Don and Juanita Zientara | Inner Ear Studio

Don Zientara, renowned sound engineer and musician, owns Inner Ear recording studio. Don has been recording in Arlington for almost 30 years, initially in the basement of his home on South Ivy Street, and for 20 years at his South Oakland Street location. Many seminal punk and alternative rock (and other) musicians have recorded at Inner Ear, from Fugazi, Bad Brains, Dave Grohl, Half-Japanese, Henry Rollins, Bikini Kill, Bob Mould, Scream, the Neighbors, Shudder To Think, Government Issue, and the Grandsons, to the Washington Balalaika Society.

Don also performs as a solo musician, and with his group, the Del Ray Desperadoes.

He and his wife Juanita, a retired ESL specialist at Wakefield High School, have lived in their home for over 35 years. They raised their two now-grown adopted bi-racial daughters there, and are now the grandparents of five.

http://www.innerearstudio.com

Photography by Lloyd Wolf.

Dancing Under the Stars | Randolph School

"Dancing Under the Stars" was a school-wide community dance and celebration for students and their families at Randolph Elementary School, situated along the Columbia Pike corridor in Arlington.

Photography by Aleksandra Lagkueva.

Rita Wiggins | Douglas Park

Rita Wiggins has lived with her husband, Kent, in the Douglas Park neighborhood for over 25 years. She currently serves as the Community Services Outreach Coordinator for Randolph Elementary School. Her daughter went to Randolph, and just graduated high school this year.

Ms. Wiggins was photographed at "Dancing Under the Stars," an event at Randolph School, just off Columbia Pike in Arlington, and was recently interviewed by Annie Hallman and Sahar Haghighat, folklore researchers from George Mason University, as part of the collaborative effort with the Columbia Pike Documentary Project.

Photography by Aleksandra Lagkueva.

NOVA Magazine article on CPDP

An article on the Columbia Pike Documentary Project, highlighting AVN's Roger Munter's Emmy nomination for his video on our work, is featured in the August issue of Northern Virginia Magazine.

The video, and an extensive slide show of CPDP's photographer's images, can be viewed at the magazine's online site.

Thanks to Clara Ritger for her coverage .

Columbia Heights West Street Festival- May 2001

Photographer Lloyd Wolf recently scanned a set of photographs of the Columbia Heights West Street Festival, which took place in Tyrol Hill Park in May 2001.

This photographs of this festival are the beginning of the process that grew into the current Columbia Pike Documentary Project. CPDP co-founder Paula Endo, and her students from the Columbia Heights West Teen Photo Project, also participated that day.

This neighborhood is the most ethnically-diverse, heavily immigrant section of the Columbia Pike corridor, and this celebration of the community occurred at what the photographer guesses to be the time when the area was at its most diverse.

Participation in this singular celebratory event began the process of awareness, thinking, connecting, and commitment that grew out of the Teen Photo Project's work, and into the current multi-year, multi-artist effort that continues to document our community.

Some time afterward, Paula and Todd Endo met with Lloyd Wolf, and discovered they had related visions and hopes. Plans were drafted, grants were written, photographers, oral historians, and other collaborators were brought in, and the process began.

Two of the Teen Photo Project's graduates, Duy Tran and Xang Mimi Ho, are now integral members of the CPDP photography team.

Pictured are representatives of numerous Somali, Ethiopian, Central American, North African, Chinese, Bolivian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Palestinian, Korean, African-American, and other groups that had settled in and began sharing life along Columbia Pike. The pride and joy in their expressions of self and culture were, to this photographer, very moving; worthy of thorough examination, of sharing, and of recording for posterity.


Photography by Lloyd Wolf

Technical note: All images were scanned from the original color negatives.

Anne and Randy Kelly

The Kelly's live in the Arlington Heights neighborhood, and were recently interviewed by folklorists from George Mason University, as part of the Columbia Pike Documentary Project's efforts to observe and reflect life along the Pike corridor.

Photography by Xang Mimi Ho