Reston Museum will take a deep dive into the history behind street names, Reston’s transportation system and the road to accessibility at a special event on May 10.
Called “This Way to Reston,” the program will kick off at 7 p.m. at Reston Community Center Lake Anne. Although the program is free, registration is required. Programming is supported in part by RCC.
Presenters will include museum board member Caren Anton, a museum board member; Mike McDermott, chair of Reston Association’s Multimodal Transportation Advisory Committee; and Colin Mills, project director of the Reston Accessibility Committee.
Reston Museum Executive Director Alexandra Campbell noted that transportation has played a major role in Reston’s history, influencing the community’s master plan in 1962, community volunteerism, and the area’s live, work, and play philosophy.
“We look forward to sharing historical photographs of this history and learning from Mr. McDermott and Mr. Mills on the Reston modes of transportation today,” Campbell wrote in a statement.
The event comes as Reston’s master plan undergoes a major revision. Fairfax County is expected to release a staff report of its recommendations on a draft master plan update sometime this month.
Reston’s annual Founder’s Day celebration will return to Lake Anne Plaza on Saturday, April 15 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The celebration, which marks Reston’s founding and founder Bob Simon, Jr., will feature community performances, cake, activities and music.
This year, the celebration kicks off with a community clean up.
“April is earth and volunteer month and what better way to give back to the environment than a community cleanup,” event organizers said.
Volunteers will gather at the Bronze Bob statue to clean up nearby Reston Association paths.
Residents can also contribute to Reston Museum‘s new Free Little Art Gallery by bringing artwork. Public Art Reston, a local nonprofit organization, will also have a free activity availability.
A ribbon cutting ceremony for the gallery is slated for 12:30 p.m. at the steps of the Washington Plaza Baptist Church, after which the gallery will be permanently installed at the museum. It will be Reston’s second Free Little Art Gallery, following an installation outside the Cathy Hudgins Community Center at Southgate.
Performances include a show by the Foley Academy of Irish Dance, Adrenaline Dance Studio, South Lakes High School Theater, Reston Community Players and Langston Hughes Middle School’s choir.
Local food trucks will be on site at the event, which is presented by Reston Museum and Reston Community Center and cosponsored by Public Art Reston. Lake Anne Plaza hosts the event.
Cake will also be served at an event with local authors Rebecca Green, Shelley Mastran and Cheryl Terio-Simon at RCC’s Jo Ann Rose Gallery.
A traveling exhibition looking at the ins and outs of Prohibition in Virginia is coming this month to Reston Museum.
The Library of Virginia’s Teetotalers & Moonshiners exhibit will be on view between tomorrow (March 21) and April 29. Reston Museum will also showcase artifacts from its own collection of Bowman Distillery items.
The exhibition tells the story of Virginia’s Prohibition, including its history as part of a social reform movement, the economic and social costs of Prohibition and the role of government in overseeing public health.
Here’s from Reston Museum on the exhibit:
Distilled from the Library’s 1,200 square foot exhibition (on view through December 5, 2017), Teetotalers & Moonshiners uses the Library’s deep and compelling collections on this era, from humorous sheet music mocking the absurdities of Prohibition to blazing headlines in anti- and pro-liquor newspapers and broadsides. At the core of the story are the records of the state’s Prohibition Commission, which record the daily activities of its agents. A digital interactive component documents statewide prohibition trends and tells the personal stories of commission agents, bootleggers, and moonshiners. The exhibition is supported in part by the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the National Alcoholic Beverage Control Association. The Virginia Distillers Association provided support for the traveling exhibition.
Teetotalers & Moonshiners addresses the important and long-lasting effects of Prohibition on Virginia and America, including the prohibition movement as part of a social reform movement, the economic and social costs of Prohibition, including the closing of businesses and conflict within communities, and the rise of illegal alcohol production and sale as an underground culture and economy, the role of government in overseeing public health, and prohibition’s legacy–from NASCAR to the creation of the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to the rise of the modern brewing and distilling industry.
The Library of Virginia was founded in 1823 to preserve the state’s printed and manuscript holdings. The exhibit is made possible in part with support from Virginia ABC and the Virginia Distillers Association.
Located at Lake Anne Plaza (1639 Washington Plaza North), Reston Museum is a nonprofit organization that aims to preserve Reston’s past, inform its present and influence the future of Reston.
A private library for the local LGBTQIA+ community is expanding its reach in Reston.
