Middle School as well.

The Sympatico program gives schoolkids the opportunity to participate in ensembles such as Fiddle Factory, Mallet Machine, and Percussion Discussion, names that could easily be mistaken for ALXtra issue titles and as such are perfect in every way. Programs like this are so valuable for our community because they don’t just teach children how to read sheet music and play notes, they also help them find their voice no matter what language they speak, build confidence, and create connections that last well beyond the classroom. With the expansion of the program, even more kids in Alexandria will get the chance to experience those benefits firsthand, which is definitely news that’s worth celebrating.

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 charity in the name of ALXtra’s readers and we’ll feature and write about that organization, like we did 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.