DC TRANSIT SNOW SWEEPER MAKES SWEET DREAMS

Happy New Year!  I've always wanted to paint a  streetcar snow sweeper and this one is broken down as the white stuff melts.

"DC Transit Snow Sweeper" oil on canvas ( 14" x 24") 2016

I love this Washington, D.C. intersection where New York Avenue, 13th St. and H Street meet. The building in the right background is now the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

I have a friend named Mike who grew up in DC and he says about that building,
"when I was a kid, it was the Town Theatre where I would occasionally go to see a movie.  It's one of those old buildings city planners targeted for demolition and replacement before mayor-for-life Barry got his historic building preservation legislation passed."

This intersection is close to where I frequently bought art supplies at the former Utrecht Linens at 13th & I st NW. When Utrecht opened in Baltimore I quit traveling to DC so much. But I have fond memories of that neighborhood. Fourteenth St. was still in business with a few "men's entertainment arcades." There was a bus station that  later had to make way for the Verizon Center construction. And parking all day was $7 on a gravel lot over on I street. From there I could walk to the mall for some great art exhibitions or just hang around to watch the life on the streets of NW DC. I was particularly fond of the area around the National Portrait Gallery. There were still small shops, stereo and liquor stores that were in their last days of existence. Those drowsy days of DC were indeed being swept away.

Glen Echo - DC Transit Attraction

"DC Transit Glen Echo" oil on canvas (30 x 40) 2014

The ads for Glen Echo which aired during the Captain Tugg show on WTTG-tv channel 5 were as close as I got to this Washington, DC area amusement park. Our parents said it was too far away and besides, we had Baltimore's Gwynn Oak Amusement Park. Well we missed a lot never having visited this splendid playground. It had classier attractions than Gwynn Oak including a  sparkling swimming pool about which I fantasized. So I can visit the park these days in my imagination looking at one of my latest paintings. I can almost hear the streetcar door open and close while the riders are screaming with glee on the big wooden roller coaster.

Like many electric parks Glen Echo gave a welcome boost to streetcar ridership on the weekends. I discovered this clipping in a DC Transit Brochure that I have in my collection. You are encouraged to "take the Number 20 car marked Cabin John anywhere along Pennsylvania Avenue west of Peace Monument" in order to get to Glen Echo. The former PCC operators of this line like to reminisce about hurtling along the streetcar tracks over the  Cabin John Bridge at the nearly top speed of 65 m.p.h.  What a great story they tell.

The park has been preserved in many ways. There are dances on weekends and an active arts organization with exhibits among the range of interests. The streetcar is also memorialized there but no tracks to fly over the Cabin John Bridge exist anymore.

Ding Ding