NoVA Prism Center, a planned community center and private library, is working with Reston Museum to tour its collection books and resources on March 18. The pop-up collection will be featured at the museum from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“The community is invited to come to the museum, relax with a book, connect with the local LGBTQIA+ community and support our mission to bring access to information about LGBTQIA+ lives, stories, and history to Northern Virginia while participating in the LGBTQIA+ community by gathering to celebrate ourselves, friends and loved ones,” event organizers said in a news release.
NoVA Prism was founded as a nonprofit in May 2022 by local educators and activists in response to an attempt to eliminate two books dealing with LGBTQ topics from Fairfax County Public Schools.
“As a LGBTQ+ run organization with roots in the community it serves, NoVA Prism Center & Library is an answer to both the threat of lost access for LGBTQ+ teens in the region, as well as being the community resource that the LGBTQ+ community desperately needs moving forward,” Leon van Der Goetz said on behalf of the organization.
NoVA Prism has pop-up events and hopes to open a physical location. Planning for the project is in the preliminary stages, and a location has not yet been determined. The organization is currently funded by individual and corporate donations.
Alex Campbell, Reston Museum’s executive director, said that the partnership came about after a board member connected the two organizations.
“NoVA Prism Center & Library was looking for a space to do a pop up event and the museum was a good fit,” Campbell said.
Reston Museum is a nonprofit organization that aims to preserve Reston’s past, form its present and influences its future. The museum features a collection of archival material and artifacts.
It’s open from Tuesday through Saturday.
Photo via Sharon McCutcheon/Unsplash
Visitors will have a chance to step into an assortment of Reston lifestyles at the Reston Home Tour this November.
A ticket unlocks self-guided tours of eight homes, according to a press release from the tour’s host, the Reston Museum. These include the new Lake Anne House and a home close to Lake Audubon that is filled with art.
The event will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5.
Though the home tours are self-guided, attendees can keep an eye out for docents equipped with information about particular rooms and home features.
The tour is a little bigger this year to recognize the event’s 20th anniversary, Reston Museum Executive Director Alex Campbell told FFXnow in an email. Typically, there are six or seven homes on display, compared to the eight featured this year:
From the press release:
This year’s featured homes include an award-winning modern masterpiece tucked back in a wooded oasis, a beautifully-landscaped personal “club house” offering amazing views of the golf course, a newly-renovated Reston Town Center townhouse with a water view, and an art-filled home near Lake Audubon with soaring ceilings and a delightful garden pond. Highlighted homes also include a renovated colonial near North Point with lots of unique personal touches, brand new EYA model townhouses with elevators near the Wiehle Avenue Metro and the newly-constructed Lake Anne House for seniors.
Tickets are available on the Reston Museum website or in-person at the museum. In addition, The Wine Cabinet, Chesapeake Chocolates and the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art will sell paper tickets, according to the press release.
Tickets cost $30 until Oct. 17. After that, the price increases to $35.
In addition to the Reston Home Tour, the Reston Museum hosts the Lake Anne Cardboard Regatta and Reston Founder’s Day, among other events. The home tour continues to be the Reston Museum’s biggest fundraiser, Campbell wrote.
In past years, tours have featured work by a local architect and a Marilyn Monroe bathroom, among other attractions.
Thousands of spectators converged at Lake Anne Plaza over the weekend for the annual Lake Anne Cardboard Boat Regatta.
This year, the event returned after a two-year pause due to the pandemic. More than 40 boats took part in the race, with Hunters Woods Elementary earning first place in the cadet category.
The annual event is organized by the Reston Museum, which is based at 1639 Washington Plaza North. The event is designed to encourage community pride in Reston. Teams construct and their life-sized cardboard boats, which take part in timed heats.
“We could not be happier with how the return of the Lake Anne Cardboard Boat Regatta went!” Reston Museum Executive Director Alex Campbell wrote in a statement to FFXnow. “The boat designs were amazing and it was wonderful to connect with the community again through this favorite event. This event always brings joy, but this year’s race was truly something special.”
YMCA won the navigator race, while Cinder won the skipper race. The people’s choice award — selected based on attendee votes — went to Mr. Matt and the WildFlowers. The Titanic award went to Terraset Elementary School.
Pre-registration for next year’s event is already underway. It will be taken through Saturday and the race will be held next year on August 12.
This year’s title sponsor was 123 Junk.
(Updated at 11:55 a.m. on 7/29/2022) A traveling exhibit chronicling the nearly 400-year-old struggle for Black equality is coming this month to the Reston Historic Trust & Museum.
“Determined,” a traveling exhibit by Virginia Museum of History and Culture, traces Black history in Virginia through stories about the struggle for equality and our collective ideals, according to a press release about the exhibit.
The exhibit, which runs from July 26 through Aug. 28, will have items and information chronicling Black history, including supplements from the Reston Museum.
The original exhibition at the Virginia Museum in Richmond featured the stories of 30 people, including Mary Smith Peake and Barbara Johns Powell, with more than 100 objects and multimedia content. The exhibit closed in March 2020 and isn’t currently on display there.
The traveling exhibit that has been lent to Reston Museum is smaller, consisting of 10 double-sided informational panels without the artifacts and multimedia content, according to Reston Museum Executive Director Alexandra Campbell. (This article has been corrected to reflect the difference between the traveling and original exhibits.)
“Along with the Determined exhibit, the Reston Museum will feature artifacts from the Reston Museum’s collection showcasing Reston’s founding as a diverse community and how Restonians continued to pursue equality for all members of their community,” Campbell said. “We hope our visitors enjoy learning not only about the history of Reston, but also how it fits into the larger context of Virginia’s history.”
The museum, which is a nonprofit organization, is located in Lake Anne Plaza and is open Tuesday through Saturday.
Reston Museum is putting a spotlight on the community’s oldest village center with the release of its latest book.
Authors Cheryl Terio-Simon with Eric MacDicken introduced the book, “Community is what it is all about: an ode to lake anne,” at Reston Community Center’s Jo Anne Rose Gallery during Founder’s Day on Saturday (April 9).
The book charts the development of the Lake Anne Village Center since it was built in the early 1960s. It contains over 100 photos of modern and historic sites in the village as well as artwork by local painter Pat MacIntyre.
Proceeds from the sale of the books will go toward the repair and maintenance of Uruguayan artist Gonzalo Fonseca’s sculptures at Lake Anne Plaza and the Fonseca Underpass sculptures.
Terio-Smith is the widow of Reston founder Robert T. Simon Jr., who started the community on nearly 7,000 acres of land he purchased in 1961 after selling the performing arts venue Carnegie Hall to the New York City government for $5 million.
“People have been drawn to Lake Anne for various reasons…its strong modernist style paired with its romantic feeling, the beauty of the lake,” Terio-Simon said in a news release. “A community was created with this shared appreciation, a common bond enriching all.”
The book is currently on sale exclusively at Reston Museum, including online, for $40.
County Lands $10M to Address Homelessness — Fairfax County will get $10 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support services for people experiencing homelessness. The money will fully fund 19 projects and represents a 9% increase from last year’s award, mostly for a domestic violence rapid rehousing program run by the nonprofit Shelter House. [Housing and Community Development]
FCPS to Provide Free Online Tutoring — “Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand said unlimited tutoring in any subject for every grade level will be available through a new partnership with Tutor.com. The rollout will begin after spring break.” [WTOP]
Utility Work Requires W&OD Trail Detour in Reston — Washington & Old Dominion Trail users are being detoured to a gravel path this week so that AT&T can relocate a utility line in preparation for the construction of the planned pedestrian bridge over Wiehle Avenue. The work began on Monday (March 21) and could last up to a week. [Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling]
Vienna Town Council Eases Rules for Residential Porches — “Home improvement just got easier in Vienna. Homeowners with homes built near the front setback line can now construct a covered front porch on their property thanks to last night’s Town Council vote on a zoning code update.” [Town of Vienna/Twitter]
Paved Trail in Burke Completed — “Burke residents joined Fairfax County officials on Sunday to celebrate the completion of the Burke Centre VRE Trail Project, a new paved path that will provide pedestrians and bicyclists with easier access to the Virginia Railway Express station.” [Patch]
Afghan Refugee Graduates from FCPS — “Mountain View High graduate Eltaf Samim traversed six countries, completed seventh, eighth and ninth grade multiple times in different nations and turned in coursework in three languages on the way to get his high school diploma in Fairfax County this year.” [FCPS/Inside NoVA]
Wolf Trap National Park Adds More Summer Performances — “Newly added shows include Van Morrison, Boyz II Men, Tom Jones, Boy George & Culture Club, Kool & the Gang and more. Closing the season will be a community singing celebration called Joyfully Together on Sept. 18.” [Patch]
Reston Museum Seeks Volunteers — “Reston Museum seeks volunteer docents for flexible shifts Tues-Sun 11-4 pm. Docents greet visitors, introduce them to the museum and Reston’s history and assist with shop sales. Training provided, register here.” [Volunteer Fairfax/Twitter]
It’s Wednesday — Rain starting in the afternoon. High of 60 and low of 43. Sunrise at 7:08 a.m. and sunset at 7:25 p.m. [Weather.gov]
