BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Rockville -- Rockville Town Square

MD -- Rockville -- Rockville Town Square:

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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. ROCKTS_220223_001.JPG: Rockville's African American Heritage Walking Tour Site #17 Baseball Field North Washington and Hungerford Drive The practice field for Rockville's African American baseball team was located between North Washington Street and present-day Hungerford Drive. The team played around the county and in Washington, D.C. from the early 1900s through the 1950s, later moving to Lincoln Park. One of Rockville's most famous players was Clarence "Pint" Isreal (see photo). In 1923, his parents moved the family from Georgia to Lincoln Park, looking for a better life. In 1933, Clarence was signed by the semipro traveling team, the Washington Royals. He went on to play professionally in the Negro National League for the Homestead Grays and Newark Eagles, helping his teams win multiple Negro World Series championships. The City of Rockville named a park with a ball field in Isreal's honor after his death in 1987.
2. ROCKTS_220223_036.JPG: When Montgomery County was created in 1776, the village today known as Rockville was selected as the seat of local government. Since that time, five court houses have been built in Courthouse Square. Postal Service began in Montgomery Court House Rockville in 1794. The first permanent post office opened on Washington Street in 1939. The three waterways that run through Rockville -- Watts Branch, Cabin John Creek, and Rock Creek powered mills that processed grain, wood, or bone in the 19th century. The Town of Rockville was incorporated in 1860.
3. ROCKTS_220223_040.JPG: In 1866, Rockville claimed seven church congregations. In 2006, Rockville had 75 Congregations of many denominations. Local residents established Rockville's First Public Library in 1867. � Over the years Companies in Rockville have produced biological products, boots, shoes, bricks, carbonated beverages, coffee, concrete, electronics, ice, newspapers, paint, pharmaceuticals, plastics, propane, gas, saddles, screen doors, shoe heels, sports cars, toothpaste, vaccines, wrappers, and more. Chestnut Lodge a psychiatric hospital that operated in the West End for more than nine decades was formerly the Woodlawn Hotel.
4. ROCKTS_220223_048.JPG: Research and development ventures clustered around Chapman Avenue and Research Boulevard in the 1950s. Today, Rockville is known as the Heart of DNA Alley and Home of the Human Genome. � Rockville's First Medical Professional Building opened in 1958, on Veirs Mill Road. Urban Renewal in the 1960s and 1970s displaced people and business razed buildings and spurred new residential, commercial, and civic development in the center of town. Completed in 1960, the Rockville Civic Auditorium was later renamed after F. Scott Fitzgerald. � The City passed legislation to open Public Accommodations to all races in 1962.
5. ROCKTS_220223_058.JPG: General Edward Braddock and his troops camped in Rockville in 1755 on their way to Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War. In 1774, local residents passed the Hungerford Resolves in protest against British taxation policy in the American colonies. George Washington stopped for breakfast here in 1791 on his way from Georgetown to Philadelphia. During the Antebellum Period up to one fourth of Rockville’s population was enslaved. � Several Schools operated in Rockville before Maryland established a public system in 1860 for white students and in 1872 for black students.
6. ROCKTS_220223_061.JPG: Vivian Simpson, the first woman attorney in Montgomery County opened a law office in Rockville in 1928. From 1950 to 1960 Rockville's Population Jumped by 276 percent, the largest increase in the City's history. Citizens in 1954 revolted against the town's inability to provide basic services to all of its citizens. Professional baseball players Gordon Coltman, Pint Isreal and Mike Curtis learned the game in Rockville. In 1967 Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg, Peter Fonda, and Gene Hackman came to town of film the movie Lilith.
7. ROCKTS_220223_064.JPG: In the early 1900s, black residents started Rockville's Memorial Day Parade. The event was revived in 1944 and has been going on ever since. A Typhoid Epidemic in the winter of 1913 led to a municipal sewerage system the following year. The United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a statue in Rockville in 1913 to honor Montgomery Countians who fought for the "thin gray line." Herman Hollerith inventor of a punch card tabulating machine enjoyed his summer place on the Rockville Pike. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald frequently visited family in Rockville. He and wife Zelda were buried in Rockville twice.
8. ROCKTS_220223_076.JPG: Rockville Town Square Dedicated to the Citizens of Rockville July 17, 2007
