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Images of America: Maryland
Historic Silver Spring
Images of America: Historic Silver Spring celebrates the community's past, beginning with founder Francis Preston Blair's 1840 discovery of the mica-flecked spring and the 1873 arrival of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Vintage photographs document the progressive growth of the "Main Streets," Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road, and the construction of the Silver Spring Armory and National Dry Cleaning Institute in 1927 and the Silver Theatre and Silver Spring Shopping Center in 1938. The volume culminates with modern pictures of downtown Silver Spring's 21st-century revitalization, which continues to preserve the past and secure the future of the area. In a pictorial journey through the community's Central Business District and bordering residential neighborhood, East Silver Spring, Historic Silver Spring honors the people and places that have come before.
- GenresHistory
128 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 16, 2024
A Walk Through Silver Spring
Silver Spring, Maryland borders Washington, D.C. and shares the major thoroughfare of Georgia Avenue. I have lived on the Washington, D.C. side of the line for many years, and frequently take walks along the Georgia Avenue corridor: sometimes facing south into the District, sometimes north into Silver Spring, to the stores and the Metro or to sit in Blair Park and read.
With my walking though Silver Spring, I was fascinated by this collection of photographs "Historic Silver Spring" (2005) by Jerry McCoy and the Silver Spring Historical Society as part of a series of books called "Images of America" which celebrates neighborhoods and towns throughout our country. Although I have seen the streets and many of the places shown in this book many times, this book has given me a new understanding of and appreciation for a place with which I thought myself all too familiar. The book includes a collection of current scenes and of places that are no more, and they melded together for me in my looking at the photographs.
Silver Spring was founded by the Blair family of Maryland in the 1840s. It developed into a thriving residential commercial and transportation center and then went into a long decline. Sustained efforts over the last few decades have produced a revitalization of Silver Spring with the Metro, mall, and new housing developments.
The book consists of over 120 pages of beautifully reproduced photographs together with careful annotations of date, place, and subject to help the viewer understand the photo and place it in a context. The four sections of the book include postcard photographs taken of Silver Spring in 1917 and 1928; photographs documenting the change in Silver Spring from the mansions of the Blairs through industrialization, through the present; photos of the main commercial intersection of Silver Spring at Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road; and photos of early homes in East Silver Spring.
I most enjoyed looking at the photographs of places I know or remembered. Thus I enjoyed the photos of the Silver Spring "Acorn" and "Spring" just off Georgia Avenue about four blocks from the District line. There is also a photograph of a mural that was painted recently at the site of Acorn Park on the wall of a failed department store to commemorate Silver Spring's past and present. There are pictures of trains, railway and streetcar stations, parks, post offices, ice cream parlors, and people -- and of the former Canada Dry bottling plant that closed a few years ago. The old Silver Spring Armory was demolished recently, and the book offers photos of the Armory, its demolition, and the new mall-associated construction that took it place. A community landmark was the Silver Spring Tastee Diner which was moved in the early 2000s from one site on Georgia Avenue to another site on the other side of the Georgia Avenue -- Colesville Road intersection. A homeless person named Norman Lane, the "Mayor" of Silver Spring, wandered the streets of downtown Silver Spring from the 1960s to his death in 1987. A sculpture was built in his memory in 1997, and it is reproduced here. There is much more. Introductory texts accompany each of the four sections of the book and each photograph is carefully annotated.
I was moved by the book, as it brought together places I know with places I didn't know. Documentary photographs such as those in this collection both bring a sense of continuity to a place and also gave me the brief feeling that time was somehow standing still. The book will help me look freshly and more carefully at places I see everyday. Those who know Silver Spring or who have a fascination for American places will love this book.
Robin Friedman
Silver Spring, Maryland borders Washington, D.C. and shares the major thoroughfare of Georgia Avenue. I have lived on the Washington, D.C. side of the line for many years, and frequently take walks along the Georgia Avenue corridor: sometimes facing south into the District, sometimes north into Silver Spring, to the stores and the Metro or to sit in Blair Park and read.
