Last January, were he alive, Elvis Presley would have turned 75-years old.  While Elvis never personally visited Silver Spring (to my knowledge), a large sandwich board did depicting him in his second film Loving You.  The scene was captured by Glen C. Dorsey who snapped a photo of a trailer parked next to Roth's Silver Spring, located at 8242 Georgia Avenue.  Based on the screening of the Bing Crosby film Man on Fire, the photo was taken on one of three days, August 18-20, 1957.

Roth's was originally named the SECO, which was Silver Spring's first movie theater that opened on November 7, 1927.  The Silver Spring architect and builder firm Faulconer & Proctor designed the theater and its adjoining structures for James H. Cissel, president of the Silver Spring National Bank.  The name was an acronym for Suburban Electric Company, owned by Rockville resident William Valentine Wilson.  Wilson managed both the Silver Spring SECO as well as another by the same name in Rockville that had opened circa 1915, making it Montgomery County's first movie theater.

Original architectural design of the SECO Theater.  Photographed by Willard R. Ross on March 28, 1928.  Collection of SSHS.

In 1953 Sam Roth took over operation of the Silver Spring SECO.  All of the original 1927 building was razed except for the theater's ceiling, side and back walls.  Silver Spring architect Warren G. Sargent designed a new theater that was constructed in the shell.  Washington Post entertainment critic Richard L. Coe described the interior of the new theater in his April 16, 1953 "One on the Aisle" column as having a "...large, living room-like lobby and a box office that's like a bank counter...those who are waiting for seats will find themselves being entertained in the living room by a Hammond organist or a string trio...all told, it's going to be a snazzy spot."

Roth's Silver Spring.  Photo by Glen C. Dorsey.  Collection of SSHS.

I doubt that this Mantovani-style background music was what the teenyboppers had in mind when they showed up during the ten days that Loving You was screened from August 23 to September 1, 1957.  Billed as the "Sensational story of a boy who uses his fists as well as his voice to fight his way to the top of show business!" the movie offered a few firsts for Elvis' fans. 

Detail from another photo taken by Glen C. Dorsey showing that the above pictured car on the right is pulling a trailer upon which sits a sandwich board announcing Elvis' new film, Loving You.  Collection of SSHS.

Most exciting was the fact that this was his first Technicolor film. Because of this, Elvis had his natural dirty-blond hair dyed jet-black because he thought he would look better like his screen idols Tony Curtis and Marlon Brando, both of whom had black hair.  Elvis also received his first on-screen kiss in this movie, planted by actress Jana Lund.  Oh, and it was also the film that introduced to the world the number-one hit single "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear."

Poster for Loving You.  Courtesy imdb.com.

In 1969 Roth's Silver Spring was renamed Silver Spring East to differentiate it from the chain's Silver Spring West, a small theater that opened that year in a former ice skating rink at 951 Thayer Avenue.  Both theaters closed in 1991.  A few years later the by then unique 40-year old facade of the Georgia Avenue location, with its upper-story patterned brick facing, curved plate glass window, turquoise terrazzo panels, and "floating" display case, were torn off by owner Bethel World Outreach Church. 

Advertising piece for the Silver Spring Ice Skating Rink, 951 Thayer Avenue, that would be converted in 1969 into the Roth's Silver Spring East Theatre.  Colllection of SSHS.

951 Thayer Avenue as it appeared sometime between October 20- 26, 1976 during the run of the Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland movie From Noon to Three.  Photo courtesy Robery K. Headley from his book Maryland's Motion Picture Theaters. 

 

In their place was installed a facade fabricated of Dryvit, the cheap process by which a building's facing is "modernized" by the application of Styrofoam panels that are covered in stucco and then painted.  Where the cursive "Roth's Silver Spring" neon letters and theater marquee once stood, today there is affixed three white stucco-covered crosses carved from Styrofoam.

 Dryvit encased 8242 Georgia Avenue.  Photo taken March 8, 2010 by Jerry A. McCoy.

