Old Town Alexandria

I had to drop off documents at a lawyer’s office, and guess what – that meant driving through Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.  [I’ve been to Egypt, but not their Alexandria.  Sorry.]

It’s old.  It’s fancy.  It’s nice.  It’s cool.

King Street.  This is Route 7, starting somewhere near Winchester, winding its way through Leesburg, Sterling, Tyson’s Corner, Falls Church, and then finally falling into the Potomac River.  It runs northwest to southeast.

Washington Street.  The George Washington Parkway passes by Reagan National Airport and becomes Washington Street as it goes north-south through Alexandria, bisecting King Street.   There’s a cool Confederate statue at the intersection with Prince Street.

Courthouse.  The Circuit Court of Alexandria is a 4 story building on King Street.  It’s nice and fancy without being too old.  I like going to court here, but lately I’ve been filing my uncontested divorces in Fairfax.

Federal Courthouse.   This is over on Duke Street.  It’s a 10 story palace of justice.  Amazing.  Generally, though, although I’m admitted to this court (US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division) I rarely have occasion to practice here.

115 S. Union Street.   I’m more apt to be down here:  the Trustee’s Office, for bankruptcy cases. It’s just a block from the river.  Very nice.

Webelos.  Back in the late 70s, when we were living in the US, our Cub Scout group took a tour of Old Town Alexandria.  The tour began down near the town hall.  I can’t remember much more than that.  We took a similar tour of Annapolis, Maryland.

Old Town Armory.   Fond memories of this gun boutique on King Street.  I got my first Beretta there, an AR15, and my current Mauser Kar98K.  Unfortunately, it’s not there anymore. 

Town Hall.   A big, fancy, modern brick building, where you go if you have City of Alexandria business.  Note: some “Alexandria” addresses (e.g. outside the Beltway) are actually in Fairfax County.

Masonic Thing.  Up on a big hill, right on King Street, is the George Washington Masonic Memorial.  This is NOT a Masonic Temple and no temple activities are conducted here.  It’s simply a large and an elaborate memorial to GW AS a Mason, which he was.  They give free tours which are highly informative and highly recommended.  You get to visit the top of the thing and look down around; the view is spectacular.  Don’t miss it.  

Virginia

I’ve lived in Virginia since September 1990, and currently call it home: so it’s been almost 20 years, longer than any other single place, including Maryland and Paris.

 Before 1990.  We lived in Maryland before moving to Paris, but it was Montgomery County, which is right across the Potomac from Northern Virginia.  Thus we were familiar with Tyson’s Corner (where the mall is), Alexandria (where my uncle lives), and a trip to an apple orchard and Luray Caverns.  On home leave in 1980 and 1986 we stayed in Virginia.  Note that from Gaithersburg, Tyson’s Corner is closer than Baltimore.

 For Fall semester, first year of law school at George Mason University, in September 1990, I moved into an efficiency in Rosslyn, which is right across Key Bridge from Georgetown, DC.  In addition to growing far more experienced in Northern Virginia, after this time I finally visited southeast Virginia, Richmond, and southwest Virginia.

 Northern Virginia.   This part of Virginia borders on Maryland and DC, is extremely suburban and affluent, ad consists of Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax County, Prince William County (Manassas and Woodbridge), and Loudoun County (mainly Sterling, Ashburn and Leesburg).  This is the part of Virginia I’m most familiar with and the only part I’ve actually lived in.  It’s very green, lots of trees and forests, notwithstanding the malls and urban development.  I can’t actually think of any part of Northern Virginia which could be called run down, poor, or ghetto.

 Richmond.  The capital city of Virginia, and former Confederate capital, on the other hand, has a fair amount of territory which could be called...nasty.  I’ve seen some nicer, mall-y places, but most of what I’ve seen is downtown Richmond.  I visited Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) a few times, which is in the rundown downtown part, close to where the Virginia Court of Appeals and Supreme Court are, plus the General District Court and Circuit Court just a few blocks away.  Richmond is OLD and depressing.  I have yet to take full advantage of the Civil War aspect of it, which is the most redeeming element of this place from my perspective.

