BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Glen Echo Park

MD -- Glen Echo Park:

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[1] GLEN_120310_002.JPG	[2] GLEN_120310_007.JPG	[3] GLEN_120310_010.JPG	[4] GLEN_120310_015.JPG	[5] GLEN_120310_021.JPG	[6] GLEN_120310_026.JPG	[7] GLEN_120310_032.JPG	[8] GLEN_120310_036.JPG	[9] GLEN_120310_040.JPG
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. GLEN_120310_002.JPG: The Hall of Philosophy: If you were in this spot in 1891, you would have seen a two-story building nestled in trees overlooking the Potomac River and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The Hall of Philosophy was part of the National Chautauqua Assembly at Glen Echo, which offered classes in science, art, languages and literature. The main lecture hall in the Hall of Philosophy seated 400 people. Many prominent scholars and social leaders gave lectures there. On August 1, 1891 hundreds of attendees gathered at a reception to honor neighbor and Founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton. Miss Barton was also President of the Chautauqua's Women's Executive Committee. Her home, now a National Historic Site, is just footsteps away. Continue to follow the footsteps along the trail to learn more about the shy farm girl from Massachusetts who devoted her life to human welfare and the advancement of social reforms and who gained fame throughout the world.
2. GLEN_120310_007.JPG: Minnehaha Creek: This deep ravine and rocky creek are typical of streams in the Potomac River Valley. Today Minnehaha Creek flows freely through Glen Echo Park. Changes made to the creek during the past 100 years mirror the history of Glen Echo Park. The arrival of the Glen Echo Chatauqua changed Minnehaha Creek; a large amphitheater was constructed in the creek bed in 1891. Here students gathered for lectures until a malaria scare closed the Chautauqua in 1892. Later, in 1899, a Glen Echo company developed the site into an amusement park. A remodeled amphitheater opened as the "Midway" in 1911. Glen Echo Park's popularity again changed Minnehaha Creek. In 1959 park owners extended the parking lot by removing the "Midway" and installing a large metal pipe or culvert. For 33 years Minnehaha Creek flowed silently underground until record breaking rains collapsed the parking lot and culvert in 1989. Following the flood, the National Park Service restored the creek's natural stream bed. Look closely along the banks to spot signs of Minnehaha Creek's past.
3. GLEN_120310_040.JPG: The Glen Echo Park Yurts How they got here and what goes on inside them. Yurts Around the World. These interesting and unusual buildings function as studios and classrooms in Glen Echo Park. Yurts have a long history. In Mongolia, yurts have been practical homes for thousands of years. In fact the word yurt means "homeland" or "domain." To nomadic herders of the steppes they were the ideal mobile home. They were portable, strong, and could be insulated from the high winds of the Asian Steppe. Consisting of a framework of saplings and a covering of animal hide, they are bound together with horse hair rope. They could be struck and packed up in thirty minutes and were light and compact enough to be carried by a horse. Today yurts all share their distinctive but are built in different variations and used in different ways all over the world. Most Glen Echo yurts have a circular skylights at their roof peaks. Some are insulated with sod roofs. They were brought here in 1972 to be assembled for Humanisphere, an 18 month habitat exhibit on the National Mall that was cancelled before it began. At that time, Glen Echo Park was beginning a new life as a park for the arts. These buildings seemed to fit in perfectly and filled a need for studio/classroom space. Today, more than thirty art classes are held in our yurts. Artists and students design, learn, and produce art work. Romantic Yurt Village. The yurt village of today is in space once occupied by many of the major amusement park rides, including the World Cruise, the Whip, and three versions of the amusement park's most thrilling ride, the roller coaster. The World Cruise (tunnel of love) was located near the point where the path to the parking lot meets the carousel. It was a slow boat ride through the dark that passed by scenic views of far-away places . . . and was a favorite stop for many dating couples in the 1920's–1940's. The Whip was a popular ride in many amusement parks of the 1920's–60's. A bit tamer than the thrill rides, it let you smash against your partner every time the cars whipped around their track. It was simple fun!!
4. GLEN_120310_045.JPG: 1921: The Dentzel carousel came to the Park in 1921 as a replacement for a smaller carousel. Built in the Philadelphia style, the hand-carved, wooden animals create a menagerie type featuring rabbits, ostriches, a giraffe, a lion, a tiger and a deer, in addition to horses, and two chariots.
5. GLEN_120310_060.JPG: c. 1931: In the midst of the Great Depression, the Crystal Pool provides a haven. It was big enough for 3,000 swimmers and featured a sand beach. The Art Deco style of the pool became Glen Echo Park's new look.
6. GLEN_120310_138.JPG: c. 1926: Known in the 1920s as The Skooter and in the 1930s as the Dodgem, Glen Echo Park's bumper car ride was one of the first in any amusement park in the world. The Art Deco facade was added in the 1930s. Today's rehabilitated Bumper Car Pavilion hosts hundreds of dances and events each year.
7. GLEN_120310_185.JPG: c. 1939: The old Arcade was an active attraction from 1899-1940. Skeeball, a Shooting Gallery, and Pennyland, were some of the games visitors played. In 1940, the current art deco Arcade was built to house these games and many more.
8. GLEN_120310_217.JPG: c. 1891: The Chautauqua Program at Glen Echo opened June 16, 1891 and offered classes and lectures in all areas of the liberal and practical arts. The education program ran for only one year, but the buildings were used by the amusement park for decades. The Stone Tower is the only Chautauqua structure that remains intact today.
9. GLEN_120310_220.JPG: I'm thinking the hole is a rat hole
10. GLEN_120310_223.JPG: c. 1930: The entrance to Glen Echo Park had undergone many changes. In 1940, art deco design has been restored, but prior entrances included a stone entrance in the 1890s with the early trolley lines in front and the 1911 entrance, which featured numerous lightbulbs and two towers, and was in place for 30 years.
11. GLEN_120310_229.JPG: From http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/streetcar-removed-from-glen-echo-park/2012/04/30/gIQADoPjsT_story.html Old streetcar removed from Glen Echo Park By John Kelly, Published: April 30 Washington Post Not long ago someone called Ken Rinehart and asked how much he would charge to haul an old streetcar off to the scrap yard. Ken, head of a Landover company called General Machine, did some quick calculations and told the man it would cost more to move the trolley than it was worth in scrap. "He said, 'You wanna buy it?' " Ken told me. "I made some stupid offer and he accepted." And that is how Ken found himself the new owner of the streetcar that for the past seven years has sat in front of Glen Echo Park. Last Tuesday, a crew used two forklifts to load the trolley onto a flatbed and haul it away. "I thought it was almost a historic piece," Ken said. "I thought, we've got plenty of room here. We've got three acres. We can stick it next to our 747 cockpit." Yes, Ken has a 747 cockpit. And some old printing presses. And an old voting machine (Clinton/Gore vs. Dole/Kemp). Still, it's doubtful any of those things are as sentimental as the 1947 streetcar, a stylish, streamlined model known as a PCC. It's of the type that used to ply Washington's rails. Ken used to ride the streetcar to Glen Echo as a boy from his father's Foggy Bottom service station. He never rode this particular car, though. It spent its career in Philadelphia before being