"On a hill far away stood an old Styrofoam cross..."  Photo taken March 8, 2010 by Jerry A. McCoyIf you have any unusual memories of seeing films at either Roth's Silver Spring East or West or of ice skating on Thayer Avenue, PLEASE email them to sshistory@yahoo.com or mail to Silver Spring Historical Society, PO Box 1160, Silver Spring, MD, 20910.  Our web site is www.sshistory.org.  Only with your help can Silver Spring's history be documented and preserved.

 

It is really heartbreaking to contemplate the eventual loss of these two spires and what they represent, not only their religious symbolism but the history of Silver Spring.

(L-R) The 1924 and 1956 Silver Spring Baptist Church on Wayne Avenue at Fenton Street.  Both structures are slated to be demolished by the congregation in partnership with a developer who will construct a mixed-use project of commercial and housing along with a new church.  Photo Copyright 2010 by Jerry A. McCoy.

Additional information on the church's plans may be seen at http://www.gazette.net/stories/01272010/silvnew181333_32555.php

Follows is my Letter to the Editor in response to this article:

Readers of Jason Tomassini's article "Developer offers to build church along with homes" (Gazette 1/27) might have thought it strange that there was no mention of the Silver Spring Historical Society opposing demolition of the church's two landmark structures despite our organization providing a photograph, as requested by the Gazette, which accompanied the article. 

Completely dismissed in Tomassini's coverage of the ESSCA meeting were the alternative views presented by three of my colleagues to retain the 1956 and 1924 sanctuaries.  The sense of place of this important corner should not be lost as was done in 1998 diagonally across the street when the county-designated historic 1927 Silver Spring Armory was demolished.

The retention of the two historic Silver Spring Baptist Church structures "bookended" with the planned Silver Spring Library directly across Fenton Street would serve as recognizable and symbolic American icons that uniquely provide a gateway into Fenton Village.  To lose the prominence and visibility of these important buildings to probably another Starbucks would be a sad commentary on the continued apathy shown by this community to preserving and celebrating its heritage.

Lot's of people think I get paid for my position as President of the Silver Spring Historical Society and all of its associate endeavors, like my monthly Silver Spring Voice column.  I don't.  It's all done for the love of my community and the preservation of its (continuing to disappear) heritage.

My real job is special collections librarian and archivist for the District of Columbia Public Library's Washingtoniana Division (DC history) and Peabody Room (Georgetown history), the latter located at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library, 3260 R Street, NW.

Well, the Peabody Room is not actually located in Georgetown now but at "WASH" in Room #307 of the Martin Luther King, Jr. (Happy Birthday!) Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW.  The collection has been there since Fall 2007 following the devastating fire that heavily damaged the Georgetown Neighborhood Library on April 30, 2007.  To see dramatic video of the library going up in flames, click HERE.

This library and the Peabody Room is scheduled to re-open this December, just in time to celebrate the building's 75th birthday.  Here is the newspaper article on the re-processing of the Peabody Room's special collections that appeared in the January 6, 2010 Georgtown Current (click on article to make legible).

Here is an architectural rendering of what the new Peabody Room will look like.  It will be triple the size of the original room and located on a newly created third floor.  It will also have its own independant HVAC system.

For more information about the re-construction of the Georgetown Neighborhood Library, click HERE.

The New Year commences with exciting news that a long-time Silver Spring "history mystery" has finally been solved.  For years the architect of the 1927 Silver Spring Masonic Temple, located at 8435 Georgia Avenue, has been unknown.  Ironically the answer was right in front of me but I did not know it!

A photograph of the prominent three-story brick and limestone structure that occupies the southeast corner of Georgia and Wayne avenues appears on p. 97 of my book Historic Silver Spring.  Taken during the summer of 1927, the Masonic Temple is shown still under construction.  In front of the building is a large posted sign whose full text was not legible, at least not on the copy of the photograph housed in the Silver Spring Historical Society's archives.

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Looking east on Montgomery Avenue (today's Wayne Avenue) from Georgia Avenue, 1927.  In the center distance is the 1927 Maryland National Guard Armory, demolished in 1998 for construction six years later of the Wayne Avenue parking garage.  Photo by National Photo.  Collection of Library of Congress.

