2022 Rosslyn Wrapped
Thank you to our Rosslyn businesses, residents, friends, and neighbors for making 2022 another fun, exciting, and record-breaking year in our community!
2022 is nearing its close, but we couldn’t let the end of the year slip away without recognizing all the great things that happened in Rosslyn this year – largely due to you, our amazing community that continues to provide support, innovation, and hard work every day to make our neighborhood its best.
This year brought the much-anticipated in-person return of many Rosslyn favorites, from City Social to Jazz Fest, as well as new and recurring events that brought our community together to enjoy live performances, meet new people, eat well, shop the day away, celebrate the seasons, and more!
Read on to recount our top 10 favorite moments of 2022!
10.) Over 10 dozen brackets submitted for March Madness: Rosslyn Cinema Edition
We decided to ask our community what we should play at our well-loved June Rosslyn Cinema series! But instead of another election, we asked for your brackets – March Madness style!
Our staff curated 16 movies for the bracket, and after categorizing them between family, romcom, sports, and DMV-themed movies, we asked our Twitter and Instagram communities to vote to decide which films would move on to the Final Four and be added to the film lineup for the summer.
We were so happy to see the enthusiasm on ARLNow and across our social media channels, and will make sure to invite the community to engage with us through even more creative ways in 2023!
9.) 9,000+ Rosslyn Jazz Fest attendees
In partnership with Arlington Arts, the 2022 Rosslyn Jazz Fest celebrated the 30th anniversary and first full-scale version of the event since 2019! It made a big splash in its highly-anticipated return, with over 9,000 people coming out to Gateway Park to enjoy music, food, and fun on Sept. 10.
Headlined by Cuban sensation Cimafunk (pictured) and supported by Mwenso & The Shakes, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, and Groove Orchestra, Jazz Fest welcomed attendees to dance the day away while enjoying a blend of African, Afro-American, and Latino traditions, rhythm, and movement with conventional jazz expression.
Leading up to the event, the BID also hosted a week of jazz-filled fun, including pop-up performances on Central Place Plaza and Assembly, as well as our first-ever Rosslyn Rolling Concert, in which an open-top bus hit the streets through the Rosslyn (and beyond) with the BroadSound Band performing a mix of jazz and pop hits!
8.) 83,000+ bike trips past the bikeometer
The bikeometer, the first of its kind on the East Coast, tracks cyclists at the point where the Custis and Mt. Vernon trails meet. We’re so happy to see people coming through the neighborhood on bicycles from across the region, and this year saw over 83,000 passersby! It’s just across the street from Gateway Park, which was able to once again host the largest Bike to Work Day pit stop in the metropolitan area!
We’re thankful to BikeArlington for all they do to promote alternative forms of transportation across the County.
7.) 73,000+ video views
We made sure that our 8,000+ followers on Instagram got in on all the action that happens on TikTok! We’ve started regularly posting Reels that show the fun side of our team and the neighborhood. Our April Fools joke re-imagined our signature Boot Camp fitness series as a ballet class. In October, our four participating Arlington Restaurant Week restaurants got the influencer treatment they deserved. And, if you couldn’t tell, we had our in-house Swifties help curate content for us along the way. Make sure to follow us on Instagram for these fun snippets of Rosslyn life!
6.) 6 new retailers to help you dine, play, and relax!
It’s always exciting to welcome businesses to Rosslyn, and in 2022, we were lucky to welcome six new retailers, who have already made their impact by bringing a variety of new experiences to the neighborhood!
Four new eateries were added to our community of Rosslyn restaurants, including Fog Point (oysters and seafood), Hot Lola’s (Sichuan x Nashville hot chicken), SeoulSpice (Korean comfort food), and Yuraku (sushi and Japanese cuisine).
Loving Heart Holistic Wellness joined our neighborhood, offering many wellness modalities, including yoga, mindfulness, meditation, and more. The Rosslyn BID sat down with owner Kara Simon in March as she celebrated the opening of her studio – read more here! And for the four-legged friends, dog daycare and boarding facility Playful Pack planted roots in Rosslyn in June, providing a new spot for your pups to play and stay.
5.) 5 Big Blooms installations
Our neighborhood really blossomed, and our flowers were more than excited this year! We curated five Big Blooms installations all over the neighborhood from the colorful vines growing along the Freedom Park bridge, to the pop-up sunflower field at the Wilson Blvd bus stop outside of the Heights Building.
Visitors coming in from DC were greeted with the Gateway Park sign adorned with sunflowers. And our gardeners must’ve left their equipment at Central Place Plaza, because we saw people taking pictures in a wheelbarrow there! We loved seeing you celebrate the new season with hashtag #RosslynRefresh across social media.
4.) 4 events for our furry friends
The community came together to bring the Gateway Park Interim Dog Park to life in 2021. This year, dogs of all sizes came out to the park and our pup-friendly events! More than 50 dogs participated in our now annual Howl-O-Ween costume contest.
And we’re glad to see that our Santa Paws Yappy Hour event was shared on a local dog meetup group — those golden retrievers looked so happy to see Santa! We made sure to ring in National Pet Day and National Dog Day with giveaways, and we estimate that we went through 16 cans of whipped cream for puppuccinos!
3.) 37,000 plantings across the neighborhood
The Rosslyn BID is committed to keeping our community clean, welcoming, and beautiful. As part of these efforts, our operations team leads the charge in coordinating seasonal plantings to provide a better experience to all who pass through our neighborhood.
This year, we’re proud to have completed approximately 37,000 plantings to enhance our streets, sidewalks, and green spaces!
2.) A sold-out City Social, in just 2 hours!
On May 19, the Rosslyn BID hosted its annual neighborhood celebration, City Social, this time as an elevated 360 experience. And while the Rosslyn BID was excited to host this event in person for the first time in three years, we were thrilled to see our community was as well, with tickets selling out in just two hours!
With stunning sights from The View of DC, over 300 people came together to recognize a variety of Rosslyn area businesses, including what’s new to the neighborhood, plus a dozen restaurants, retailers, and community organizations represented.
Many of our community’s most impactful members were honored at the event, including two MVP awards, given to Lyndell Core and Jane Rudolph from Arlington County Department of Parks and Recreation and R-DOGS founder Mary Ann Elliott for their respective support of Gateway Park and its adjoining Interim Dog Park. To round out our evening, we presented our first-ever Pinnacle Award to Rosslyn BID Board of Directors Chair Peter N. Greenwald for his long-standing service and dedication to our neighborhood and the greater Arlington community.
1.) A Power (1)00 President
“Their power is redefined by how they reshape our full community, how they bridge gaps, and how they make the lives of others better, enabling them to reach their top potential,” wrote Vandana Sinha, editor-in-chief of the Washington Business Journal, regarding the Power 100 Class of 2022. In October of this year, our own Mary-Claire Burick, president of the Rosslyn BID, was named to this group of influential business leaders in the DC area!
“It’s a wonderful recognition of the work our team and board of directors are doing at the Rosslyn BID. We have seen some remarkable results, transforming this area from a successful commercial district and regional transit hub into a vibrant live-work community,” said Mary-Claire. “I’m grateful to have the opportunity to continue to lead this evolution, working with an incredible array of local and regional business partners and elected officials in making Rosslyn what it is today.”