Parkfairfax is a

neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in Northern Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Washington, D.C., D.C. The city's population of 159,467 at the 2020 ...

, located in the northwestern part of the city near the boundary with Arlington County. Nearby thoroughfares are Interstate 395 ( Shirley Highway), State Route 402 (Quaker Lane), and West Glebe Road. The neighborhood consists of 1,684

townhouse A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of Terraced house, terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type o ...

-type

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...

apartment An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement (Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that ...

s in more than 200 buildings on built in 1941 and 1942 by

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, w ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

at the request of

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

to provide housing near the new

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...

. Like the neighboring Arlington County neighborhood of

Fairlington Fairlington is an unincorporated neighborhood in Arlington County, Virginia, located adjacent to Shirlington in the southernmost part of the county on the boundary with the City of Alexandria. The main thoroughfares are Interstate 395 ( Shirl ...

, Parkfairfax is listed on both the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

and on the

Virginia Landmarks Register The Virginia Landmarks Register (VLR) is a list of historic properties in the Commonwealth of Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atla ...

. The name is similar to those of other Metropolitan Life projects that use a local area name preceded by "park" (e.g., Parkchester, Parklabrea, and Parkmerced) despite the area not having been a part of Fairfax County since 1801.

History

Parkfairfax was originally on and was the only Metropolitan Life project of this type to have no high-rise buildings. Former presidents

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

and

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Ford assumed the p ...

both lived in Parkfairfax for a time when they were in the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

. Secretary of State (under

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

)

Dean Rusk David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909December 20, 1994) was the United States secretary of state from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the second-longest serving secretary of state after Cordell Hull from the ...

also lived in Parkfairfax. In 1976, Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła—the future Pope John Paul II—visited the Parkfairfax apartment of Polish-American journalist John M. Szostak and offered his blessing. From 1977 to 1979, Parkfairfax was renovated and sold as condominium apartments by The IDI Group Companies.

Recreation and commerce

The Arlington County community of

Shirlington Shirlington is an unincorporated urban area, officially called an "urban village", in the southern part of Arlington County, Virginia, United States, adjacent to the Fairlington area. The word "Shirlington" is a combination of "Shirley" (fr ...

provides restaurants, stores, bars, live theater, a cinema, and the

Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Trail The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park is a linear regional park in Northern Virginia. The park's primary feature is the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Trail (abbreviated as W&OD Trail), an Asphalt concrete, asphalt-surfac ...

trailhead within walking distance for Parkfairfax residents via a pedestrian walkway that crosses the Shirlington Circle interchange with I-395. Nearby shopping can be found at The Village at Shirlington.

References

"Complex Analysis: Not-So-Secret Garden-Style Units of Fairlington, Parkfairfax Grow in Popularity and Price"
from the

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

External links

Parkfairfax Homeowners' Association websiteA history of Parkfairfax
{{Authority control Neighborhoods of Alexandria, Virginia Washington metropolitan area National Register of Historic Places in Alexandria, Virginia Colonial Revival architecture in Virginia Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia

History

Recreation and commerce

See also

References

External links