Flags can say a lot about a place, but sometimes what they say can be quite confounding.
For example, the purple banners draped high above Georgia Avenue announce a “concert in the park”. (A few banners also adorn Fenton Street near Wayne Avenue.) But the banners raise two big questions: What concert? And more importantly, what park?
The Downtown Silver Spring shopping center does host free concerts during the summer — the county-sponsored Silver Spring Swings series on Thursday nights, the shopping center’s gigs on Saturday nights, and now a bunch on Fridays.
But the asphalt on Ellsworth Drive, on which the stage is erected, doesn’t exactly qualify as a park. (Technically, it’s a public road leased and managed by a private company.)
How about the annual jazz festival on the Turf? Is it a concert? Yes. Is the Turf a park? One can make that argument.
But The Penguin reported in May that this year’s gig would be held in the Lee parking lot off Georgia Avenue. The temporary move would allow construction crews to tear up the Turf to build a hardscaped Veterans Plaza.
Perhaps the purple banners should read: Concert in the park(ing lot).
And then there are those banners along Georgia Avenue between the 16th Street merge and the Beltway. Penguin reader QB Steve alerted the newsroom to rows of technicolored flags adding to the sensory overload in Montgomery Hills.
“The last thing that half mile of blight needs is more eye pollution,” the neighborhood resident wrote. “There’s already way too much in the way of traffic signs, overhead wires, gas station signs, etc., so what the hell are they doing planting those flag poles?”
And not just any scrawny flag poles. Those babies are like tree trunks, the kind of poles that would support 50-pound halogen street lamps.
Of course, pictures say a thousand words. But driving that stretch of Georgia Avenue while managing a camera isn’t as easy as it sounds. If you’ve got pics of these new banners, holler back.
Photo by Ron Pace/SSP.
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Isn’t anyone going to say anything about the Maryland Congressional District 4 special election today? —the one to determine Al Wynn’s replacement for the next six months.
Please Vote People —-those registered to vote in the 4th district, that is.
Very few voters have shown up at the Silver Spring library so far, less than 100 by noon.
Yipes! I had forgotten the election was today! I’ll vote as soon as I get home from work. Luckily, my polling place is a short walk from home….
When the Georgia Ave at 16th flag poles went up I was sure they were speed cameras (with so many of them in a short space and so sturdily built), but I guess I’m pleasantly surprised to see that they are harmless flag poles.
I went and voted; at Rolling Terrace (my polling place), they told me that only about 3% of the registered voters had showed up that day. But they were expecting November to be a stampede. I signed up for info about being an election judge, being on a volunteerism kick.
Just curious … What did the board of elections do in the fourth district to publicize this special election? Were fliers or postcards mailed to individual homes?
I didn’t read or hear much about it. Then again, I live in the eighth district.
I got an official mailing from the Board, informing me of the election. Actually, it was a booklet of info. And it was in the news.
yea… i was gonna say i never got anything…. but i keep forgetting to re-register in the correct district since i moved across the ridiculously shaped district line…. 2 years ago…. i think it became a misdemeanor after 30 days…. woops…
In retrospect, I would have run myself. All you need is a few friends to show up and you could win this thing. I could be in congress for a few months. That would be cool.
Well, Sligo, McCain and Obama are still looking for running mates.
I could be the next Spiro Agnew.
On Wednesday, the 18th, I had a 4:30 appointment in Baltimore. I left the parking garage at the Silver Spring Metro at 3:13 PM. It wasn’t until 3:41 that I got as far as Spring St.
Was there some kind of event going on, or does traffic always move at that time of day at the rate of 1.2 mph? (I live in Burtonsville, work in Silver Spring, so I sensibly take public transit to commute, but I drove in because couldn’t figure out another way of getting to B’more in a reasonably quick fashion.)
I’m handicapped so parking across from the Hilton and walking down to Metro isn’t an option for me, but if my knees worked, that’s what I’d do.
Thanks for your question, Eva.
I don’t know if anything went down on Wednesday. However, I do know firsthand that it can take 20 minutes to drive five downtown blocks during that time of day.
It might have been the SilverDocs festival.
The traffic in silver spring is always horrendous and it didn’t used to be that way. The worst is Georgia avenue between 16th and the beltway, just forget it, thats a parking lot and traffic nightmare.