Arlington County recently issued the following announcement.
Arlington Arts and the Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development are pleased to announce the release of a zine that brings the history, stories, and character of Langston Boulevard to life through illustrations by artist Liz Nugent. Created as part of Plan Langston Boulevard, the zine also celebrates the corridor’s new name after John M. Langston.
In 2019, Arlington County began Plan Langston Boulevard, a multi-year planning process for Langston Boulevard (formerly Lee Highway) to create a comprehensive plan for the corridor that provides guidance on how to direct future growth and investment toward community goals. As part of the planning process, the County and its planning consultant documented cultural and historical assets of the corridor and captured the character of the five neighborhood areas of the study. This work yielded two comprehensive documents, the Historic and Cultural Resources Report and the Neighborhood Inspiration Report. The zine brings to life aspects of these reports through artist Liz Nugent’s engaging illustrations.
In 2020, the Langston Boulevard Alliance started a public process for renaming Lee Highway to realize the years-long grassroots community effort to create a welcoming Main Street by removing the word “Highway” and to begin to reconcile the painful racial history many in the community experienced by changing the name “Lee.” The Zine celebrates the new name for the corridor after John Mercer Langston, beloved civil rights activist and the first Black Congressman from Virginia, by illustrating his history and connections to Arlington and the Langston Boulevard community.
For many decades, zines (short for magazine or fanzine) have been an accessible and powerful medium to narrate and circulate stories and information through images and text. The Langston Boulevard Zine will create a lasting digest of the rich history and character of Langston Boulevard, connecting the community with the past and the present, while generating dialogue about a future vision for the corridor.
Arlington Arts will release excerpts from the zine on its social media platforms, and copies will be available on Saturday, Oct. 2 at the Fall Festival organized by the Langston Boulevard Alliance and Waverly Hills Civic Association at Woodstock Park (2049 N. Woodstock St.). Request a mailed copy of the zine by filling out a request form on the Langston Boulevard Zine project page.
Original source can be found here.
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