Page 19 - REALLY What A time Book IX

REALLY SO WHAT
What A Time

FAIRLINGTON

Fairlington represented an early ‘garden like’ community for
hundreds of the workers and their families. It was needed to
house the growing population of Washington.

As Arlington was split between the north and south so was
Fairlington, in this case by a large valley. The south side closer
to Alexandria was built first. North Fairlington was built later.

Fairlington was designed as an all brick garden apartment
community, for over 1,000 residences, with 70 different kinds
of apartments. There were, duplexes, triplexes, two and three
story apartments. All the buildings were intermixed within
court yards. Parking was inside each court yard or block.
Sidewalks, grass, bushes, trees and flowers .were everywhere.
In addition to having an apartment everyone had a cellar
storage area, and weekly maintenance service.

It’s not hard to understand where the architects, Franzheim
and Mills got the quality of materials to build Fairlington,
because F.D.R. approved it himself because of the growing
population. In 1940 he must have only guessed how badly it
would be needed. His plans paid off, then and for decades
afterward.
Construction began in 1942, on the Colonial Revival style
apartments. In South Fairlington, there were tennis courts,
baseball diamonds, and an Elementary school.

By 1944 they began building North Fairlington. I’m sure we
had signed up and waited in line for our chance to move into
Fairlington. We got our chance in August of 1944, and moved

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