Looking east on Wayne Avenue from Georgia Avenue, January 1, 2010.  Photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

Last month I received an email informing me that a Silver Spring photograph had been posted on www.shorpy.com.  Trumpeted as the "Best Pix on the Net,"  Shorpy is an amazing vintage photography blog run by "Dave" who posts images from various photo collections housed in the Library of Congress.  While this may not sound unusual, it is what Dave does with these images that is truly special. 

Dave downloads the high-resolution tiff files from LC, cleans them up (adjusting contrast, color, etc.) and then posts them for comments.  When one clicks on the "View Full Size" link the image fills the entire computer screen and the viewer can feel (at least I do) as if they are literally looking through a window into the past.  Because the clarity of the images is so vibrant, details can be picked out that would have never been visible before, even on the original photo. 

When Shorpy posted the same 1927 photo of the Silver Spring Masonic Temple, whose original glass plate negative unbeknownst to me is housed in the Library of Congress' National Photo Company Collection, it took only a few clicks of the computer mouse to be able to easily read the full text of that sign in front of the building.  There on the sign, at the very bottom right-hand corner, could be read "Howard W. Cutler Architect."  No where was the architect ever mentioned in the newspaper articles that were published in 1927 about the building's cornerstone-laying ceremony and opening. 

Photo detail courtesy Shorpy.

Howard Wright Cutler (1883-1948) was a prominent Washington, DC/Montgomery Co. architect and Silver Spring resident.  Born in Ouray, CO, Wright began his architectural practice in Rochester, NY.  While there he co-designed the Kodak Tower (1914), world headquarters of Eastman Kodak.  During World War I Cutler was stationed as an Army architect in Washington DC and designed hospitals all over the country for the Surgeon General's office, including additions at Walter Reed Army Hospital.  Some of Cutler's other works in Washington include Eldbrooke United Methodist Church (1926) and Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ (1928).  Both of the churches are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Architect Howard Wright Cutler, 1883-1948.  Photograph from "Washington Past and Present: A History, Vol. III" (1930).

In Maryland, Cutler designed the Preinkert Field House (1931) at the University of Maryland College Park campus. From 1926 to 1934 he was the sole architect for the Montgomery County Public Schools, designing around twenty-five structures.  Among these were Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School (1935), listed on the Montgomery County Master Plan for Historic Preservation, and the original East Silver Spring Elementary School (1927) on Silver Spring Avenue and the original Montgomery Blair High School (1934) on Wayne Avenue.  

East Silver Spring Elementary School (1927), 631 Silver Spring Avenue.  Photograph from "The Past Was Prologue VII: 1922-1965."

All that remains of the 1927 East Silver Spring Elementary School exterior is the roofline of the original auditorium encased in latter construction.  January 1, 2010 photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

The Masonic Temple is not the only Cutler-designed building located in Silver Spring.  Half a mile south at 7900-12 Georgia Avenue is Cutler's North Washington Realty Co. Building (1928-34), located directly across the street from Historic Jesup Blair Park.  This structure is listed on the Montgomery County Locational Atlas and Index of Historic Sites.  Cutler also designed the nearby Church of the Ascension (1930) at 633 Sligo Avenue.

North Washington Realty Co. Building, 7900-12 Georgia Avenue, January 1, 2010.  The left half was constructed in 1928 and the right half in 1934.  Photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

Church of the Ascension Episcopal/Anglican (1930), 633 Sligo Avenue, January 1, 2010.  Photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

At least the church's cornserstone is still visible.  The 1927 cornerstone on Cutler's Silver Spring Masonic Temple (below) was callously covered over in 1998 during a "facade renovation" despite pleas to the building's owner from the Silver Spring Historical Society.  The Freemasonry symbol consists of a carpenter's square and compass, which represents the interaction between mind and matter.  Photos taken 2010 and 1998 respectively by Jerry A. McCoy.

