UUCA's First Home in Photo and Word - Part 1

On Sunday, May 27, we'll be saying farewell to UUCA's first church home, the 1940s brick building on our parking lot, which has been called Reeb Hall since the 1960s.  During both services, there will be a memorial tribute, the the children will have an art happening at the Reeb steps.  Following both services, we will gather on the steps of Reeb to bless the past, and commit the bricks to return to the earth.

Here is some of the History - in Photos from our Archives:

In Honor of the History of Reeb Hall

As summer turned to fall in 2011, trucks and vans rolled in to empty Reeb Hall, UUCA's original church building. The offices of Habitat for Humanity, which have been in Reeb for the past decade,  moved to the Arlington Methodist Church on Glebe Road. Artists who have rented low-cost studio space from UUCA in Reeb emptied their rooms. Furniture that has been left in good condition was donated to Habitat's Re-Store, which helps fund Habitat projects in Northern Virginia.  In the spring of 2012, a team carefully removed asbestos, to prepare the building to be “deconstructed” in the summer of 2012, part of UUCA’s renewal project.

On Sunday, May 27, our congregation says a final good-by to its first home. It was in this historic space that a group of 100 visionaries started a Unitarian presence in Arlington in 1948, and quickly grew to 600 members with 600 children! The founders of this church were members of All Souls in DC, who began meeting in homes in Arlington during the gas rationing of World War II.  With the support of the All Souls minister A Powell Davies, these Unitarians started their own church. Home movies of the time show the adventurers entering a wooded lot along Route 50, and building their first building (Click on the link for a 30-minute video, or click and advance to 7-minutes into the video to see UUCA)!

Construction followed, for a small, basic brick structure - sanctuary, fellowship area, offices, and a basement with a few classrooms.  The style was identical to many other buildings being erected in Arlington in this post-war building boom.

Continue to Read Part 2 of this blog, to see the completed building, and learn about some of the amazing activities that happened within it over the years!