The underpass that never happened
When the eastern section of Rosemont began to develop in the 1920s, residents complained that they lacked easy access to Old Town; the only official railroad crossings were at Braddock Road and on King Street (at the time, the Commonwealth Avenue underpass was only for electric trolleys). As early as 1922, they requested that a new underpass be built connecting Oronoco Street and Linden Street – and as late as 1951, there were requests for a pedestrian tunnel, to enable children to more easily and safely attend the Jefferson School. The Alexandria Library’s collection include a 1929 set of blueprints for an underpass, but the project was never authorized by City Council (and townhomes were built along Linden Street and Mount Vernon Avenue in 1940s that effectively put an end to the idea for a road linkage).