Photo: Checking out the goods at the South Silver Spring block party. Courtesy of Evan Glass.
Silver Spring’s streets were thumping Saturday as two events drew residents out of their homes and into the hood.
Menacing morning clouds gave way to uber-bright sunshine, just in time for the Fenton Street Market. The crafts fair was the second such event at the parking lot on Fenton Street and Silver Spring Avenue. (more…)
Photo: Chill, Penguin! They're not open yet! Credit: R. Pace/SSP.
Workers on Saturday hammered together the final interior touches on the Veridian Market and Wine shop (left), the first retailer to roll at The Veridian apartment building on East-West Highway, South Silver Spring. The shop will offer convenience items like beer and wine, as well as dry-cleaning services, (more…)
Photo: Buh-bye. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
A condemned building came down recently along East-West Highway, allowing the county to cut a pedestrian path through one thick South Silver Spring block.
Around Jun 17, heavy equipment tore at the gray, one-story building at 1008 East-West Hwy. Demolition of the former auto-repair shop is part of the county’s plan to construct a path between East-West and Kennett Street (more…)
I consider chocolate — particularly dark, almost bitter chocolate — a basic food group. And I’m happy to live in an enlightened period in human history, one in which it’s possible to buy serious dark-chocolate beverages with relative ease.
So the description of Mayorga Coffee Factory’s hot chocolate (”handcrafted with European dark chocolate”) raised my hopes. Unfortunately, I was left wondering what exactly they do to that chocolate. The result is less like a fancy chocolate bar grated into milk, and more like a classic American hot cocoa.
That’s not to say that it tastes like a mix, exactly. It’s a better quality drink, smoother and richer than one made from a powder. But it’s too milky, mild and sweet to be filed under the “European dark chocolate” heading.
Of course, hot-chocolate lovers who prefer this style of drink may be pleased. But it’s too bad the South Silver Spring coffee house doesn’t describe it more accurately — not just for my sake, but for fans of mild, sweet, comforting hot cocoa misled into thinking there’s nothing here but a dark, bitter disappointment.
Snag one of Mayorga’s big, comfy leather chairs and soak up the nicest place in town to hang out. Just read the menu with a skeptical eye, at least in the chocolate department.
Mayorga Coffee Factory, 8040 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, (301) 562-9090.
Linda Lombardi is an Associated Press columnist and freelance journalist who works from her Silver Spring home. Check out her street cred at lindalombardi.com.
One of downtown Silver Spring’s main drags is feeling the pinch of a crappy economy, and taking lumps for being hard on the body.
Businesses along the east side of Georgia Avenue — at least the stretch south of Wayne Avenue — aren’t jumping at the opportunity to pimp out their store fronts under a county-run program, Rick Nelson, director of the department of housing and community affairs, told county council members last Tuesday. Blame the recession, he said.
“Unfortunately, the economy has entered in to the picture,” Nelson told the council’s economic-development committee. “Facade easements require some contribution from the business, but if they don’t have the dollars, then it’s not going to happen soon.”
A couple of businesses in Fenton Village and South Silver Spring have participated in the program since it got cooking in the early 1990s, with the goal of making the street fronts (and businesses) more inviting to pedestrians. But these days, discussions to get more businesses on board haven’t been productive, Nelson said.
Another issue facing Georgia Avenue improvements are the red-brick pavers that make up the sidewalk. Pavers on the avenue’s east side were supposed to be replaced with new brick last fall, but the county’s commission on people with disabilities argued that brick didn’t work for every body
“Any kind of bumpy surface puts a wear and tear on people’s bodies, a little more so on people with disabilities,” Cindy Buddington, the commission’s chair, told the council committee. “If you have a balance problem, it’s tougher to keep your wheelchair or walker in balance.”
The county’s housing and community affairs department is reworking the $137,000 project with a consultant. The goal is to engineer a tighter fit for the bricks, and to replace the sand beneath them with concrete, according to a committee memo. However, the commission on people with disabilities would rather have straight-up concrete for a sidewalk.
The consultant’s findings on how to improve the sidewalk drops in the spring.
Photo of Georgia Avenue courtesy of Flickr user Katmere.
ROCKVILLE — A pedestrian path linking Kennett Street with East-West Highway is scheduled to sprout from the asphalt later this year, one county rep announced.
Currently, the path at 1008 East-West Hwy (below) is just an alley dissecting a thick city block in South Silver Spring, Rick Nelson, director of the county’s department of housing and community affairs, told county council members Monday. Neighborhood businesses had been using it for parking during construction of The Veridian’s semi-public garage off East-West Highway.
Now that The Veridian’s garage is open for business, the county is ready to roll on the planned path, Nelson said. The department of general services has already requested a demolition permit to wipe out a building in the path’s way, he said.
The planned path is another piece of the hood’s larger pedestrian plan, designed to smash large city blocks into manageable, pedestrian-friendly pieces. (Think peanut brittle. I know I am.) That plan includes the already-buff Arts Alley, linking Georgia Avenue and the new Blair Mill Way. There’s also a sidewalk lining the Eastern Avenue entrance to the Kennett Street garage that gives pedestrians a way to cut through that block.
Designs on the new path drop this spring, with construction starting late in the summer or in early fall. According to a county council memo, the path is a vehicular and pedestrian link with a budget of $680,000.
Photo of an alley courtesy of Flickr user Roomic Cube.
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