9. ROCKTS_220223_087.JPG: Rockville started in the 1750s as a tiny village crossroads. It was called Owen's Ordinary. Hungerford's Tavern, Montgomery Court House, Williamsburg, and finally, by 1803, Rockville. Route 355 began as an Indian path that later became a colonial route to America's western frontier. Tobacco planters came through Rockville in the 18th century on "rolling roads" as they shipped crops to the ports of George Town and Bladensburg. On a map dated 1764, roads known today as Veirs Mill, Route 28 West, the Rockville Pike, Great Falls and Baltimore Road appear and meet at the center of our then tiny village.
10. ROCKTS_220223_089.JPG: Investors chartered the Washington Turnpike Company in 1805 to build a road from George Town to Rockville -- the Rockville Pike. In the 1860s, the Rockville Pike was a well-used route for escaping slaves and Civil War armies. The railroad came through Montgomery County in 1873, opening Rockville as a summer resort and commuter town of Washington, DC. From 1900 to 1935, trolley cars carried passengers between Georgetown and Rockville. In 1913, Rockville raised the speed limit to 10 mph.
11. ROCKTS_220223_094.JPG: Twenty years after the Rockville Pike was taken over by the State Roads Commission. It became one of Maryland's first paved roads (1920s). Rockville's first traffic signal (1927) was a stop and go light at Montgomery Avenue and Washington Street. In 2006, Rockville had 48 traffic signals. Bus service arrived in Rockville in the 1930s. Congressional Airport operated on the Rockville Pike from 1928 to 1959. The town installed parking meters in the business district by 1946 and initiated a SmoothSeal program of road maintenance in 1959.
12. ROCKTS_220223_100.JPG: Hungerford Drive was built in 1941 as the Rockville By-Pass to channel through traffic around the main commercial street. The Post Office ran rural routes out of Rockville until the mid-1950s. The Washington National Pike (now I-270) opened in 1957 to connect Washington DC with Frederick County as part of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Ride-on buses started operating in Rockville in 1981. Metrorail's red line extended to Rockville and Shady Grove in 1984 [sic]. A partial circumferential highway including Gude Drive, Wootton Parkway and First Street was completed in 1991.
13. ROCKTS_220223_107.JPG: Rockville Town Square Kind people are my kinda people
14. ROCKTS_220223_116.JPG: In 1784, William Prather Williams divided part of his farm into 85 building lots, making "Williamsburgh" the first subdivision in Rockville. More than 15 cemeteries can be found within Rockville's borders. The oldest known burial -- that of John Harding -- is fated 1752. As early as 1830, Martin's Lane served as the entrance to Samuel Martin's farm. Glenview, farmed by the Bowie family starting in the 1830s, was purchased by the City in 1957 for use as a civic center. From 1848 to 1932, the Richard Montgomery High School property was the site of the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair.
15. ROCKTS_220223_123.JPG: New Mark Commons opened in 1967 as a distinctive contemporary planned community. In 1971, the Americana Centre apartments opened its part of the redevelopment of Rockville's Town Center. The first historic districts in Montgomery County were designated by the Mayor and Council of Rockville in 1971. By the year 2000, Rockville claimed more than 60 distinct neighborhoods. In 2006, Rockville can boast that 13 percent of its land is in public parks and open space.
16. ROCKTS_220223_125.JPG: Lincoln Park was developed in the 1890s as a development for black residents. By 1920, most Rockville homes had electricity and running water, but no telephone service. Rockville built a modern system of water and sewer facilities to accommodate the rapid residential growth of the 1950s. Lincoln Terrace, the first public housing project in Montgomery County, opened in 1959. From 1950 to 1980, 16 new public schools and two new public libraries opened in Rockville. In the early 1960s, Woodley Gardens became Rockville's first planned community with the developer using an innovative multi-use zoning technique.
17. ROCKTS_220223_131.JPG: Between 1865 and 1967, black and white residents lived in separate neighborhoods. The block bounded to day by Middle Lane, Beall Avenue, Washington Street and Hungerford Drive was for nearly a century the location of a thriving black community. Large areas were annexed to Rockville in the 1820s, 1880s, 1890s, 1949, 1950s, 1960s, and 1990s to develop new residential neighborhoods. The subdivision of West End Park, Hungerford, Fallsgrove, King Farm, Montrose, Twinbrook, Janeta, North Farm, Rockcrest, Woodmont Park, and others were once productive farmland.
