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A post on Gregg Easterbrook’s ESPN blog has gotten our staff list all abuzz today with this anti-Tysons Corner rant, so we thought you might want to join the debate. D.C.-based Easterbrook lays down some serious Tysons hate when regarding the choice of Arizona Cardinals’ coaches to house their players in a hotel next to the mega-mall for the week between their games against Washington and New York.
But rather than find some pleasant countryside location or college campus where the team could train and concentrate, the Cardinals stayed in this hotel in Tyson's Corner, Va. In case you haven't had the misfortune of visiting Tyson's Corner, it is the mega-mall for the nation's capital -- a hellish conjunction of stores, parking lots, sprawl, gridlocked roads, beltway cloverleafs and cars, cars, cars. Here's what it looks like where the Cards stayed. Between the concrete, fumes, gridlock and screaming commerce, Tyson's Corner may be the single most unpleasant place on planet Earth. You couldn't pay me to stay in a hotel in Tyson's Corner! Small wonder the Cards stunk up the joint in Jersey on Sunday, committing seven turnovers in a 56-35 loss to the throwback-clad Jets led by Hackensack Brett. If you'd stayed in a shopping-mall hotel for a week, you'd play terribly too! But perhaps Arizona coaches got some good deals on Dockers.A visit to Tysons can often be unpleasant, but the most unpleasant place on the planet? What Easterbrook forgets is that the Cardinals typically reside in Phoenix, which is sort of like Tysons to the 10th power, except located in the center of the sun. Share your feelings about Tysons Corner in the comments.
Image courtesy the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority
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Clearly, this person has never been to the Hamptons in August.
Worst place on Earth? Dunno
Worst place in DC area? Surely
Come on! Eastern Motors is just up the street...there is always a party going on there, just ask Southeast Jerome.
OK Tysons is pretty bad especially for DC but what about Kissimmee fla? That's 4 dimensional hell.
I think hes actually being nice. Tysons Corner represents everything that is soulless and wrong with America. In my years here, each time I realize I must venture into that concrete vipers nest of consumerized vomit, I feel like the chef in Apocalypse Now, realizing suddenly hes going 30clicks up the Mekong into Cambodia.
Um...maybe it just passed the bathrooms at the Velvet Lounge, into first, as they were recently "renovated"?
Guess he's never been to Springfield ...
Wall, South Dakota I think still holds the title for worst place on earth. Home to the semi-famous Wall Drug store, it's like Tyson's except the only thing you can buy there is useless crap, as opposed to the aforementioned Dockers. Plus it's in the middle of nowhere so if you want to escape, it's another 3 hours until you hit Sioux Falls. Which isn't exactly a bustling metropolis.
Compared with Tyson's Corner, Phoenix is a driver's paradise.
Housing a professional football team on the road for an entire week? Why? It isn't like the teams travels by bus. What is gained by avoiding the, what, 8 or so hours of flight time would surely be lost by causing the team an unnecessary week long bout of road fatigue. Did they even have access to a training facility, or did they spend a week separated from their families for no good reason?
I can't offer up an unbiased opinion as I'm still in my Hummer in the Tysons' Galleria parking garage after trying to leave five hours ago. The fumes have affected my thinking. At least I won't have to worry about finding parking for Christmas shopping.
Tysons is up there, but I'm not sure it's worth than Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, TN.
Naw, I'd much rather go to Gatlinburg than Tyson's Corner. Nothing like Skeeball, fudge and pancakes!
Tysons may not be the lowest level of Hell, but it's clearly one of the circles.
The assistant to the traveling secretary will surely be fired for this! Next thing they will have be wearing cotton uniforms.
hey, i've got an idea. why don't we extend the Metro out there! let's make it a one way train though.
Where does Dallas stay when they play here? I might suggest they find accommodations at the Breezeway Motel, in beautiful downtown Fairfax.
There's only one thing I hate more than the Dallas Cowboys ... and that's Tysons Corner.
Tysons is awful, but if I never have to go to Phoenix again in my life I certainly won't argue.
I just clicked on the hotel link in the article. Who the hell gets married at the Tysons Corner Marriott??
Yes. Hyperbole aside, it is at least in the top 2. It is a toss-up between Tysons and that place in Haiti where the trash never stops burning, and there are people in the trash.
