Get ready for our Fourth of July Parade!

In past parades we have had space shuttle floats, Ukrainian dancers, Chinese dragons, lawnmower precision drill teams, astronauts, boyscouts, girlscouts, bagpipers, swimming pools on wheels, hula dancers, aerobic dancers, folk dancers, and always the perennials: Uncle Sam, tons of kids on their bikes and floats, the Barcroft Marching Band, the Virginia National Guard Color Guard, the fiddlers, police motorcycles and the fire truck bringing up the rear.…you just never know who will show up.

Preparations are underway. This year The Great Zucchini will be on hand to entertain young and old in the community house after the parade and during the picnic. Bring a dish for the picnic, build a float, ride a bike, march in the parade, dazzle the neighborhood with your talent or just watch on the sidelines.

If you are interested in joining the Barcroft marching band call Melissa Bishop at 703-379-7537. If you have any other questions please call Andrew Hunter at 703-979-8247. Hope to see you there!

And if you are a fiddler:
"Come play with the Barcroft Marching Fiddlers in the Barcroft 4th of July Parade. It's not just for fiddlers! We're a band of various folkie instruments, including (but not limited to) fiddles, guitars, mandolins, percussion, flutes and whistles, and accordions. The music (which is reels, marches and jigs, all easy) can be picked up from the front steps of 624 S. Buchanan Street (there's a plastic box with music in it) or you can get pdf's by email. For more information, contact Julie Gorka at practicealot@gmail.com or 703-283-6977."

Here is a YouTube peek at last year's parade. It takes all of five minutes, and if you have a fast connection you can click on "View in High Quality" to see it better. We also have still photos from several Barcrofters as well.

The last until September.

We elected the following slate of officers for 2009-2010:
President: Bryant Monroe
Vice President: Steve Wilson
Treasurer: Gary Lefebvre
Recording Secretary: Jennifer Lis
Corresponding Secretary: Wes Stein
Membership Secretary: Peg Lefebvre
Board Member: Mike Behringer


We passed a resolution supporting the rehabilitation of Buchanan Gardens by APAH.

We reviewed preliminary plans for improving the park at Columbia Pike and Four Mile Run and confirmed it as our number one priority for Neighborhood Conservation funding.



• Our blue recycling carts have arrived.
  
  
  
• President's Report for May by Heidi Wicker

  by Heidi Wicker At our next BSCL community meeting on May 7 at 7:30pm at the Community House (800 S. Buchanan St.), we will be learning from the Public Health Department how the County controls mosquitoes and what we can each do to help this summer. We will also be hosting elections for BSCL officer positions (President, Vice President, Secretary and Board of Directors), so please come learn more about the candidates and cast your vote for whom you would like to lead the BSCL!

  I will report at the next meeting about the Columbia Pike Land Use and Housing Study. The County is getting underway to study the types of housing available up and down the Pike, and what the community desires for the future. I will also report on the status of current development projects up and down Columbia Pike.

  At our last meeting, we heard from the Democratic candidates for our Virginia House of Delegates position, running in the primary on June 19. We had a spirited debate and got to know the candidates better—many thanks to Pat Williamson for coordinating this great event!

  We also recently hosted a special meeting of the BSCL with our neighbors in Alcova Heights and our government neighbors on George Mason Drive: the Army National Guard and U.S. State Department. We discussed such issues as:

  • construction trash and debris

  • safety of pedestrians crossing George Mason Dr. and potentially opening up the underground passageway which is sitting unused right now

  • coordinating transportation shuttles and bus routes to get more employees using public transportation

  • construction equipment blocking George Mason Dr. during rush hour.
  The Guard and State Department representatives plan to discuss these issues internally and coordinate with County staff to see what can be done to address our concerns. We agreed to meet with the government reps quarterly to ensure that these and any other issues of concern to neighbors are appropriately addressed. I hope to see you at our May meeting, my last as President of the BSCL. It has been a pleasure serving you all the past two years as President. We have such great energy and enthusiasm in this community. Our ability to come together to solve complicated social issues never fails to amaze me. I look forward to continuing to stay involved in the BSCL and supporting our new President in continuing the tradition of leadership that makes Barcroft truly a special place to live.
  
  
• The May Barcroft News.
  
  
• Eileen Melia honored as "Person of Vision"
  Barcrofter Eileen Melia was named on March 10 by the Arlington County Commission on the Status of Women as a 2009 Person of Vision. Here is the award citation and more about her accomplishments.
  
  
• Barcroft Walkabout now on the Web.
  The County filmed a ten minute walking tour of the neighborhood last summer, hosted by Randy Swart because nobody else would do it. It features interviews with Miriam Hughey-Guy and Greg Zell.
  
  
• Arlington Mill Meeting March 3rd The Arlington Mill Center Steering Committee met on March 3rd to advise the County on community views of what should be done with the existing Arlington Mill Center building while the project to replace it is on hold. The private partner is unable to raise financing. The wait may be six months to two years. The County is considering what to do with the building in the interim. Eric Harold is our representative on the Steering Committee.
  
  
• Friendship Quilt from 1948 surfaces
  
  

  After 60 years a quilt made by members of the Barcroft Bible Church with the names of about 500 Barcroft residents and others has been found in a cedar chest. We have its fascinating history and all the names.
  
  

• Barcrofter on ABC on Inauguration Day Long time Barcroft resident Joan Mulholland was interviewed about 2pm on Inauguration Day on ABC news. The reporter opened with "you remember from your history books the legendary Freedom Marchers" then showed some sketched portraits from that era and one of them was a very young Joan! Then he turned and there she was standing with another Freedom Rider, recounting some of her experiences on the Freedom Marches of the 60's and how remarkable it is that racial barriers broke down fast enough that Barak Obama could be elected just 40 years later. The reporter concluded with a statement that he was honored to be interviewing people who had changed the course of history. Joan was also honored by the Jackson (Mississipi) Academy band, whose director and son have composed music in her honor. You can see a video clip of that. Just ignore the irritating 30 second ad that delays the video briefly. You can also see police mug shots of Joan at age 19 after being arrested at a sit-in in 1960.
  
  
  
• Our big holiday party was on Thursday December 4. Here are Kathy Kerr's photos and video clips.
  
  
  
• Our Neighborhood Conservation Plan was accepted by the County Board on Tuesday November 18. President Heidi Wicker presented it to the Board, and you can watch the video here.
  
  
  
• Letter to the Examiner

  President Heidi Wicker sent this letter to the Examiner on November 17, 2008 asking that they stop delivery to the neighborhood. It worked! For about two weeks! Our thanks to the Examiner distributor for their brief but welcome cooperation. Now we are back to wishing we could stop the trashing of our neighborhood.
  
  
  

• Barcroft Vote Totals

  Unofficial but not far from final.

  Total voting: 1647, including 418 voting in advance.
  Turnout: 80 per cent of our 2061 active voters.

  These totals are for November 4 voting only, and do not
  include any of the 418 advance votes:

  Obama: 835 vs. McCain: 376
  Warner 885 vs. Gilmore 303
  Moran 790 vs. Elmore
  Favola 789 vs. Reeder 266
  Garvey 855 and Viola-Sanchez 796
  Housing authority: Yes 323 vs. No 815
  Metro bond: Yes 880 vs No 279
  Neighborhood Infrastructure bond: Yes 792 vs No 354
  Utilities bond: Yes 937 vs No 233
  School bond: Yes 860 vs. No 308
  
  

• National Guard Report

  The National Guard issued a Finding of No Significant Impact for their expansion on Arlington Hall. They ignored our comments on the delay in constructing their parking garage. Here is a copy of the draft. On December 9, 2008 they broke ground for the new office building, still without funding for the garage to park the cars the new space will generate.
  
  
  

• Our Fourth of July Parade was a hoot!

  Organized by Parade Director for Life Andrew Hunter, the 2008 Barcroft 4th of July Parade was a grand event. This year you can see the entire parade go by on YouTube. It takes five minutes, and if you have a fast connection you can click on "View in High Quality" to see it better.

  Here is our usual assembly of still photos, including another YouTube video link to hear Michael Nazaretz and Julie Gorka playing a nice waltz.

  Here are Mike Rhode's great photos of the parade. And here are lots more from Kimberley Marchant and Anand Mishra.
  
  

• The Barcroft Players' most recent performance

  

  In June 2008 The Barcroft Players presented "Three Generations of Imbeciles," an original play by Rick Hodges.

  Here is more information about The Barcroft Players and all of their performances.
  
  

• We approved our Neighborhood Conservation Plan update on May 1st! Here is the draft plan we approved with some changes. The final will be posted soon. Here are the responses to our neighborhood survey.

  We approved a budget of $1100 for the 4th of July parade.

  We approved the NC Plan draft with some changes to be posted later.

  We approved David Peacefull's resolution on pedestrian safety at Abingdon/Arlington Boulevard.
  
  
  

• Jack Turner Passed Away

  Barcroft has lost a true neighborhood character. Jack Turner passed away in May of 2008.

  Jack was known to most as the trumpet player who organized and led the Fourth of July Parade band. With the exception of the Tom Palance years around the turn of the century, Jack had been leading the band since the first parade. He borrowed a bass drum, rousted out players, assembled the music, and lent his patriotism and spirit to the proceedings.