With my walking though Silver Spring, I was fascinated by this collection of photographs "Historic Silver Spring" (2005) by Jerry McCoy and the Silver Spring Historical Society as part of a series of books called "Images of America" which celebrates neighborhoods and towns throughout our country. Although I have seen the streets and many of the places shown in this book many times, this book has given me a new understanding of and appreciation for a place with which I thought myself all too familiar. The book includes a collection of current scenes and of places that are no more, and they melded together for me in my looking at the photographs.
Silver Spring was founded by the Blair family of Maryland in the 1840s. It developed into a thriving residential commercial and transportation center and then went into a long decline. Sustained efforts over the last few decades have produced a revitalization of Silver Spring with the Metro, mall, and new housing developments.
The book consists of over 120 pages of beautifully reproduced photographs together with careful annotations of date, place, and subject to help the viewer understand the photo and place it in a context. The four sections of the book include postcard photographs taken of Silver Spring in 1917 and 1928; photographs documenting the change in Silver Spring from the mansions of the Blairs through industrialization, through the present; photos of the main commercial intersection of Silver Spring at Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road; and photos of early homes in East Silver Spring.
I most enjoyed looking at the photographs of places I know or remembered. Thus I enjoyed the photos of the Silver Spring "Acorn" and "Spring" just off Georgia Avenue about four blocks from the District line. There is also a photograph of a mural that was painted recently at the site of Acorn Park on the wall of a failed department store to commemorate Silver Spring's past and present. There are pictures of trains, railway and streetcar stations, parks, post offices, ice cream parlors, and people -- and of the former Canada Dry bottling plant that closed a few years ago. The old Silver Spring Armory was demolished recently, and the book offers photos of the Armory, its demolition, and the new mall-associated construction that took it place. A community landmark was the Silver Spring Tastee Diner which was moved in the early 2000s from one site on Georgia Avenue to another site on the other side of the Georgia Avenue -- Colesville Road intersection. A homeless person named Norman Lane, the "Mayor" of Silver Spring, wandered the streets of downtown Silver Spring from the 1960s to his death in 1987. A sculpture was built in his memory in 1997, and it is reproduced here. There is much more. Introductory texts accompany each of the four sections of the book and each photograph is carefully annotated.
I was moved by the book, as it brought together places I know with places I didn't know. Documentary photographs such as those in this collection both bring a sense of continuity to a place and also gave me the brief feeling that time was somehow standing still. The book will help me look freshly and more carefully at places I see everyday. Those who know Silver Spring or who have a fascination for American places will love this book.
Robin Friedman
September 2, 2020
Images of America: Historic Silver Spring is pretty much exactly what it purports to be: historic photos of Silver Spring, Maryland. It's not particularly exciting, but it delivers on the premise.
Two things worth noting:
(1) This book focuses almost exclusively on what is now downtown Silver Spring, and not the rest of the massive sprawl that is now designated as Silver Spring. Did anything ever happen in those areas? I don't know. If you're looking for anything from those other neighborhoods, look elsewhere.
(2) Only a few of the buildings shown in this books remain today. Even the some of those that existed at the time of publication (2005) are gone by the time I read this book (2020). Yay for urban development? I don't know. It made it difficult for me to even get a mental picture where a lot of this was supposed to be. (That was no fault of the author, who did provide addresses for everything. I guess i just am not familiar enough with the downtown Silver Spring area.)
Two things worth noting:
(1) This book focuses almost exclusively on what is now downtown Silver Spring, and not the rest of the massive sprawl that is now designated as Silver Spring. Did anything ever happen in those areas? I don't know. If you're looking for anything from those other neighborhoods, look elsewhere.
(2) Only a few of the buildings shown in this books remain today. Even the some of those that existed at the time of publication (2005) are gone by the time I read this book (2020). Yay for urban development? I don't know. It made it difficult for me to even get a mental picture where a lot of this was supposed to be. (That was no fault of the author, who did provide addresses for everything. I guess i just am not familiar enough with the downtown Silver Spring area.)
November 6, 2025
Interesting book
March 28, 2016
I enjoyed this book for what it was. It's not my usual avenue, but it's always good to give new things a try. I kind of wish they'd covered my corner of Silver Spring a little bit more. There was one photo that was kinda sorta in the area, but that's it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews