Highview Park:
A Neighborhood Comes of Age

By Kate Moore
Washington Post Staff Writer
October 22, 1994

There is an enduring quality about the old red brick building that once housed Langston Elementary School on Lee Highway in Arlington. It remains the heart, soul and teaching tool of Highview Park.

"We're the hub of the community," said Saundra Green, who should know: As area manager of parks, recreation and community resources for Arlington, she works from an office in the 70-year-old building, now home to the Langston Brown Community Center.

Green, 48, a Langston Elementary alumna, has lived in the neighborhood all her life. She understands the way character can accrue with the years to a building, and a neighborhood. "It's a wonderful place, with a small-town flair but near the nation's capital," said Green, who with her husband, David, lives on North Buchanan Street. Their younger daughter, Nadia, is a freshman at nearby Yorktown High School; an older daughter, Nataki, is in her junior year at Hampton University. "It's a very caring, safe community where the residents look out for each other," Green said.

The majority of Highview's 1,500 residents own their homes, which differ in shape and size: There are two- to four-bedroom colonials here alongside Cape Cods, bungalows, ramblers and split-levels. Some owners have added rooms or decks, contributing to the sense of unplanned variety along the narrow streets.

The residents too are a mix of families, retirees and single people. They live in an area bounded by Lee Highway to the north, 18th Street North to the south, Culpeper Street to the east and North George Mason Drive to the west. In the past year, six homes have sold there, for prices ranging from $106,000 to $195,000.

Given the warm personality of the neighborhood, it doesn't surprise Green that the little community center packs such a broad package of programs and services.

"This center touches the lives of everyone in Highview Park," Green said. "We operate on the premise that we are a recreation center, but we try to offer services that are meaningful and can help people in their daily lives. It's wonderful to be able to come to work every day and serve people while doing different things."

There are preschool programs, an Adult Education Alternative High School operated by the Arlington school system, a Head Start program and a state-funded Virginia Cares Post Release program for ex-offenders, both run by the Arlington Community Action Program (ACAP). Under the post-release program, ACAP counsels people who are coming out of the Virginia penal system and back into society. It also provides two outreach programs, an employment and information referral program, a food bank, and transportation for senior citizens to free hot meals and recreational activities.

Some of the seniors in the program created two panels for the National Memorial AIDS quilt in memory of Allan Brown, who grew up in Highview Park and died of AIDS. Other seniors now are working on a heritage quilt. Each square depicts a moment in the history of the community, such as an old bus line that was owned by an African American. There is a separate panel for each church in the vicinity.

One of the upcoming annual events at the community center is the Halloween party Oct. 31. "Everything that is served is donated by the families who participate," Green said. Residents even decorate and run a haunted house.

Another favorite event that draws a crowd of current and former neighbors is the annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Bowl game. It is an event, Green said, "that's self-generated, and implemented by the community so the 'over the hill gang' -- 25 years and up -- can challenge the younger kids to a football game."

One of the clubs the center works with is the Highview Gents, a community organization that held its second annual fish fry in July. The group purchased and cooked enough fish to feed everyone who came to the recreation center and playground all day.

For more than 10 years, Frank K. Wilson has been president of Highview Park's John M. Langston Citizens Association, named after one of Virginia's first black congressmen from the era of Reconstruction. Wilson credits a group of concerned neighbors -- youngsters to retirees -- with making a difference in the community's quality of life. The group, called the Yellow Hats, has been patrolling the area and the nearby playgrounds each night. Neighbors have acknowledged an improvement in safety.

"Even though we have a very progressive community, we suffer from the same problems nationally with drugs as other communities, and we're working with the residents to relieve this problem," Wilson said.

Since 1967, Wilson, 60, and his wife, Bessie, have lived on North 18th Street. A son, Kenneth, also lives there. A retired engineer and scientist with the Defense Department, Wilson stays busy working on the Arlington Hospital board and the Arlington School Board, where served twice as chairman -- the first black to hold the position.

Velta Pelham and her husband, Sherwood, are also longtime residents, having lived in Highview Park for 37 years. "One of the reasons we bought our house on North Cameron Street is because in 1957 it was one of the few neighborhoods that blacks were able to buy homes in," Velta Pelham said.

Pelham, 61, retired from the administrative office of the secretary of the Navy and is now vice president of the civic association. "Many of the residents have spent their lives here, like my 93-year-old father, but as the older residents move out, younger families tend to move in," she said.

"It's a very livable neighborhood," Wilson concluded.

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