  Few know that Jack was also our Master of Signs. Every month he posted the "Barcroft Meeting Tonight" signs at all entrances to the neighborhood, taking the signs around late on the Wednesday night before the meeting and collecting them afterwards. He took a step ladder with him to make sure he could position them at the exact height he wanted them, and positioned them very precisely. If you ever saw one upside down, Jack did not post it!

  Jack did not make our sloppy signs. In real life he ran the Turner Sign Company, specializing in beautiful hand-lettered signs that had more style and were actually less expensive than the computer generated ones. His hand-lettered signs can still be seen every Fourth of July. How he tolerated our old spray-painted signs made with stencils was a mystery.

  Jack played in the Barcroft Holiday Band too, and every year he did a trumpet solo during the program. Every year he picked something that was difficult for him to get right and had a glitch somewhere in the song, but recovered and sailed on.

  Jack was many other things--husband to Lane, his wife of many years, choir member whose practices prevented him from coming to the BSCL meetings the signs alerted you to, active member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, organizer of the old Arlington Fourth of July parades on Wilson Boulevard many years ago. He had an indomitable spirit, an enduring optimism, boundless energy and a "can do" approach to life that lasted though his battles with the cancer that ultimately ended his life.

  Jack was one of our Barcroft characters. I will miss him every year at the holiday program, on the Fourth of July, and on those cold dark nights every month when the signs have to go up. He lived a good and full life, but his passing leaves a hole in the fabric of the neighborhood.

  Randy Swart

  and this from Tom Palance, former Barcrofter and professional trumpet player now living in Massachusetts:

  How very sad it was to hear about Jack. I have very fond memories of him, his character and the Barcroft parade. He was always trying to improve on the trumpet even taking a few lessons from me....not sure I helped much, but was encouraging to see a 70 year old still trying to improve!

  I played taps for him today out my back yard facing the Atlantic in his home state of Massachusetts. Please give my our best to all.

  Tom and family.
  
  
  

• Barcroft Elementary in the Washington Post

  The Barcroft Elementary School was featured in this Washington Post article on the school. It's a great article about a wonderful school that isn't meeting No Child Left Behind goals.
  
  

• Deadline for National Guard Comments has passed

  At Thursday's meeting we passed this resolution finding that the National Guard's environmental assessment was "flawed," challenging the findings of the assessment and insisting that the garage be built at the same time as the building that will add 1200 employees on the Arlington Hall site. The National Guard made a point of telling us that comments on the environmental assessment of their expansion project must be received by Sunday the 6th of April. You can email your comments to margaret.moffett@ng.army.mil or fax them to Beth Erickson at 703-607-8329. The BSCL and Alcova Heights Citizens Association have sent a joint letter to the Guard. Send your comments now! (Here is the Guard's report as a huge file, or if that's too slow a download for you, try just the summary.) Unfortunately the report says "Because of current funding restraints, the ARNG expects to complete the building expansion phase of this proposal before the implementation of the parking garage phase. The ARNG is currently working to obtain additional funding to build the garage by 2011; however, construction of the garage is scheduled to begin in 2014." Email Randy Swart if you also need the Appendices and he will drop off a CD to you with the 256 meg file.
  
  
  

• Don't wade in Four Mile Run

  The sewer main rupture upstream at Carlin Springs Road that dumped some extra raw sewage into the stream on March 28 has been cleaned up, but the water in Four Mile Run is never clean enough to play in, and anyone who comes in contact with it should go home and wash. The County press release recommends "normal stream precautions." If you drill down far enough you find this stream report and what is says is:

  "Also, bacteria levels in Four Mile Run, like most urban streams, routinely exceed water quality standards for primary contact recreation (swimming, etc.). Unfortunately, a DNA study just completed by the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC) suggests that most sources of bacteria in Arlington streams are not readily controllable because they come from urban wildlife. Waterfowl, raccoon, and deer accounted for the majority of the bacterial DNA samples collected in the Four Mile Run watershed. In contrast, human and dog DNA were identified in about one-third of the samples."
  
  
  

• Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

  New Corresponding Secretary Wes Stein takes very good minutes. Here are his minutes of our April 2 Executive Committee Meeting. Energy Audits Here is Barbara Swart's presentation on Energy Audits: A Barcroft Consumer's Experience. It shares what she learned by having an audit done and doing more herself. She also covers how to compare your energy use to the average use in the US, and what the most likely energy issues are for Barcroft homes.
  