And what surely must be unusual for the time is the fact that Cutler's daughter, Katherine Cutler Ficken (1911-1968), was also an architect.  Mrs. Ficken, who also was a Silver Spring resident, designed the American Instrument Co. Building at 8040 Georgia Avenue.  Last occupied by Mayorga Coffee Co., this building was constructed in three stages between 1935 and 1943.  Together the father/daughter architects designed buildings at the University of Maryland. 

American Scientific Instrument Co. Building, 8040 Georgia Avenue, as it looked in 1948.  Photo by Joseph C. Reynolds.  Collection of Silver Spring Historical Society.

Downtown Silver Spring is fortunate to have these and many other early to mid 20^th century buildings designed by an array of talented architects.  The presence of these attractive structures adds variety and historicity to our community's streetscape and they must be preserved.

 

 

Cutler also designed the Warner E. Pumphrey Funeral Home (1938) at 8424 Georgia Avenue.  This structure was razed in the early 1980s for construction of 8484 Georiga Avenue.  Image from 1950s matchbook.  Collection of SSHS.

 

If you know of any other buildings designed by Howard Wright Cutler or Katherine Cutler Ficken, please contact me at (301) 537-1253, sshistory@yahoo.com, or Silver Spring Historical Society, PO Box 1160, Silver Spring, MD, 20910.  Our web site is www.sshistory.org.  Thank you.

 

To learn more about Howard Wright Cutler's Washington, DC churches, visit Scenes from the Past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather was beautiful and the group of pretty good size...nine folks...for my last 2009 walking tour of Historic "Main Street" Georgia Avenue.  Held on Saturday, November 7th, I've been conducting this tour for years but this was the first time that my voice actually gave out.

Upon leaving the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad station and working our way out onto the middle of the CSX/Metro bridge, my voice started going Lauren Bacall on me.  By time we got over to 8101 Georgia Avenue, former site of the landmark Gifford Ice Cream, my voice was completely shot.  I had to run into Miller's Newstand located up the sidewalk for a bottle of water.  That helped a little, but not much.

Jerry A. McCoy (green jacket) talks about the history of Georgia Avenue (below) that has been a major transportation route for nearly two centuries.  Photo by George French.

Pointing out archival images of the railroad spur that at one time extended across Georgia Avenue.  The 1945 brick Baltimore & Ohio RR Station appears in the background.  Photo by George French.

Not installed yet by the Montgomery County government on Georgia Avenue during the day of the tour was the American flags for Veterans' Day holiday four days hence.  Coming home from work last night I noticed that the flags were up...along with the yearly illuminated Christmas wreaths! 

All I can say is that this is wrong on so many levels.

"We Wish You a Merry Veterans' Day Christmas!"  Northwest corner of Georgia Avenue and Bonifant Street, November 10, 2009  Photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

Last month I profiled a couple of pre-WWI homes located in Silver Spring Park, more familiarly known as E. Silver Spring.  This historic neighborhood was surveyed in 1905. Its borders were originally Bonifant Street on the north, Cedar Street and Carroll Lane on the east, Sligo Avenue on the south, and Georgia Avenue on the west.

Anyone who today walks the east-west streets between Georgia Avenue and Fenton Street, an area known for the past few years as Fenton Village, would be hard pressed to realize that this major portion of Silver Spring's Central Business District was once a vibrant residential neighborhood.

Seventy-five years ago the only businesses located in this area fronted Georgia Avenue and backed up to an alley that ran parallel to Georgia that extended between Sligo and Thayer avenues.  Today this alley is named Mayor Lane, after Norman Lane (1911-1987).  To the east of the alley were located 45 residential structures as delineated on the 1931 Klinge Property Atlas of Montgomery County, Maryland, Vol. 1.

Thirty-six of these homes were of wood-frame construction with nine being built out of more expensive brick.  Little photographic evidence has survived of these homes, the majority of which were demolished starting as early as the 1930s when Silver Spring's business district began expanding east from Georgia Avenue.  The few photos that have surfaced depict a fascinating range of architectural styles, from quaint bungalows to what I term "Takoma Park" houses; American four squares that would have looked right at home in our neighboring community.