 Virginia Beach.   This is down southeast Virginia on the coast, where the ports and Naval bases are, and the beaches: Tidewater, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk and Norfolk.  My best friend from law school, John, lives in Virginia Beach and has law offices in Virginia Beach and Portsmouth.  While there are a few rundown neighborhoods, most of the area I’d qualify as “lower middle class”, the Kid Rocks and their slightly more upscale brethren.  I like this area, and I like visiting John and his family.

 Southwest Virginia.   Harrisonburg (JMU), Roanoke.  I really have very little experience in this part of Virginia, even less than Richmond.  Route 81 follows the mountains along the western border of Virginia, parallel to the border with West Virginia.  It ends in Bristol, which straddles the state line with Tennessee.  For Memorial Day weekend in 1993 my friends Phil and John road-tripped with me to Memphis, TN, where my brother was living at the time.  However, on both ends of the journey, the ride along 81 was at night.  In July 1993 John and I were in Roanoke for the Virginia Bar Exam; in July 2001 I went to Harrisonburg for a court case which I soon thereafter transferred to another attorney.  And in December 2008 I went to Massanutten for skiing.   Driving on 81 on a sunny day is actually pretty nice – when you can see and the weather is nice.  In some ways it reminds me of Germany, and also Brazil – the countryside outside of Rio de Janeiro on the way to Buzios.  But aside from James Madison University (+ Washington & Lee and Virginia Tech) and the Virginia Bar’s mandatory one-location summer bar exam exile in Roanoke, there really isn’t much of major value in this part of Virginia – certainly nothing to compel me to go there on a regular basis.

 Charlottesville.  Home of the University of Virginia.  I’ve been to Charlottesville twice – once to scope out UVa in the summer of 1984, and once to handle a child custody matter far more recently (going nowhere close to UVa itself).  Basically you drive down Route 29 from Northern Virginia for about 1.5 hours.

 Warrenton & Winchester.  Small cities nestled in the mountains, more like due northwest of DC.  Winchester has LOTS of those old early 20^th century houses which are run down, similar to northern New Jersey. 

 Founding Fathers.  George Washington (home: Mount Vernon, up near DC), Thomas Jefferson (home: Monticello, at UVa), George Mason (home: Gunston Hall), James Madison, are all from Virginia. 

 Civil War.  As I’ve mentioned dozens of times, Virginia’s biggest significance is its role in the Civil War.  Several major battles: Bull Run, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and the surrender at Appomatox.  The capital, Richmond.  Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army, and the 2^nd most important Confederate general, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.  The Army of Northern Virginia.  And the funny thing is, I still haven’t been to a single battlefield or museum in Virginia.  It’s like living in Paris and not going to the Louvre until relatives come in from out of town, and same with DC.  I’ll get around to it... eventually. 

See You In Court

The new
Fairfax County courthouse is now open! Woohoo! Another palace of justice! I get the same feeling going into a newly opened courthouse as I did when I was a kid on the first day of school (and the last day, of course). The new complex is a big rectangle with a tropical botanical garden in the courtyard. The cafeteria is now a 5 star Brazilian churrascaria, with a Vocelli’s thrown in, and the judges are totally awesome. You can even have the pizza delivered to the courtroom, Jeff Spicoli style, in the middle of a trial.

Some of the above may be a little exaggerated.

The top “palace of justice” in this neck of the woods is still the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division (I’ve never seen the ones in other three divisions). Glass, dark wood, escalators, and 10 floors, even a little cafeteria. It’s justice in style and luxury. Too bad I rarely have occasion to go there as I don’t handle federal cases very often (like once every 10 years). Get caught smoking pot on Fort Belvoir, or drive a little too fast on the GW Parkway, and you may get the pleasure of meeting the velvet glove US Attorneys at this place and getting hosed – or better yet, acquitted.

