Dark Star Park: Arlington's First Major Public Art Commission Endures

Way back when Arlington was still a strange and seedy mix of banks, brothels and bars, and low-rent characters littered the banks of the Potomac, Arlington County embarked on an urban renewal project and hired land artist Nancy Holt for the county's first ever publicly commissioned art project.

OK, so it was 1979, and Rosslyn was a bustling commercial district by that point, almost a century removed from the days of drunken Civil War veterans, gambling rings and prostitutes. But as the excesses of the 1980s approached, the area was still in desperate need of a cleanup.

By the time construction on what eventually became Dark Star Park began in 1984, the small portion of reclaimed green space was a much needed remedy to a place quickly becoming carpeted in concrete.

Dark Star Park, located at 1655 N. Fort Myer Drive, is the arrangement of five spherical stones of varying size (all quite large), two pools (currently empty), four steel poles extending upward some 15 feet, and two cylindrical tunnels, all scattered across a small park situated amidst the rush of several intersections.

Seemingly intended to be an oasis of art, grass, trees and flowers in the midst of humming vehicles and blaring horns, the park also connects with its surroundings by utilizing commercial materials within its bounds: dark gravel pathways mimic the neighboring roads and highways, the gunite (a sprayable mixture of cement and sand) that forms the mammoth spheres resembles the makeup of nearby office buildings, and the tunnels are composed of cement sewage pipes. Twenty-seven years later, it is still unclear who is winning the battle: art or car exhaust?

The arrangement of items is supposed to represent fallen stars. Shadow images are etched into the ground, and every year on Aug. 1 -- the anniversary of the day in 1860 when William Henry Ross was deeded the land that would become the thriving urban village that is his namesake -- the shadows align with the etched images at 9:32 a.m.

The park is almost like a microcosm of Rosslyn's ongoing struggle to remake its image with projects like Artisphere -- a small bastion of publicly funded culture, easily overlooked and drowned out by hectic hum of traffic and clanking of construction vehicles building Arlington's latest and greatest development project.

But with Dark Star Park Day, a celebration of 27-plus years of Arlington's public art efforts, only two weeks away, maybe the park is a symbol of the constancy and staying power of good ideas and artistic endeavors, proof that Arlington County remains committed to offering more than just places to work and live, committed to "third places."

I hope it's the latter.

Until next time, happy public art hunting.