Women’s Equality Day is around the corner, and Alexandria is included in a regional historic bike ride to recognize the fight for women’s rights.
The free bike ride is sponsored by the Alexandria Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Alexandria Spokeswomen and Alexandria Celebrates Women.
It’s a few years behind the cultural zeitgeist, but for anyone still running Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton on repeat: Gadsby’s Tavern Museum’s (138 N Royal Street) Hamilton-themed tour is making a return next month.
The tour centers mostly around Hamilton’s supporting cast like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The musical is also currently touring at the Kennedy Center through Oct. 9.
Today, George Washington is one of the city’s two public middle schools, but the building’s history as white-only high school and the process of desegregation is being told in a new historical marker.
The George Washington High School Alumni Association is planning a dedication of the Virginia Historical Marker in front of the school on Saturday, July 23 at 11 a.m, according to the Office of Historic Alexandria.
Along with the grand opening for the Freedom House Museum, there are a whole host of events scheduled around Alexandria later this month to recognize Juneteenth.
Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.
The long-awaited Freedom House Museum had a preview event today (Thursday) ahead of the museum’s full opening tomorrow (Friday, May 27).
The museum turns the Franklin and Armfield Office, once a complex devoted to trafficking thousands of Black men, women and children between 1828 and 1861, into a three-floor set of exhibits dedicated to exploring the lives and legacies of the enslaved people who passed through the city.
The City of Alexandria has announced that the long-awaited Freedom House Museum (1315 Duke Street) is scheduled to reopen near the end of this month.
The museum is scheduled to fully reopen on Friday, May 27, with a grand opening event scheduled for Monday, June 20, which is Juneteenth. The opening comes a little over a year after the museum was originally scheduled to reopening.
There are a number of ghost signs on buildings all over Old Town, and a home to one of them just went on the market for $1.1 milion.
That’s a far cry from the $414,000 that 601 S. St. Asaph Street was sold for in 2014 — and the $11,093 it sold for in 1962.
Fieldwork started earlier this week on a project to put the Old Town ships back underwater, and a public event scheduled next Sunday will give locals a chance to discuss the process with city archaeologists.
The public event, called “SeeWorthy in the Park,” is scheduled for Sunday, May 15, from noon to 4 p.m. at Ben Brenman Park (4800 Brenman Park Drive). The name SeeWorthy is derived from a new exhibit in the Torpedo Factory featuring digital reconstructions of the ships.
Work is scheduled to start next month on one of Alexandria’s more bizarre projects: putting a set of historic ship hulls recovered in Old Town back underwater.
Ben Brenman Park Pond (4800 Brenman Park Drive) near Cameron Station will be playing the part of Davy Jones’ Locker for the project. The city is hosting a meeting on-site next week to discuss the project.
With all the new residential development coming up in Old Town North, new local residents wandering around their home might be surprised to see a sign marking the neighborhood’s very own elusive cryptid: the bizarre goosepigs.
Goosepigs, as the name suggests, are a rumored fusion of pigs and goose, an impossible biological feat said to be accomplished when the pair of species were driven into the fringes of the city by local ordinance.
Friends and city officials gathered outside City Hall yesterday to celebrate one of Alexandria’s most storied centenarians: J. David Bailey, the oldest surviving veteran of the Battle of the Bulge.
Bailey, who turned 100 on January 3, was 22 when he was deployed to the European theater with the 422nd Regiment of the 106th Infantry Division. His battalion was captured by German troops while en route to St. Vith, Belgium, on Dec. 16, 1944. Bailey later escaped captivity and eventually appeared on the cover of the victory edition of Stars and Stripes.