What makes Tysons "corner" worse than all the other places listed is that Tysons is the physical manifestation of gratuitous stupidity- those shit holes you list in the middle of nowhere slap down in the their hopeless poverty have no choice but to suck, but Tysons goes out of it's way to provide the worst possible cultural experience on earth. Tysons has no excuse for itself.
Nah. Anywhere in NE ranks higher in the worst places list.
Man, I've never read such an beautiful and accurate description of Tysons! They should put this in brochures for the place.
Have any of your urbanites ever driven the "Golden Mile" in Frederick on a weekday. That is no walk in the park? FREDTERP
Actually, I recommend the Downtown Motel on New York Ave. NE for the Dallas Cowboys...
There are parts of New Delhi where they throw garbage out the window into the street and where you can watch dogs drag half-immolated corpses ashore. You have cities in China that rival Mordor for the amount of poisonous heavy metal fume you have to breathe. You have hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, and drug dealer street executions in Abuja, and this guy is pissed about bad traffic in Tysons for his precious millionaire ballthrowing honkeys?
I can safely say without hyperbole that Greg Easterbrook is, in fact, worse than Hitler.
He's just lucky that he wasn't put up in a hotel on University Blvd. between New Hampshire and Riggs Road. If there was ever street that needs a "do-over" it's that one!
"Guess he's never been to Springfield ..."
Fear not a New Springfield is comeing!!!!!................................No Monorail.......... yet.
I love tysons.
Next time the cheap bastards should pay for a better hotel.
I thought Crystal City was the worst place on earth. Learn something new every day.
I just chalk it up to hyperbole. This is the same Easterbrook who routinely claims that Thanksgiving day games are an unfair advantage for Dallas and Detroit, despite the long-term W-L record showing nothing more than regular home-field advantage, and who finds it worth commenting on every year that 20 of the 32 NFL teams didn't make the playoffs, and this is somehow unfair to their fan bases.
Obviously he's never been to Annandale, or Woodbridge. Not to mention those places monkeyerotica mentioned.
To those of you citing obscure or random places as horrible - I would take total mind-numbing isolation over the clusterfuck that is Tysons Corner any day. A
Agree with stmove - of course there are worse places but no one sat down and said "hey let's deliberately spend shitloads of cash to make them EVEN MORE awful!" It's like the difference between an ugly mobile home and an ugly McMansion.
When I first moved here, I was just over the border in Silver Spring and I never had a reason to go to Tyson's. Shit, was I happy about that! Just hearing what everyone else said about it was enough for me.
But these days I'm living on the Virginia side (eh, not crazy about it), and I've made my way out to Tyson's a couple of times. The first time, I was like, "this is it?" I don't know what I was expecting. Blood in the streets or something. It's ugly, it's poorly-designed, and I'd rather shop almost anywhere else even if it takes longer to get there. But the "Single Most Unpleasant Place on Earth?" No way. It's unpleasant for sure, but it's not nearly remarkable enough to be worthy of superlatives.
I think it's telling that the only defense anyone can raise for Tyson's is "It's not as bad as Sudan..."
Tysons is an urban sprawl nightmare, but it's nowhere near the most unpleasant place even in fairfax county. Unless you're on route 7 at rush hour. I think that's worse than even 66.
Tysons is right up there with Orlando for "Worst Place on Earth"
The worst place on Earth list.
1. Random hellhole in Central/South America.
1. Random hellhole in Africa.
1. Random hellhole in Asia.
2. NE quadrant of DC.
3. SE quadrant of DC.
4. Prince George's County.
18983. Tysons.
I like Tysons, ever since that guy approached me to work for Abercrombie & Fitch. Yes, I am that easily flattered. (My mother-in-law thought they wanted me to model. If you could see my skinny ass, you would understand why I kind of love her.)
The worst place on Earth list.
1. Random hellhole in Central/South America.
1. Random hellhole in Africa.
1. Random hellhole in Asia.
2. NE quadrant of DC.
3. SE quadrant of DC.
4. Prince George's County.
18983. Tysons.
Ooooh - way to throw your purse at that one!
Guest Guest: It was an experiment they tried this season to reduce travel stress and time changing twice (really 4 times) in 10 days. They had the same scheduling problem last year and thought they'd try this out to see if it worked. They seemed to have forgotten they are a shitty team and it doesn't matter what they do.
and FredTerp, you don't need to sign your posts as we can see your identity directly to the right...or is that your schtick?
The Florida Marlins were staying at the Mayflower during their series against the Nationals last week. I wonder if any of them had the Spitzer Suite?
