Under Construction

It didn't take long. Just weeks after Amazon's announcement that my work neighborhood, Crystal City (aka National Landing), would be its new HQ2, the demolition — and the detours — began.

First, my cut-through was cordoned off, which made my walk from Metro to office less diagonal and hence longer. Then one whole stretch of sidewalk was blocked, a pedestrian walk constructed in the bike lanes, and the whole lot of it painted white.

Now I wait at the light and cross to the other side of Crystal Drive so that I'm strolling on a pavement-stone sidewalk that runs alongside apartment buildings where a few brave pansies still show their yellows and purples.

This is not just a construction zone; it is the construction zone. A transformation that will continue for years, and will, I imagine, outlast my presence in these environs.

There's a tinge of excitement in it, I'll admit. It's not unlike the neighborhood I grew up in, full of two- and three-bedroom bungalows being built as quickly as the hammers and saws could make them. The sound of construction, the sound of new life.

Tunneling

The thermometer read 32, just as it did yesterday. But yesterday it was sleeting and icing; today it's "only" raining. Dark, gray, cold and wet — but somehow precipitation that remains liquid.

And so, I put into place my own winter emergency plan. No riding the bus from Courthouse Metro. I took my chances on Metro all the way. Most of all, no outside walking from Metro to the office. Instead, I took the tunnel.

The tunnel is longer but ever so much more pleasant, especially on a day like today. It's a weird feature of this neighborhood, something about its spook-driven origins.

It's a warren of passages, steps up and down. I passed a barber shop, an optician, a branch library and an experimental theater. I walked down a hallway with art on the walls.

It was warm, it was dry. It was divine.

Keeping it Real

Every year on New Year's Day, the Washington Post's Style section features an "In-Out" list. As the years pass, I understand fewer references. But I always get enough of them (Out: Meghan Markle; In: Megan Markle's baby) to glean a smile or two from the whole thing.

The item that made me laugh the most this year was number two in the hit parade:
Out: Keep Portland Weird.  In: Keep Crystal City Weird.

As I type these words I look out the window at Crystal City—its military precision, its empty buildings and plazas (even emptier now during the government shutdown), its anything-but-weirdness.

Yes, I feel a bit protective of this Arlington neighborhood, where I slog three or four mornings a week; where you're more likely to see a soldier in camouflage than an artist in grunge; where even the foliage is orderly (see above).

Avant-garde it ain't.

But it's my workplace now, and I've come to terms with its straight-arrow ways. So as HQ2 moves in, I'll be on the lookout for creeping signs of Left Coast-ness. Let's keep Crystal City ... uh, Crystal City.

National Landing

It was before 8 a.m. when I landed at National Landing, landing in my usual way, which is to say via bus — not plane or boat.

National Landing is the former Crystal City, transformed overnight from a slightly down-on-its-heels and not-so-aptly-named set of office buildings, hotels, restaurants and parking garages to half of Amazon's new HQ2 (HQ 2.5?).

As I walked from Metro to my office, I noticed a car with broadcast equipment staking out a spot for a stand-up shot. It was parked near the basketball courts that were painted with pink and green flowers a few months ago and accessorized with a ping-pong table and life-size chess board. A few steps away, on the other side of the street, was my building, now being shown in a promotional video with a faux glass-walled eatery in front.

I don't know whether it's the winter or the weather — or the fact that the HQ cat is out of the bag — but the basketball court isn't protected from vehicular traffic like it was earlier this year during the "courtship" phase. And I saw no evidence of the painted bicycles that had been adorning the area until recently. I was feeling a little bereft, like the bride who wakes up the day after the wedding and finds that her beloved isn't quite what he seemed before the nuptials.

It's not disappointment, not exactly. But something very much like it.  I must remember the mantra that the building pictured above (formerly Noodles restaurant) reminds me every time I walk to the office. ... "Good things coming."

Let's hope so.