posted 06-03-2020 06:04 PM               

During the lead-up to the [1962 Mercury-Atlas 6] mission, reporters camped outside the house on N. Harrison Street and Vice President Lyndon Johnson tried to visit, but was rebuffed by Mrs. Glenn. After, Glenn continued working in D.C., and at one point hosted at his home a cookout with special guest Gherman Titov, the Russian who was the first person to orbit the earth multiple times, according to an Arlington Public Library history.

The property was sold in October for $1 million and the house is being torn down to make way for new construction. Local preservationists objected to the demolition, but nothing could be done legally to stop it...

posted 06-06-2020 10:37 AM               

If you have read the book or seen the movie "The Right Stuff," you might remember a scene from January of 1962. The launch to send the first American into orbit, John Glenn, had just been postponed. Vice President Lyndon Johnson was in his limousine outside the Glenn house, insisting on a televised photo op with his wife Annie. A confrontation arose. (Mrs. Glenn, by the way, passed away two weeks ago at the age of 100.)

This took place at 3683 North Harrison Street in Arlington, Virginia. The Glenns were living there when he was selected to be one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts in 1959, and since much of the early work was done at Langley AFB in Hampton, they stayed until moving in 1963, the year after his flight.
That house was torn down two days ago. In a perfect world it would have somehow been preserved, but the new owner wanted a larger house on the lot. My interests in space exploration and local history were, combined, strong enough for me to drive to the site yesterday before the rain to get one of the original bricks. No monetary value, of course, but I'll know where it came from.

In this photo, you can see the driveway leading to what is now an eerily neat hole in the ground.

In this photo, I am at the back of the site, looking at my parked car and the middle school across the street that the Glenn children attended.

Here is an article about the Glenn family living in the house, and here is the excellent scene from 1984's "The Right Stuff" with LBJ. I believe the only detail added for drama was having all of the other astronauts there to immediately back up Glenn. Everything else is true, from "way out of line" to the other astronauts indeed refusing to fly if Glenn was bumped because of this.