Arlington: Past & Present
Stories from Queen City
The loss of a neighborhood, the cost of progress
In Queen City, a man sometimes didn't know he was poor until he was 27 years old, say some of those who lived there. The tight-knit African-American neighborhood no longer exists, but the community's spirit still survives in scattered memories. Queen City was situated, based on different oral and written historical accounts, on a patch of land immediately west-southwest of where the Pentagon now stands and was the size of somewhere between two blocks to 16 blocks. In its place now is a sprawling intersection. The community was devastated and neighbors were dispersed in the name of progress. "Queen City was not razed for the Pentagon building, but the overall Pentagon project. In order to accommodate the large number of individuals who …