@welles, I know it is not true, and you are a not, but your list looks like it was written by the Virginia Chapter of the Aryan League. Brown people bad.
Tysons has all the charm of the cleaning product isle at Wal-Mart. Tysons is a hollow hellhole for hollow people. Even poverty has life in it. Tysons is a smog bitten shrine to money wasted. Like Las Vegas without the style, fun, ok- without everything but the fake environments. I can think of hellholes in South America where the smell of death is mixed with music coming from a mud-built "apartment" tower, and kids chase colorful chickens and laugh. Even in the worst there is probably more humanity in one grain of dirt than every sliming pool of asphalt which makes the whole parking lot complex that is Tysons.
Ok I am sounding like this is personal now, I think I need to go to Tysons and chill out with a frapachino.
stmove, how dare you. You are racist for simply bringing up such a connotation in your mind.
Third world hellholes, such as I had in joint first, will always be far greater places of pure shite than anything in Amerika. I realize that your Timberlands won't venture outside of the beltway and to you Tysons is just horrid, but you may need to travel more.
Wow, surely didn't know so many people were sore about Tyson’s. I'm a regular visitor to the area and while its not perfect its far better than the posts here would have you believe. Yes, Tyson's is a mega mall and a successful one at that. The reason its successful is the exact same reason people hate it. It has plenty parking, many stores a large eatery and a very nice new theater. Funny thing is; it was successful even before the addition of the eatery and theater.
On any given day you can go there and the traffic (inside the mall) is brisk although it would be quite slow getting into and out of the place. Whats unique about Tyson's is that the mall is separated into two distinct sections (the Godly, and the commoners).
I make a trip to Tyson's at least every other weekend because my favorite theater is there but I also go there for shopping. I live in Arlington just a mile from Pentagon City Mall and although it’s a great mall I don’t want to spend too much time there because I don’t like it as much, there’s no theater and parking isn’t free.
Regardless of how people feel about the place its successful and the future addition of metro rail, and a reconfiguration of the area aims to make it more pleasant than it currently is. No matter how much people try to diss it, they still don't get the same type of one stop shopping that you get at Tyson's in the District. The fact remains that unless the District uses imminent domain to take more property from business and home owners; it won't be able to match the success that is Tyson's. But I could be wrong!
"3. SE quadrant of DC."
Yes, like that hellish Eastern Market area, with it's million dollar homes and hideously leafy streets.
"2. NE quadrant of DC.
3. SE quadrant of DC."
I'll take my Capitol Hill hood over vast swaths of NW anyday.
Hillman, 20 to 1 your cosseted ass doesn't venture south of the river.
I hope for their sake it is considered a failed experiment. Personally, I would find a week living out of a suitcase, in a strange bed, seperated from a wife and children, far more disconcerting than having to pretend that a 1 pm kickoff is an 11 am kickoff. Two four hour flights? Big deal.
If you're trying to get in or out, yeah, Tysons a miserable parking lot. If you don't have anywhere to go, and you like shopping, well, it's your paradise!
I work in Tysons and have to come here every other day (woot teleworking!). On the days I drive, here is the equation: 30 minutes to get around the Beltway (20 miles), enter McLean; once in McLean, it's 20 minutes to my office (1.5 mile).
During the holidays, or if there are any accidents AT ALL, it is much worse. If you are trying to walk here? You are asking to be an accident.
Au contraire. I've been to National Harbor....
I just get a bit weary of the stupid "SE and NE all bad, NW all good" oversimplification that so many in DC seem to truck in.
welles: While I disagree that Satan himself did not design the Route 7 corridor. I understand that unpleasant is a personal taste thing. Some of my best times have been spent in third world hellholes. To some they may prefer the fake English Manor created inside the Ritz Carlton Tysons bar (complete with fake family portraits), but I find a flavela less unpleasant any day (and I have spent short time in both to know). It's an. outdoor reality vs mall/car thing- perhaps sensibilities... You could say I like shit covered streets and begging child hookers over food courts and suburban robot consumers, but that makes me sounds like a deviant pervert.
And a lot more people spend time south of the river than you think, I (just for a lame example) worked there for 6 years, and still go there all the time. You gotta chill on the south of the river crap, most of the people who post are more sophisticated than the average Virginian who thinks that CHUD will swarm them and eat through their car once they leave Georgetown. A huge percentage of us live and know the million dollar swatches of SE/NE, and get fucked up at the safe bars East of the River.