  
  

• Traffic calming works!
  Check out this report from the County's Jeff Sikes, and you will see that traffic calming has reduced our "85th percentile" speeds for all the calmed streets, and as an added bonus it has reduced our cut-through traffic. (The 85th percentile speed means that 15% of the cars are still going faster than that, but it is the benchmark that traffic engineers use.) BR>
  
  
• Surveys for the Neighborhood Conservation Plan update have been compiled and entered into a database. You can see the checkbox responses totaled on this summary page. The many pages of written comments--all captured in the database--have been distributed to the drafting committees for each chapter. See this page for more on drafting our new Plan, ready now to go to the County Board for final acceptance.
  
• Musical garden at Barcroft School

  A message from BSCL president Pat Williamson:

  The BSCL voted on November 2, 2006 to support Principal Miriam Hughey-Guy's decision to keep the sound-dampened percussion instruments of Barcroft School's Musical Garden without restricting access after hours or on weekends. The recommendation included asking Ms. Hughey-Guy to explore with APS the possibility of using a web-cam to monitor after hours abuses of the musical instruments.

  For more background, we have

  • Letters from the PTA and Barcroft's Principal

  • A response from neighbors.

  • Some quick notes on the October 5 BSCL meeting.
  
  
  
  
• Hearing on a Pike Project Affecting Us

  Last year County staff held a hearing on a project they are planning to upgrade Columbia Pike from Wakefield St to Four Mile Run. See this page for more on the issues from our neighborhood's perspective. Here is our letter to the County on the intersection of Buchanan and Columbia Pike. The final design for the project appears unlikely to generate much cut-through traffic in Barcroft. You can see it on the County Web site including a full drawing of the changes. Timing is uncertain, perhaps months or perhaps years in the future.

• We have official permission to do park maintenance in the area along the W&OD and Four Mile Run from Columbia Pike upward. Here is our letter from Arlington County Parks. in this .pdf page.

• Barcroft Weather: NOAA has the forecast by the hour, and Eric Parker has wind and temperature measurements from 5th and Abingdon.

• Here is Elizabeth Rives' PowerPoint presentation on Right Tree, Right Place, Right Now! as presented in a BSCL meeting. (3 megs, a good two minute download for most broadband connections)

• Ben Harris has some thoughts on hiring day laborers.

• Barcroft School needs help! You can volunteer to tutor a student one hour a week.

• We passed this Resolution to name Anne Noll Park, but Parks rejected us and named it Arlington Hall Park instead.

• Our 100th Anniversary celebration was a play by the Barcroft Players.

• Have you paid your dues? The new dues year begins September 1st.

The Barcroft School and Civic League sponsors neighborhood events ranging from an annual Fourth of July Parade to a Christmas visit from Santa Claus, meet-the-candidates nights before elections, spaghetti dinners and a coffeehouse to showcase neighborhood talent. These events retain the strong spirit of community existing here for over 90 years. This is a good place to live.

Our History

How we began in 1903 and how we got this way

Our Neighborhood Goals

Goals for the century to come

Our Neighborhood Conservation Plan

Neighborhood planning from the grass roots. The projects we planned are mostly done now and we are starting an update.

Our Newsletter, Minutes and Bylaws

The Barcroft News was first published in 1903

Who We Are

Our email directory, neighbors' Web pages, more

The Barcroft Players

Our neighborhood theater company

Our Chat List

Our chat list for neighborhood topics at eGroups

Our Calendar

Events and meetings in Barcroft, links to Arlington calendars

Our Historic Landmark

The Barcroft Community House, our neighborhood icon.
The Community House is fully handicapped-accessible.
Here is a google map and you can get directions.

Infill development and Zoning

Info put together by the Williamsburg Civic Association

Maps

Here is a Barcroft neighborhood map.

The County has ">some nice maps of our neighborhood up.

And here is another from Google Maps.

And a nice aerial photo, too.

Our Bus Service

Columbia Pike bus service and how we lost our neighborhood bus line.

The Media

Articles, TV and more.

Our Weather

Barcroft readings and NOAA forecasts

More!

Neighborhood lore, parades, park plans, County codes, more

Barcroft's Elected Representatives

County, State, National elected reps for our neighborhood

Contacts for County Services

People to call or email in County departments

Membership List

Have you paid your dues?

Membership form

For Barcrofters only: join the BSCL.

Donations and Tax Status

For tax deductions, donate to our Community House Fund.

What's New

New stuff on this page.

Links

Our links to other neighborhoods and Arlington resources

To Contact Us

Please send email to:

Bryant Monroe
President, Barcroft School and Civic League
bryant@BSCL.org or call him at 703-271-0944.

or email our Webmaster

Randy Swart
Barcroft Webmaster
randy@bscl.org

We rated with ICRA for content, and we're ok for all ages!

At least one page on this site was revised on: June 18, 2009.