donated to Glen Echo in 2005 by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transport Authority. The national park had great plans to restore it. The park -- and the suburb -- exist because of the streetcar line. But it sat uncovered in the elements and ended up looking rather forlorn, mottled with rust and primer. The National Park Service said the car needed an outlay of about $100,000 to restore it. Bethesda blogger and streetcar buff Robert Dyer is pretty upset that the streetcar is gone. He doesn't think the Park Service did enough to try to save it. "If there had been a public announcement that we need help to restore the trolley, I would have definitely noticed it," he said. Robert is especially upset that the trolley showed up on eBay last month, with a starting bid of $30,000. Polly Angelakis, site manager of Clara Barton National Historic Site and Glen Echo Park, said the Park Service is not allowed to sell government property. She doesn't know who put the trolley on eBay. Maybe it was the person who sold it to Ken. (She said the sale was handled by the General Services Administration and the listing was taken down.) Polly added that the Park Service is not allowed to actively seek donations. Didn't Target give $1 million to help restore the Washington Monument in 1996? I think the real issue is that this particular car is a Philly car, not a D.C. one. And it had become a bit of an eyesore, not the first thing you want visitors to see. Polly says her rangers will continue to tell visitors about the importance of streetcars to the park. They will point out the historic track out front. And she said if they were ever to locate a real Glen Echo trolley, they'd be interested in it -- as long as they had the budget to store and maintain it. Some in the small but active trolley community are sad the streetcar is gone. "It's a shame," said Harry Donahue of Friends of Philadelphia Trolleys, a nonprofit that raises money to save streetcars such as this one. "Somebody took it down there with a good idea to restore it and paint it like a Washington car," Harry said. "But if it's going to sit outside, you have to maintain it. It's 65 years old. You can't leave it out in the elements." Harry said if Ken doesn't want to keep the streetcar it would be good for parts. There's even a vintage trolley line in San Diego that uses that exact model to carry passengers today. "I know they're interested in it," Harry said. Said Ken: "There's always a price but right now it's not for sale. It's just kind of neat. I never had a streetcar before."
12. GLEN_120310_417.JPG: Glen Echo Civil Rights Protest On June 30, 1960 African Americans Gwendolyn Greene (Britt), William Griffin, Michael Proctor, Marvous Saunders and Cecil Washington Jr. were arrested when they attempted to ride Glen Echo Park's Dentzel Carousel and were charged with trespassing on private property. Part of a college-based civil rights group called the Non-violent Action Group (N. A. G.), the five sit-in demonstrators were protesting the long-standing segregation policies of the privately-owned amusement park. A summer-long picketing campaign followed the arrests. The campaign involved citizens of all ages and backgrounds. The neighboring community of Bannockburn joined the picketing and provided particularly strong support. The protestors achieved success when the park opened on a fully-integrated basis on March 31, 1961. Plaque dedicated on April 26, 2008.
Wikipedia Description: Glen Echo Park, Maryland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Glen Echo Park is a public park in Glen Echo, Maryland. It is managed by the National Park Service as part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. It began in 1891 as a National Chautauqua Assembly and operated as an amusement park until 1968. As of 2007, the park hosts an arts education program and is also known for its antique carousel, its Spanish Ballroom and its historic electric street car and its annual Washington Folk Festival.

