Crystal City adds roadway tramp-stamp

Crystal City Road Tattoo: "Labor Line"

Last year, Vermont Avenue because the first street in DC to sport a fancy asphalt tramp stamp, and now Crystal City’s 18th Street in Arlington is joining the club, with a Steed Taylor-created “Labor Line”, as pictured above.  The design appears to be an evolution of an earlier Taylor piece called Evelyn’s Knot.

Personally, I’m not sure I understand the value of the road tattoos, and the coloring of the asphalt, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.

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9 thoughts on “Crystal City adds roadway tramp-stamp

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  3. Looks nice, I hope no county funds (that we Arlington County tax payers pay) was used in this. I would rather have potholes fixed and white lane dividing lines painted rather than this stuff. I don’t mind it, I just don’t want to pay for it when Arlington must cut back on its library hours that its tax-paying citizens utilize.

    Thank you

  4. @Mike: I don’t believe the Crystal City BID takes Arlington tax dollars, as BIDs are usually funded by the businesses in the region that benefits from them.

    @Joe: I’m open to your reasoning why a voluntary lower back tattoo is sexist, but I don’t believe I was using it in that context, especially when I was referring to a roadway, and not a person.

  5. I actually agree and think that it’s unfair to label the road with any assumptions about its personality based solely on some visible ink. Maybe it was a dare. Maybe it was after a bad night in spring break visiting the highways down in Mexico. A time from when the road was younger. Either way, we shouldn’t judge the road’s past with such a careless moniker.

    At least it’s not a butterfly tattoo. We all know what that means.

  6. I think it’s more judgmental than sexist but it’s an interesting question. Is it sexist because it is applied almost exclusively against women even if its primary motivator is a negativity about tattoos?

    The word ‘tramp’ probably is enough to push it over into sexist, I suppose, since it plays along with the hypocrisy about male (stud) vs female (slut) promiscuity.

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