Santa Claus came to town!

One of the more unique artifacts in the Silver Spring Historical Society's archives is a 33 1/3 rpm LP record recorded by radio station WGAY-1050 documenting Santa Claus's arrival at Silver Spring's Baltimore & Ohio railroad station on Saturday, November 8, 1952. (For the MP3 generation a record is an analogue sound recording medium used in the second half of the 20 th century that consists of a flat disc made of polyvinyl chloride with an inscribed modulated spiral groove that starts near the disc's periphery and ends near its center. When the disc is rotated on a turntable at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute with a stylus or needle placed in contact with the disc's outer groove, the needle vibrates and those vibrations are converted into an electrical signal that is relayed through an amplifier and into a loudspeaker, thus providing up to 30 minutes of Long Play recorded sound...yes, the 20th century was indeed a primitive era!)

"The kids were out in force to meet Santa as he arrived in Silver Spring yesterday. After distributing lollypops all around Santa rode from the B&O station to the Hecht company Silver Spring store on his own miniature train." Washington Times-Herald, November 9, 1952, p. 11. Courtesy Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library.

WGAY reporter Ernie Tannen (1921-1985) covered Santa Claus's arrival for his "Community Forum" radio program that was broadcast the following day. The eleven and a half minute segment consists of Tannen interviewing over a dozen mostly catatonic children who were awaiting the arrival of Santa by train at Silver Spring's 1945 B&O station. The restored station, located at 8100 Georgia Avenue, is listed on the National Register of Historic Place. Santa arrived that morning at 10:18 a.m. and was greeted by a crowd estimated by Tannen to number some 500 children and their parents. Transferring to a miniature B&O train, Santa later paraded up Georgia Avenue where he arrived at the Fenton Street door of the 1947 Hecht Company (today's City Place, located at the corner of Fenton and Ellsworth Drive) where he was whisked up to "Toyland" on the fourth floor.

Paper label adhered to LP record of November 9, 1952 "Community Forum" broadcast. Collection of SSHS.

Having reformatted this LP onto audio cassette (does anyone even listen to those anymore?) I play a short segment of the recording for participants on my walking tour of historic "Main Street" Georgia Avenue when we conclude at the railroad station. Standing under the station's trackside canopy I press the play button of a hand-held cassette recorder and out of it emanates the tinny sound of the B&O train ringing its bell as it pulled into the station over half a century ago...a sound that never fails to elicit smiles from those listening. I've often wondered where those three to seven year-olds whose voices are heard on the recording...children who are now approaching retirement age...are today.

Follows is a list of the children with their ages (if provided) who appear on the recording. Names are spelled out in as close approximation as possible based upon the quality of the broadcast:

Andelman, Billy (lived at 4621 Chevy Chase Blvd.); Brewer, Margaret (7, her birthday was that day); Clark, Catherine (3); Clark, Tony (7); Ketchum, Karen (5); Langlin, Charlie (5-1/2); Langlin, Lonnie Jane (Charlie's sister); Lyddane, Patrice; Marino, Tony; McConnell, Betsy; Rakir, Richard (4); Schaefer, Meta; Whitehead, Buddy (6-1/2); Zimmer, Mike; Zimmer, Pat.

The Hecht Company as it appeared on opening day, November 1, 1947. The automobiles are parked on the site of today's green "SoftLawn." Photo for the Evening Star by Francis Routt. Courtesy Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library.

The only local newspaper to cover the arrival was the Washington Times-Herald of November 9, 1952, which ran a photograph of Santa posing with some of the children. That image, reproduced here from very poor quality microfilm housed in the Washingtoniana Division of the DC Public Library's Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, is the only extant visual documentation of this event. If any reader knows any of the above named individuals, please have them contact me. Hopefully their parents took photographs of them at the train station and the society can obtain copies of this memorable Silver Spring event.

The Silver Spring Historical Society would also like to obtain more information on Ernie Tannen and his "Community Forum" program. Tannen first appeared on WGAY on December 9, 1946 as co-host of "The Homemaker's Gift Shop." With his on-air partner Grace Hanley, the two appeared daily for an hour where they would "gab and giggle" between calling members of the show's club to offer prizes. The team quickly became one of the station's most popular shows during WGAY's first year of operation.

By 1949 Tannen was hosting the daily "Community Reporter," probably an earlier incarnation of "Community Forum." That year the program, "designed to inform residents of Montgomery and Prince George's counties of civic affairs in the locality," won the grand prize for radio programs in the general family classification. The National Retail Dry Goods Association awarded the prize to the sponsor of the program...The Hecht Company!

Santa may have arrived by train in Silver Spring but in neighboring Chevy Chase he arrived at the Woodward & Lothrop department store in a red convertible on the same day and at the same time! Evening Star, November 7, 1952, p. A-31. Courtesy Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library.

Are there other surviving LP recordings of the "Community Forum" program relating to Silver Spring? The Presto Recording Corporation of Paramus, NJ manufactured the LP record that the SSHS owns. Presto was nationally renowned for its disc recorders that were utilized by the broadcast and recording industry. The aural documentation that this recording has preserved provides us with incredibly rare documentation of a piece of Silver Spring's past. It is paramount that if other examples of the "Community Forum" broadcast survive that they be preserved and made available to the public. An MP3 conversion of the Santa Claus arrival broadcast is available for free download at http://www.geocities.com/sshistory/Acorn.html. Only a limited number of downloads are available each hour so if the site is not working when you access it, please bookmark the URL and try again at a later date.

The mission of the volunteer non-profit Silver Spring Historical Society (SSHS) is to create and promote awareness and appreciation of Silver Spring's heritage through sponsorship of educational activities and the preservation and protection of historical sites, structures, artifacts and archives.º

If you have any information pertaining to the above article, please contact Jerry A. McCoy at sshistory@yahoo.com, write SSHS, PO Box 1160, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, or call (301) 537.1253. Our web site is www.sshistory.org.

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