18. ROCKTS_220223_167.JPG: Rockville's African American Heritage Walking Tour Site #15 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Southwest corner of North Washington Street and Beall Avenue In 1867, several of Rockville's African American families left Jerusalem M.E. Church to found an African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church under the leadership of Reverend Charles Pipkins. In 1890, Pipkins and his congregation cut timbers and erected a frame church on Middle Lane. The church had an auxiliary building identified on an 1892 map as the Ethiopian Hal, an early reference to Ethiopianism, a movement that later influenced the development of Rastafarianism. In 1904, the congregation moved to the brick church seen in this photograph, located on North Washington Street and today's Beall Avenue. The church was named Clinton A.M.E. Zion in honor of Reverend George Wylie Clinton (1859-1921), a prominent member and editor of the church's periodical, Star of Zion. The congregation sold the property here in 1955 to make way for a shopping center, dedicating their present church on Elizabeth Avenue in Lincoln Park in the fall of 1956.
19. ROCKTS_220223_183.JPG: Rockville Town Square A Public/Private Development By: ROSS Development & Investment and DANAC Corporation Master Developer The City of Rockville Public Partner Federal Realty Investment Trust Retail Partner Dedicated July 17, 2007
20. ROCKTS_220319_02.JPG: Dismantling the ice skating rink
21. ROCKTS_220319_32.JPG: Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera Octavio Paz Cantinflas -- Octavio Paz From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Octavio Paz Lozano[a] (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature. -- Cantinflas From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes (12 August 1911 – 20 April 1993), known by the stage name Cantinflas), was a Mexican comedian, actor, and filmmaker. He is considered to have been the most widely-accomplished Mexican comedian and is celebrated throughout Latin America and in Spain as a popular icon. His humor, loaded with Mexican linguistic features of intonation, vocabulary, and syntax, is beloved in all the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America and in Spain and has given rise to a range of expressions including cantinflear, cantinflada, cantinflesco, and cantinflero. Though some of his films were translated into English and French, the wordplay was so particular to Mexican Spanish that it was difficult to translate. He often portrayed impoverished farmers or a peasant of pelado origin. The character allowed Cantinflas to establish a long, successful film career that included a foray into Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin once commented that he was the best comedian alive, and Moreno has been referred to as the "Charlie Chaplin of Mexico". To audiences in most of the world, he is best remembered as co-starring with David Niven in the Oscar-winning film Around the World in 80 Days, for which Moreno won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. As a pioneer of the cinema of Mexico, Moreno helped usher in its golden era. In addition to being a business leader, he also became involved in Mexico's tangled and often dangerous labor politics. His reputation as a spokesperson for the downtrodden gave his actions authenticity and became important in the early struggle against charrismo, the one-party government's practice of co-opting and controlling unions. Moreover, his character Cantinflas, whose identity became enmeshed with his own, was examined by media critics, philosophers, and linguists, who saw him variously as a danger to Mexican society, a bourgeois puppet, a verbal innovator, and a picaresque underdog.
22. ROCKTS_220319_35.JPG: Maria Felix El Santo Blue Demon Jorge Negrete Pedro Infante Tin-Tan -- Mar�a F�lix From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mar�a de los �ngeles F�lix G�ere�a (8 April 1914 – 8 April 2002) was a Mexican film actress and singer. Along with Pedro Armend�riz and Dolores del R�o, she was one of the most successful figures of Latin American cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. Considered one of the most beautiful actresses of Mexican cinema, her taste for the finesse and strong personality garnered her the title of diva early in her career. She was known as La Do�a, a name derived from her character in the film Do�a B�rbara (1943), and Mar�a Bonita, thanks to the anthem composed exclusively for her, as a wedding gift by her second husband, the Mexican composer Agust�n Lara. She completed a film career that included 47 films made in Mexico, Spain, France, Italy and Argentina. -- El Santo From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Rodolfo Guzm�n Huerta (23 September 1917 – 5 February 1984), known professionally as El Santo or in English The Saint, was a Mexican Luchador enmascarado (Spanish for masked professional wrestler), actor and folk hero. El Santo is one of the most famous and iconic Mexican luchadores, and has been referred to as one of "the greatest legends in Mexican sports". His wrestling career spanned nearly five decades, during which he became a folk hero and a symbol of justice for the common man through his appearances in lucha films and comic books telling fictionalized stories of El Santo fighting for justice. He starred or co-starred in at least 52 movies between 1958 and 1982. During his career, he mainly wrestled for Empresa Mundial de Lucha Libre in Mexico where he won the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship, Mexican