News and notes from Reston (tm).

Monday, June 22, 2009

Flashback Monday: Issac Newton Square, Before the Filing Cabinets and Toxic Airborne Diseases

issac newton.jpg


Here was the heart of what early Reston pioneers and industrial landsalesmen called "Industrial Reston" -- the awesome Isaac Newton Square.

At the time of this 1967-era brochure, its only tenants were Hazleton Laboratories Inc. (#4 on the map), Bowser Inc. (#5), General Kinetics Inc. (#6) and Air Survey Corporation (#7). But Motorola Inc. had just built a fancy complex across the road (#12 on the map), where maybe they started working on those "cell-phone" things that would become all the rage a few decades later. Or maybe they just tested ways to, you know, strap bombs on dolphins instead.

Of course, Hazleton Labs would later make Building 4 a monkey house, which become famous for a trivial outbreak of Ebola Reston that led to, among other things, a best-selling tome and a bunch of pigs in the Philippines that would be very put out if it wasn't for the fact they'd all been culled. Yay Industrial Reston! Leading the Way! Now Building 4 has been rebuilt and houses a daycare center. We doubt the "Fightin' Pathogens" is their mascot, but it should be.

Also, the Reston Association Headquarters had yet to move into the building in the center of the map to begin amassing a wide range of documents that would later necessitate a massive series of filing cabinets. Instead, the "central core" was "planned to service all tenants of the Center with a branch bank, meeting room, cafeteria, recreation area, and stationary-supply store."

But these are not the most shocking truths about Industrial Reston. Consider this devastating photo:

trees.jpg


Even then, the RA was encouraging the wanton and indiscriminate slaughter of trees! And these innocent victims appear to be nowhere near a streambed!

4 comments:

  1. Oh, please. Reston was carved out of farmlands and forest but mostly forest. Reston was borne from the "wanton and indiscriminate slaughter of trees!" especially South Reston, North Reston east of Reston Parkway, and Reston Town Center.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anon -- understand sarcasm much?

    Always remember and never forget -- Reston is the "city of trees."

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  3. Newton Square would make a great food court if they put it under a glass enclosure.

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  4. For those who want to see what an "impervious surface" is, there are fewer larger such surfaces (maybe Hunters Woods & North Point neighborhood centers) in Reston.

    Ah, the rapid, erosive, lake-clogging run off!

    ReplyDelete

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