Monday, 7/7/03: Roundup of Recent Developments and De-Developments

As Tony Hawk glided with tricky steps and a total, subconscious awareness of momentum and gravity across the surface of a temporary halfpipe to execute a 540 Ollie two weeks ago, and as a crowd packed tightly into the available space on a closed Georgia Avenue erupted in cheers at the sight, Silver Spring had never seemed so much like a real city. Youngsters, who have learned skateboarding as much from Tony Hawk's instructional videos as from anything else, were out in full force, perched on shoulders, hanging off the sides of temporary bleachers, trying to angle and squirm their way to the front of the crowd. Middle-aged people had come out to take a look at this idol of the youngsters as well, with that idle curiosity that a sunny, warm-but-not-hot day and a nearby diversion brings out in all who remain human. Much of the crowd had waited an hour or more for the start of the festivities (I had been waiting for an hour and a quarter, amusedly listening to the Hot Party Sounds of Hot 99.5 being pumped over pipeside loudspeakers), but they had waited; at this late point in the demonstration we were getting exactly what they wanted, and we were all in together for the satisfaction.

Tony Hawk (both the name and surname alone seem insufficient) was in town thanks to SilverDocs, the festival of documentary films presented at the AFI Silver and mostly sponsored by the neighboring Discovery Channel. Earlier in the weekend, the estimable Robert Kahn and I had seen NFL Films head honcho Steve Sabol discussing various examples of his work in the Art Deco main auditorium, after which we were all treated to a free tailgate barbecue (with free beer - there's no better way to rationalize the price of a movie ticket than drinking its value in free beer!). But today was Sunday, June 22, the last day of the festival, and it was time to close down the busiest one-block stretch of roadway in Silver Spring (Georgia Avenue between Colesville Road and Wayne Avenue) and throw us all a party. Tony Hawk, having been featured in a documentary on his Boom Boom HuckJam skateboarding tour, was a natural attraction.

A somewhat off-topic note: Skateboarding has never held much appeal for me, either in practice (my sense of balance is not the greatest) or in televised tournaments on ESPN2, which I find blisteringly boring. But seeing it live exploded my perception of the sport as 10 percent skill and 90 percent attitude. That stuff is hard to do, and when it's done right it's thrilling to watch; I can't imagine the satisfaction that must come from doing it right yourself. Lincoln Ojeda ("from Brazil," as the MC repeatedly reminded us) routinely skied at least eight feet above the lip of the halfpipe, hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity, and then somehow found (or remembered) where the halfpipe surface was well enough to touch down at high speed. But he and the other skaters were pikers compared to Tony Hawk, who even to these untutored eyes displayed astonishing control and grace when executing his maneuvers; on videotape or DVD, his easy precision must make enthusiasts exclaim, "Yes, I can see how to do that." I stayed for the entire hour of skateboarding and never found it tiresome. I'm not going to start watching it on ESPN2, though; the physicality of the endeavor is completely lost on a 25-inch screen.

Almost as fun as watching the Hawkites do their thing was just wandering around and watching people wander around. After the concert, the Combo Ocho, which seems to get hired often by Silver Spring to play municipal concerts, was playing a lively set; some people were dancing on the hot blacktop to the salsa. There were food booths set up, with lines befitting a street festival; I've never seen so much interest in Manny & Olga's pizza before in my life. The Discovery building was open to the public, which mainly meant that we could all see a cool machine full of wacky mechanisms to transport brightly colored rubber balls from…well, somewhere to somewhere; the journey is the destination in these kinds of machines. Various other tents pitched Discovery shows and networks; a small, assured woman from Animal Planet draped a huge snake across her shoulders and answered all questions patiently, and at another tent I entered my sister to win an enormous basket of Trading Spaces promotional crap. Bonhomie ruled; the mood was appropriately festive, on a beautiful day with interesting stuff to see and do and explore, and as diverse a crowd as I've ever seen in any Silver Spring public space was enjoying itself.

As I walked back to my apartment, however, my mood failed me a bit, because I remembered that the Silver Spring Bowl America — two blocks from my apartment — is closing. One day, just like that, signs were up saying that only vendors would have access to the facility. No explanation, no elaboration. It took all my investigative prowess to type "Silver Spring Bowl America closing" into Google and come up with this article, in which Bowl America president Leslie Goldberg says that the reason is not that they do not anticipate that Silver Spring's new, more affluent crowd will want sushi instead of bowling, or that the owners of the building can see bigger profits to be made by putting up a soulless, unuseful office complex (the owners are Bowl America), but that old standby: "We weren't making any money there." I would have spent dozens and dozens of dollars there were it not for the fact that my tendonitis tends to make bowling more than two games at once extremely uncomfortable, and I was thinking of holding my wedding there if I had a fiance whose spirit was truly aligned with mine, but oh well. Can't really argue with unprofitability as a reason to close a business.

So perhaps this loss can't be traced to gentrification, but nevertheless, it hurts. Right now, Silver Spring needs something in addition to restaurants and movie theaters (we'll soon have 20 additional screens on top of the AFI Silver's 3 and AMC City Place's 10) for people to do in the evenings. There's the Mayorga Coffee Factory, which serves beer and wine and sandwiches in addition to the titular beverage, occasionally hosts jazz concerts, and generally provides a pleasant place to haunt, although it either needs more people or needs to close off some of its space so its present patrons don't rattle around in there. There's the Quarry House, with authentic eternal-tobacco smell and plastic-wood furnishings, not to mention impressive burgers and interesting beers. The Half Moon BBQ holds concerts, serves some nice pulled pork and ribs, and has Pilsener Urquell on tap, the last of which is a big draw for yours truly. But we need a sports bar, and beyond that we need nonalcoholic nighttime diversions too. Bowl America could have done that for a newly vibrant downtown if it could have stuck it out. We'll see if something comes to take its place.

One other thing: here's an article on the residential redevelopment of the area south of the Metro bridge, near Mayorga. I have not much to add except that it's very important that this goes well for the future health of the city, since that area is wide-open for further commercial development but such development needs some reason to exist; the fact that tax breaks are encouraging development of moderate-income housing is an extremely good sign; and if I'm still in the area, I'll definitely think about moving down there when they get the remodeled Gramax Heliport open just so I can say "I live in the Gramax Heliport building." (Plus it's way closer to Morris Miller Liquor in DC! Screw the Montgomery County liquor law regime!)

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