Arlington’s courthouse opened up around 1995 or so. I was just starting out as an attorney when the older courthouse was still up, which had a real 60s CIA-Langley kind of style. The new one is also clean, light and airy, and well polished. It still looks brand new. The Marv Alpert trial was held there. My ex-boss fixed Greta Van Susteren’s cell phone when the media circus had come to town there. Despite its luxury, it lacks a cafeteria, which even Prince William County has. Fairfax’s cafeteria is huge, and tends to be a staging ground for cases and a great place to settle instead of going upstairs to try a case.

Alexandria (pictured above) is one of the few Colonial-retro courthouses around. Inside and out it looks like it belongs in Colonial Williamsburg. You even have the “bar” fences separating the gallery from where the counsel tables are and the bench, with the little swinging doors, so you have to “pass the bar” in the original sense. Remarkably, they handle all their business with just 4 courtrooms for General District Court and 4 for Circuit Court. Fairfax was bursting at the seams with 16 Circuit Court courtrooms.

Prince William County recently expanded its relatively modest facilities, where they get the J&DR Court, the General District Court, and the Circuit Court all into one building, and like Alexandria managed to cope with only 4 courtrooms per section. This was the site of the Bobbitt Trial (Lorena and John), about the only piece of notoriety Prince William ever seemed to achieve. Neither Manassas nor Woodbridge are much to write home about.

Loudoun County (Leesburg) recently opened up their new, and totally confusing, courthouse. Non-Euclidian geometry? Somehow they managed.

Over in Maryland, Monkey (Montgomery) County still has its 70s era main building and a 30s era District Court in Rockville. I went to the District Court as a kid on a school trip, and now – every now and then – practice there as an attorney. The 60s CIA-retro style District Court in Silver Spring was recently bumped in favor of a glass and IKEA wood new one just two blocks away. I noticed that they conduct many of their criminal hearings, when the defendant is in jail, by closed circuit TV, instead of the usual deal of having someone in a jail jumpsuit make a brief appearance, handcuffed, in the courtroom before being led back into the jail. One of the district courts in Baltimore, on Patapsco Ave., uses a similar system and the courthouse also looks the same. If IKEA designed courthouses, they would look like this.

Prince George’s County has been trying to renovate their courthouse, but a huge fire (“Didn’t you hear? There was a huge fire, the court burned down!”) set that back a bit. Upper Marlboro is kind of way out, so I’m not sorry that I don’t go that way often. This was one of the first courts to use computerized bulletin boards to show the docket, instead of the paper lists tacked to the bulletin board. Fairfax has only recently upgraded, but waiting for the docket to scroll screen by screen can be annoying, and less efficient than actually looking up on the paper.

Baltimore City’s court is located downtown, deep in the heart of the financial district. You may have seen it in “Die Hard 4” (supposed to be in DC but obviously in Baltimore) or “…And Justice for All” with Al Pacino.

Baltimore County, on the other hand, has a huge 60s Langley thing going on. It’s all the way up in Towson, somewhat of a long drive. Actually, having cases there helped me later, as I ended up driving past the Recher Theater and seeing where it was. It came in handy when I went to see Tesla there in 2004.

DC. I’m not licensed in DC, so I rarely have occasion to go to any of its courthouses. The Superior Court over on Indiana, is pretty big, and now has all sort of lighted boards there like airline arrival/departure boards. I went there a few times checking up on the DUI case of a PI client’s nemesis. The chairs in the courtroom, instead of being the usual benches, were single buckets which folded up – like in movie theaters. Some of the smaller courtrooms at the Montgomery County Circuit Court have similar seating. The US District Court (for DC) is more like a 30s retro deal, like the Dept of Commerce or the District court in Rockville.
Some of the courts have their own style, but mostly they fall into certain patterns. The continual upgrading and opening of new courthouses makes practice a bit more interesting than it otherwise would be. Not quite SSDD…