The park is near to several notable sites such as the Clara Barton house and the C&O canal. Glen Echo used to be a trolley park accessible by the street car system; the park was designed to be the last stop on the cars so people could go there after work. The original park had several attractions, including bumper cars, shooting galleries, and an expansive rollercoaster. The park also had a large pool, the Crystal Pool, the remains of which can still be seen today, and a shooting gallery, which was stopped in WWII because of ammunition shortages.

The Park Carousel:

The last operating park ride, and the highlight of the park today, is a 1921 Dentzel three-row menagerie carousel with 38 horses, 2 chariots, 4 rabbits, 4 ostriches, a lion, a tiger, a giraffe, and a prancing deer. The carousel operates from May through September, running from 12 to 6 on weekends and 10-2 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays all season and Fridays in July and August. In its heyday the carousel sported an operating brass ring game, in which daring riders could reach out and pull a ring out of a holder next to the carousel. Grabbing a brass ring would win the lucky rider a free ride. The brass ring arm is still visible today, although it no longer operates.

The face of the carousel had changed greatly since 1921, with the animals, rounding boards, inner drum panels, and band organ receiving several new coats of park paint over the years. An installation photograph from 1921, as compared to the carousel in 1983, showed an original design of the body and tack on the Indian horse that was very different from the present-day animal. Chipping away at the horse's paint revealed several strata of differently colored and styled paint jobs spanning the past sixty years, with the original 1921 paint at the bottom. Carousel and fairground art specialist Rosa Ragan, who has restored several other carousels in the US, restored the Indian horse by removing the park paint, exposing as much of the original paint as possible, and filling in the gaps in the original paint, a process called inpainting, before covering the horse in a protective varnish. This process, however, exposed the original paint to damage from riders, thus rendering the poor horse unridable! In order to restore each animal without risking damage to the original paint, Ragan developed a new process of uncovering the original paint job, recording the colors and design, and then covering the original paint with a reversible varnish before giving the animal a white base coat and repainting it in the original colors. However, Ragan did leave a small window of original paint exposed on each animal for riders to find. These glimpses of the original 1921 paint are called "windows to the past" and can be found on the plain side (the inward-facing side) of each animal. Ragan's 20-year restoration of the carousel completely overhauled the animals, the band organ, and the rounding boards and drum panels, returning the carousel to its original beauty and splendor.

History of the Park:

The park was originally designed as a Chautauqua site, a precursor of sorts to the arts facility Glen Echo has become today. It flourished until a misprint in the paper claimed that the mosquitoes in the area had malaria. In the early 20th century it was turned into an amusement park, which operated until the late 1960s. Like many public facilities in and around the Washington area, Glen Echo was restricted to whites. After a series of protests in the early 1960's, the park opened the doors to all races. However, the surrounding community complained about the influx of urban African Americans. As a result, the trolley and bus service to Glen Echo were closed. Without the public transportation link, Glen Echo, like most small suburban amusement parks, closed in 1968. Today, the park is served by a bus coming from the Bethesda Metro station.

Since 1971, the park has been under the watch of the National Park Service. Various renovations, backed by government funds and individual donations, have taken place throughout the park, most notably the Spanish Ballroom, the Arcade building that now hosts art classes, and the art deco style opening gates. The park's carousel and large children's theater remain an attraction for all ages in Bethesda and Glen Echo. Every Friday and Sunday night of the year, the park hosts a contra dance either inside the Spanish Ballroom or in the open-air Bumper Car Pavilion. The two venues host other dances (salsa, waltz, tango, slow blues, or swing) at the same time and also on other weekend and weekday evenings.

In the early 2000s, the park obtained a historic streetcar from Philadelphia. The streetcar is now located at the entrance to the park.
Atlas Obscura Description: Glen Echo Amusement Park
Bethesda, Maryland
Once home to seven different roller coasters, Glen Echo has undergone many transformations since its founding in 1891.

Since its founding in 1891, Glen Echo Park has undergone many transformations. The park initially served as a site for the National Chautauqua Assembly, which was an American cultural and education movement popular at the turn of the 20th century. But after rumors spread that mosquitoes were transmitting malaria in the area, the Chautauqua closed up shop in 1898 and the site was transformed into an amusement park that operated until 1968.

During that seventy-year period, Glen Echo was home to seven different roller coasters. The remaining structures from the park, such as the arcade and the “Cuddle Up” teacup ride remind visitors of the art deco architecture popular in the area in the 1930s. Not much else is original: The Crystal Pool had been filled in and is covered in trees and brush, but the impressive gateway entrance remains. Still, new layers of paint and other restorations have kept the appearance of these standing structures fresh.

The park is also known for its custom wood-carved Dentzel Carousel that has been restored to its 1921 state and still operates on a limited schedule.

During the era of the trolley car in Maryland, Glen Echo Park was the last stop on the line, serving as a popular destination for post-work family leisure. A trolley car from the era remains out front underneath the neon Glen Echo sign.

The above was from https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/glen-echo-amusement-park
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