Now: would I rather be locked out of Anacostia metro again after closing- or locked in the build-a bear at tysons, ok, I take the build-a-bear.
Once you've dealt with working there during the Holiday season, being there any other time of the year is a picnic.
I trully believe that any DC area Wal-Mart on a weekend is closer to the seventh circle of hell. Tysons is not fun, but Wal-Mart on a weekend...I'm having shakes just thinking about it!!!!!!!
I have lived in DC for 7 years.
I have never been to Tysons.
I quite like my little swath of NE DC (Brookland). As for Tysons, it's not so much the mall itself that is objectionable, but the traffic on Route 7, the ugliness of the buildings, the disregard for pedestrians, etc...
It's not so much that it's designed for automobiles that's the problem, it's that it's poorly designed for automobiles.
Nah. Anywhere in NE ranks higher in the worst places list.
Yes, Lincoln Park is such a hellhole.
tysons is one of the top 5 shopping destinations in the country. and as i'm (here) in sales, and live just two miles away, the cash and traffic flow doesn't offend me as much as does you who can't/won't be involved.
and stmove, your most recent retort is well-drafted, however, don't hate on the contrived grandeur of the ritz bar. their brand image is all about classic sophistication. if their paintings were higher-end antiques, the drinks would cost more....
All of the people who are proclaiming Tysons Corner to be hell on earth are probably the ones who have tried to get someplace out there around rush hour, and have ended up spending an hour and a half going five miles. A weekend trip out to the mall really isn't that bad. Unless it's anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I cross the Anacostia weekly into SE. There is more life and death there in a square centimeter than anywhere I have been in Virginia. Whether any of you like it more or less than Tysons I don't much care about, but #39 can eat the shit of his bigot dog for all I care.
#33: 'monkeyerotica'
Monk-I-Rotica
giggle
guest guest, they practiced at catholic u during the week.
They practiced at Catholic U but stayed in Tysons?? Someone must not have looked at a map before they made that decision. Odd.
University Drive in Orlando may match it, though it could be a draw. And I've been through some hideous drags of strip shopping hell on US 441 in South Florida and in southern Alabama where there is no interstate to get you from Montgomery to the eastern part of the Florida Panhandle.
Wall, South Dakota I think still holds the title for worst place on earth. Home to the semi-famous Wall Drug store, it's like Tyson's except the only thing you can buy there is useless crap, as opposed to the aforementioned Dockers.
Hey, at least Wall is near some national treasures like the Badlands and the Black Hills, including Mount Rushmore and Spearfish Canyon.
Correction, International Drive in Orlando.
I just get a bit weary of the stupid "SE and NE all bad, NW all good" oversimplification that so many in DC seem to truck in.
While those of us in Southwest sort of feel like a monkey given a wax piece of fruit.
What do you mean wax? I've been wondering why my turds have wicks in them.
"tysons is one of the top 5 shopping destinations in the country"
good for you! And it's nice to know that there are intelligent life-forms out there too! Maybe!
I couldn't agree more.
Driving through Tyson's is about as pleasant as trying to get the suffocating gerbil out of my partner's ass after coming home from a two-day business trip. I mean, Jesus Christ, it's only a day . . .you think he could do without anal-gerbil gratification for one day. It's time to find a new boyfriend . . . Maybe!
"While those of us in Southwest sort of feel like a monkey given a wax piece of fruit."
Point taken.
There is no doubt Tysons is a shithole. It may be one of the top shopping destinations in the country, but that's roughly equivalent to being the best ice hockey player in Ecuador.
To be fair, there are plenty of other shitholes that are far worse. Almost anywhere in SF or Silicon Valley would be worse IMHO.
Almost anywhere in SF or Silicon Valley would be worse IMHO.
You're kidding, right? At least in SF you can actually meet people whose first question isn't "How much money do you make?" and "What kind of car do you drive?"
Tysons is awesome under normal circumstances! (like if you wanna go shopping or eat) why would you have your football team stay there at the marriot of all places?? no clue. it blows during rush hour- stay away between 4-7 pm, its awful. also stay away during holiday season. Otherwise... I love that place.
the worst place in the world is simple:
anywhere that you have to listen to welles spew his racist/stupid garbage.
ok im gonnna have to say camden NJ wins the prize as the worst place on earth (in the us)