Water main break closes busy road in Alexandria
Alexandria police Sunday morning shut down all lanes of traffic on Washington Street in the heart of Old Town to deal with a water main break near the main throughway’s intersection with Prince Street.
Traffic on Washington Street – which is the stretch of the George Washington Parkway that runs through Old Town Alexandria -- had been restricted to one lane early Sunday morning, but authorities shut down the entire road between King Street and Duke Street by about 10 a.m. to allow utility crews to reach the water main.
Police said there is a possibility that the statue at the center of the intersection of Washington and Prince Streets might have been compromised by the incident, but further details were not immediately available. The bronze statue of a solemn Confederate soldier facing southward, erected in 1889, honors Alexandria’s Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War.
--Josh White
By
Washington Post Editors
| January 17, 2010; 10:37 AM ET
Categories:
Virginia
| Tags:
Alexandria, water main break
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Posted by: blasmaic | January 17, 2010 4:46 PM | Report abuse
The statue becomes an issue now and then. It was placed in its present location when it was erected because that was the point on which the 17th Virginia Infantry (mostly Alexandrians) formed to march out and join the Confederate army on May 22, 1861. Veterans of that regiment raised the funds for the statue and, I'm sure, took some pains to ensure that it was placed exactly where the regiment's right guide had been that morning. Some of the reluctance to move it so far probably arises from concern about moving a statue that marks a historic spot.
Posted by: jlhare1 | January 17, 2010 7:45 PM | Report abuse
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Instead of an accident, they can just take the statue down for restoration. Then everyone will mass against putting the statue back in place. It's a offense to some and a traffic hazard to all. They'll move it inside to some city office building and then to a warehouse when the office building is demolished. Removing statues to Confederate veterans and heroes is time-honored diversion from City Hall corruption and such.