National Middleweight Championship, Mexican National Tag Team Championship with Rayo de Jalisco, Mexican National Welterweight Championship, NWA World Middleweight Championship and the NWA World Welterweight Championship. He is said to have popularized professional wrestling in Mexico just as Rikidōzan did in Japan. Guzm�n's son followed him into wrestling as El Hijo del Santo, or the Son of Santo. In 2018, WWE inducted him into their Hall of Fame in the Legacy category. Guzm�n's brothers were also luchadors, with Black Guzm�n being the first to make his debut and Pantera Negra and Jimmy Guzm�n later joining as well. Early in his career Rodolfo Guzm�n worked under the ring names Rudy Guzm�n, Hombre Rojo, El Enmascarado, Murci�lago Enmascarado II and El Demonio Negro but became "El Enmascarado de Plata" ("The man of the silver mask") in 1942. Only one of Rodolfo Guzm�n's eleven children followed him into professional wrestling, El Hijo del Santo ("The Son of Santo") making his debut in 1982. El Hijo del Santo's son made his debut as "Santo Jr." in 2016. Another grandson (not a son of El Hijo del Santo) originally wrestled as "El Nieto del Santo" ("The Grandson of Santo"), but now works under the name Axxel. Rodolfo Guzm�n was buried in his silver mask, in one of the biggest funerals in Mexico. Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre honors El Santo with the Leyenda de Plata ("The Silver Legend") tournament. -- Blue Demon From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Alejandro Mu�oz Moreno (April 24, 1922 – December 16, 2000), better known by the ring name Blue Demon (Demonio Azul in Spanish), was a Mexican film actor and luchador enmascarado (Spanish for masked professional wrestler). Blue Demon is considered a legend of lucha libre, partially from starring in a series of Lucha films between 1961 and 1979, often alongside in-ring rival El Santo. His in-ring career began in 1948 and stretched for 41 years until his retirement in 1989. Throughout his career Mu�oz never lost a Lucha de Apuestas match and retired without exposing his face to the public, he would later be buried in the signature blue and silver mask as well. In his 41-year career he won the NWA World Welterweight Championship twice, the Mexican National Welterweight Championship three times and the Mexican National Tag Team Championship with long time tag team partner Black Shadow. He also won the hair of Cavernario Galindo and the masks of Espectro II, Matem�tico, and most notably the mask of Rayo de Jalisco. Near the end of his career Mu�oz introduced Blue Demon Jr. to the wrestling world, promoted as the son of Blue Demon, he did not share a blood connection to Mu�oz and was later claimed to be the "adopted son". Mu�oz's actual son owns the trademarks to the name "Blue Demon", while Blue Demon Jr. owns the trademark to the "Blue Demon Jr." name. Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) honors the legacy of Blue Demon by holding the Leyenda de Azul ("The Blue Legend") tournament at irregular intervals. He was voted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame in 1996 as part of the inaugural HOF selection. -- Jorge Negrete From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxoɾxe neˈɣɾete]; 30 November 1911 – 5 December 1953) was a Mexican singer and actor. -- Pedro Infante From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pedro Infante Cruz (Spanish: [ˈpe�ɾo iɱˈfante]; 18 November 1917 – 15 April 1957) was a Mexican ranchera music singer and actor, whose career spanned the golden age of Mexican cinema. His popularity spread across Latin America. Infante was born in Mazatl�n, Sinaloa, and raised in nearby Guam�chil. He died on 15 April 1957 in M�rida, Yucat�n, while en route to Mexico City when his plane crashed due to engine failure. From 1939 until his death, Infante acted in over 60 films (30 of them with his brother �ngel) and recorded over 350 songs. For his performance in the movie Tizoc, he was posthumously awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 7th Berlin International Film Festival. -- Germ�n Vald�s From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Germ�n Genaro Cipriano G�mez Vald�s y Castillo (19 September 1915 – 29 June 1973), known professionally as Tin-Tan, was a Mexican actor, singer and comedian who was born in Mexico City but was raised and began his career in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. He often displayed the pachuco dress and employed pachuco slang in many of his movies, some with his brothers Manuel "El Loco" Vald�s and Ram�n Vald�s. He made the language of the Border Mexican known in Spanish as Fronterizos pachucos famous in Mexico. A "cal�" based in Spanglish, it was a mixture of Spanish and English in speech based on that of Mexicans on the Mexican side of the border, specifically Ciudad Juarez.
Wikipedia Description: Rockville Town Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rockville Town Center is a town centre in Rockville, Maryland. Opened in 1995, it replaced the recently demolished Rockville Mall..

