It should come as no surprise that we've seen a number of changes in the area surrounding our home. It's been over nine years since we moved into our house, and in those years we've been witness to a significant transformation within the historic district we call home. The changes we've witnessed are nothing new given the city's rich history. Alexandria has been a bustling city and port town for several hundred years, and the only way a city can last as long as Old Town has, and go through as many major changes -- ups and downs -- is to constantly evolve and reinvent itself.

During our time here we've been lucky enough to get to know several people who've lived in the area for quite some time, and we've heard some amazing stories about what Old Town was back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. To say the city has come full circle in the last 30 to 40 years is a significant understatement. 

Our old neighbor, Paul, used to tell us stories about what the neighborhood was like when he purchased his home in 1972. According to him, it was such a rough area, he didn't feel comfortable living here for the first 10 years he owned the house. Apparently our corner was "the red light district of Old Town" in the mid 1970s.

Another neighbor, Steve, actually grew up in another Old Town house, and he recalls working in restaurants along King Street, and having to really watch his pockets as he walked home after a night waiting tables, or his tips were likely to be stolen before he made it home. The restaurant where he worked was Le Gaulois, and it's currently closed...

...but is under renovation and waiting for whatever will ultimately replace it.

By the time we moved here in 2003, the area had largely been transitioned into what it is today. So much change had occurred in fact, that the Denzel Washington movie, "Remember the Titans," that was based on Alexandria's TC Williams high school football team was filmed in another city. Though the movie was set in Alexandria, the scenes in Old Town weren't filmed here because the films producers felt the city had already made too far a departure from what it looked like in the 1970s.

As far as the city had come by the time we began calling it home in 2003, we've still seen a tremendous number of new buildings, stores, restaurants, and changes. Don't get me wrong, we absolutely love all of the change, and we eagerly await the various new locations and updates that keep making our neighborhood a better place to live. But there's a small piece of me that gets a little sad when we see a component of what we first experienced along King Street closing and getting torn down, gutted, or renovated, and replaced with something shiny and new.

There are still a handful of places along King Street that give a nod back to the earlier days of Old Town when rent was cheap, shops were just a little run down, and the city wasn't nearly as friendly and quaint of a place to live. If you've walked along King Street, there's a pretty good chance you noticed some of these storefronts and pointed them out or commented to the people you were walking with.

The two wig shops in the 700 block of King Street are prime examples of the type of shops you don't expect to encounter. Separated by just a couple businesses, these two stores stick out like sore thumbs. They both seem to be the largely customer-less, and are only ever occupied by one or two store clerks, yet they remain in business despite the climbing rent and demand for the retail space. Strange indeed.

We've spoken with many people about these locations, and have heard rumors about their role and purpose that range from elaborate drug fronts, to the supposed secret "best wig shops in DC" where the who's who of the DC political and celebrity scene in need of a rug pick up their finely coifed weaves. Without a doubt, the real story is probably far less sinister or interesting. 

In our early days working on the house as twenty somethings in over our heads, we had a selection of a few fast food places we could hit up for a quick bite to eat. One of my favorite photos of Wendy from our first weeks in the house is the one of her enjoying a McDonald's Big Mac on our kitchen floor. Exhausted from non-stop work on the house, the McDonald's was just a few blocks away and was an easy walk when we needed something to comfort our aching backs and tired bodies.