Shadows of the Past Remain

In my previous entry I wrote about some of the early 20^th century residents who lived in the 900 block of Thayer Avenue, situated between Georgia Avenue and Fenton Street.  Traversing this block today, one would never realize that this street had been a vibrant neighborhood.  When two well-preserved 1920s bungalows located at 914 and 916 Thayer were demolished in 2008, the last residential vestiges of this part of the originally named Silver Spring Park neighborhood were forever gone.  However, one block south in the 900 block of Silver Spring Avenue, there survives evidence of the same neighborhood that once thrived there.

Located at 904, 910, and 912 Silver Spring Avenue are three brick houses that are all that remain of 19 homes located on this block, as delineated by the 1931 Klinge Property Atlas of Montgomery County, Maryland, Vol. 1.  Seven of the nineteen houses were of brick construction with the remaining dozen built of wood frame.  All of them, except 910 and 912, featured front porches.

The 1927-28 Polk's Washington Suburban Directory lists Ernest E. and Nellie Sayer as living at 904 Silver Spring Avenue.  In 1930 when the U.S. Federal Census was taken, the Sayers were listed as owners of the home, which was valued at $10,000 ($129K in 2009 dollars).  Mr. Sayer's occupation was recorded as bricklayer.  Sayer was one of the original founding members of the Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Dept. in 1915.  Could the house, constructed of attractive yellow brick, have been built by him?

904 Silver Spring Ave.  2009 photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

Three doors up the street at 910 Silver Spring lived William V. Jouvenal, an electrical engineer who taught at Bliss Electrical School in Takoma Park.  Jouvenal, with his wife Hope and their five-year old daughter Faith, rented the house for $35 per month ($453 in 2009 dollars).  Jouvenal's father, named William, was also an original founding member of the SSVFD. 

Living next door in an identically designed house at 912 Silver Spring was Mrs. Jouvenal's brother, Donald W. Shannon, his wife Dorothy, their six-year old daughter Donnelle, and Donald's mother Beatrice.  The home, valued at $4,000 ($52K in 2009 dollars), might have been owned by Beatrice as she is the only individual listed (as widow of William J. Shannon) in the 1930-31 Polk's Washington Suburban Directory for this address.

Both of these unusual twin houses, constructed 1928 in simplified Cotswold Cottage style, are in remarkably original condition.  Unlike the equally picturesque pair of Thayer Avenue bungalows, it is hoped that the owners of these distinctive houses will continue to preserve and utilize them as businesses.  In doing so said businesses will enjoy prominent visibility that will stand out from the increasing homogenization of Silver Spring's central business district.

910 and 912 Silver Spring Ave.  2009 photo by Jerry A. McCoy. 

On the north side of the street at 905 Silver Spring Avenue there stood a late 1920s bungalow that was extant for a little more than thirty years before rampant commercialization of block resulted in its demolition in the early 1960s.  Constructed in 1962 and occupying the bungalow's full lot was a 6,700 square-foot office building built for the Nicholas S. Stavrou Co.  Unlike the classic bungalow design that it replaced, this contemporary wood-louvered and glass-paneled structure has not aged well.

Advertisement for 905 Silver Spring Ave. that appeared in The Washington Post, Nov. 5, 1933.  $7,450 is equivalent to $124K today.  Courtesy Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library. 

905 Silver Spring Avenue was designed by architect Jack Cohen and constructed in 1962.  2009 photo by Jerry A. McCoy. 

A senseless loss around this same time was the demolition of an American Foursquare house at 917 Silver Spring Avenue and its three similar neighboring wood-frame homes.  Owned in 1930 by patent attorney Philip E. Barnes and his wife Barbara, the large home valued in 1930 at $10,500 ($136K in 2009 dollars) offered plenty of room for their four children; Philip Jr. (age 8), Lois (age 7), Raymond (age 5), and Everett (age 3).

Lois Barnes Rice, who today lives in Herndon, VA, fondly remember growing up on Silver Spring Avenue in the 1930s.  "I can recall playing a game called 'kick the can'...with a number of kids on the block participating.  We played a lot of softball down on the corner lot..."  Today, this empty lot is occupied by an office building with the dual addresses of 900 Silver Spring Avenue and 8120 Fenton Street.

917 Silver Spring Avenue as it looked in the 1940s.  Courtesy Lois Barnes Rice.

Lois' house, along with the homes of her neighbors; the Swindells (913), the Aldens (915), and the Langleys (919), were torn down around 1963 and replaced with a surface parking lot, still performing its mundane function nearly fifty years later.  The only evidence that survives of these houses is a white stucco over cinderblock wall that Robert E. Langley constructed in the 1920s to provide privacy from the alley that bordered his property.  This wall will eventually be cleared from the property for construction of a project called Studio Plaza that will extend north from Silver Spring Avenue through the block over to Thayer Avenue

The 1930 census recorded 38 children and teenagers occupying those 19 houses in the 900 block of Silver Spring Avenue.  To have walked down that street three-quarters of a century ago on a warm summer evening, front porches occupied by their owners and kids running about, must have been an amazing experience.