History

In 1962, Rockville became the first small city in Maryland to undertake a federal urban renewal program. Forty-six acres in the town center were bought; old and new buildings were demolished, and street patterns were changed. In their place rose the residential Americana Centre, more county buildings, high-rise offices, and a large shopping mall with 1,560 spaces of underground parking. A decade after the project began, the 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m2), 40 shop Rockville Mall opened in 1972, on 13 acres (53,000 m2).

Although designed originally to have Sears and JC Penney as the two anchors, no second lease was ever signed. The sole anchor at opening was a branch of the Washington, D.C.-based Lansburgh's department store chain. Within a year, Lansburgh's closed and was replaced briefly with a branch of Lit Brothers, followed by a W. & J. Sloane furniture clearance center and Franklin Simon & Co. store. Those stores closed with the bankruptcy of City Stores in 1979.

The mall was renamed in 1978 as the Commons at Courthouse Square and by 1981, 35 of the 55 store fronts were vacant. That year, despite the opening of the adjacent Montgomery County Executive Office Building, tenancy eventually dwindled to a handful, the property's New York-based owner, Rockville Development Associates, went bankrupt, and the mall was closed.

In 1983, Eisinger-Kilbane of Gaithersburg, Maryland, spent $50 million attempting to redevelop it as a more entertainment-oriented facility. It was reopened as Rockville Metro Center, reflecting the connection at its east end to the newly opened Rockville Metro station across Maryland Route 355. This renovation brought in the late 1980s a large United Artists theater complex and "Breakers," a billiards parlor. Though these businesses, at the east end of the mall closest to the Metro station, attracted some traffic, the remainder of the mall lacked attractive tenants and therefore remained largely vacant.

Rockville Mayor and later Montgomery County executive Doug Duncan launched a massive campaign against the mall, known locally as the "Berlin Wall", in 1993, arguing that the large, scarcely occupied facility was a millstone holding back downtown development and limiting the city's property tax intake. His argument struck a chord with the majority in Rockville, and the west end of the mall was finally torn down in 1995 (the portion connected to the Metro station still exists as an office/health care/fitness center complex that is not recognizable as having once been part of a mall). By 1996, a park was constructed on the site around the old courthouse building and the movie complex. New York-based Essex Capital Partners purchased the mall from Marine Midland Bank in 1998. Later that year, they opened the first phase of the $300 million Rockville Center project, which included renovated and expanded theaters and a "restaurant row."

Starting in 2004, redevelopment continued with the 60-acre (240,000 m2) Rockville Town Center project. The $370 million mixed use center, is a public / private venture and includes the Rockville Branch of the Montgomery County Library; Rockville Arts and Innovation Center; ground-level retail, restaurants, shops, food stores; public parking garages; and about 680 units of residential housing in a pedestrian friendly setting.

On July 17, 2007, the 12-acre (49,000 m2) Rockville Town Square (Phase I of the Rockville Town Center project) opened with 27 shops and restaurants, including a Gordon Biersch brewery, Gifford's Ice Cream (now closed) and an Aveda day spa. In September 2007, the 28,000 square feet (2,600 m2) nonprofit Metropolitan Center for the Visual Arts (VisArts), a former Rockville Mall tenant, opened its doors as a center for classes, galleries and programs.
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