|
"Tyson's Corner - 1940" by Paul McGehee. It is difficult to imagine that the busy Northern Virginia city now known as Tysons was once a sleepy rural crossroads. The area where Routes 7 and 123 intersect was originally known as Peach Grove, but became popularly known as Tyson's Crossroads sometime after the Civil War years. It was named after William Tyson, who was the Postmaster of Peach Grove back in those days. The country crossing became a meeting place for locals, and as years went by a couple small stores, a fruit stand and a gas station were built at Tyson's Corner. The Corner, adjacent farmland and forest, remained untouched by urban development until 1963 when contracts were awarded to turn the bucolic crossroads into a modern hub of transportation and commercial activity. The centerpiece of it all was to be a huge shopping complex built upon a 150 acre tract, Tyson's Corner Center, to be built over the next few years. When it finally opened in 1968, Tyson's Corner Center was the largest enclosed shopping mall in the world. Today, Tysons (a suburb of Washington, DC) is a sprawling landscape of corporate office buildings, with an elevated rail system, multi-lane highways and two large shopping complexes. The Tysons area is ranked as the 12th largest employer in the United States. "Tyson's Corner - 1940" is faithfully reproduced from Paul's original color pencil acrylic paint artwork as an archival quality print issued in a strictly limited edition of only 2,000 pieces each hand-signed by the artist. Print image size 11" x 20 1/4".
|