In 1927 the bungalow located at 911 Thayer Avenue was owned by builder Henry Mortimer Hawkins and his wife Mary Katherine.  Mr. Hawkins had moved to Silver Spring seven years earlier and was a member of Grace Episcopal Church and the Silver Spring Masonic Lodge.  His wife passed away in the house in 1940 and Mr. Hawkins died eight years later at the age of 81 in his daughter's home on Easley Street.

Two decades later this address was home to 12-year-old Flora Goul and her Boston terrier "Butch," that is until someone stole him from the house's deep back yard that extended all the way to Bonifant Street.  Published in the May 8, 1947 Washington Post "The District Line" column was Flora's appeal to the person who had her dog, "...feed him carrots every day.  If he isn't feed carrots he will get a skin disease."  No follow-up story ever appeared reporting if Flora and Butch were reunited.

The planned closure of Silver Spring's "Finance Branch" post office, located at 8455 Colesville Road (next door to the McDonalds), has been put on hold until 2013.  This word came from one of the clerks whom I recently asked while mailing some packages.

The United States Postal Service had planned to close or consolidate 677 post offices nationwide.  Of the 13 locations chosen in the "Capital District," nine were in the District of Columbia proper and one each was in Hyattsville, Rockville, Bethesda, and Silver Spring. 

The Bethesda location was quickly removed from the list (no surprise there), but I was sure the Finance Branch...home to the Silver Spring Historical Society's PO Box 1160 since 1999 (when we were forced to vacate the historic 1950 Blair Station post office at 8045 Newell Street in south Silver Spring when that location closed)...would get the axe.

Blair Station post office, 8045 Newell Street.  Photographed 2003 by Jerry A. McCoy.

With the "main" post office just around the corner at 8616 2nd Avenue, the idea a A. having to trudge up the hill and B. having to wait in that location's perpetually long lines ...staffed by surly clerks...did not appeal to me at all (the clerks on Colesville have always been wonderful!).  The decision to save the $132 per year that our small PO box costs and just have the mail delivered to my house was going to be an easy one.

Hopefully by time 2013 rolls around the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit Center, being built diagonally across the street, will be completed.  With its planned offices and hotel and tens of thousands of people that will pass through its portals each day, a post office branch located inside this major transportation hub seems like a no-brainer.

Hovering over Metro's Red Line tracks just south of the Silver Spring station is a new work of public art created by Washington, DC artist G. Byron Peck.  The painting depicts the east-bound Silver Spring Baltimore & Ohio passenger station that stood across the tracks from the main B&O Station, located at 8100 Georgia Avenue.

The east-bound station, a 1970s brick replacement of the 1945 original, was demolished about five year ago for planned construction of the Veridian apartments project.  While the artisitc rendition of the small station is very accurate and pleasing, its size and placement is woefully overwhelmed by the massive apartment complex that it is affixed to.

Viewers will never be able to truly appreciate the artwork or comprehend its details being that it is separated by four sets of tracks and several chain link fences when viewed from the Georgia Avenue side.  For folks that might actually catch a glimpse of it while riding on Metro coming into or leaving the Silver Spring station well, that's all they are going to catch, a fleeting glimpse.

Standing in the doorway of the station is President Harry S Truman, who visited the station on multiple occasions (mostly to pick up his wife Bess and/or daughter Margaret who were returning to Washinton from Independence, Missouri).  I'm not sure who the man standing behind Truman is supposed to be.  His driver, who would bring him over from the White House?  His vice president, Alben W. Barkley?

"Reflected" in windows to the right of the door is the main station, situated across the tracks. Before the 1970s and the arrival of Metro there were only two sets of tracks between these structures and the track bed was much narrower than it is today.

It was unfortunate to have lost this, admittedly, non-historic Montgomery County-owned railroad structure.  It would have been a great building to house the ever-growing Silver Spring Historical Society's archives.