As I walked up the street with bagel and coffee in hand to my office, I caught this decal of sorts out of the corner of my eye. It’s affixed rather high up to the International Union of Operating Engineers building on 17th Street NW.
Yesterday, a co-worker told me about a new Google Maps feature: Street View. Apparently, it’s only available for a few select cities San Francisco and parts of New York City. (Please, correct me if I’m wrong.)
Out of curiosity, I decided to check it out. Much to my surprise, some major streets in the Bronx — my hometown — were included. What really freaked me out, though, was seeing the apartment building I grew up in; my mother still lives there.
It’s a nifty feature to use, and I’m curious to see what other features Google will develop for it’s map application. This one was rather unexpected for me, though.
M Street NW between 17th and 18th streets.
I’ve always appreciated then and now photos: two photos taken in the exact same location at two very different points in time (usually the difference of many years). It’s a great way to see how things change and/or stay the same.
The left image was taken about two blocks away from my house in 1961; the image on the right was taken today by me. The buildings are still there. Some trees grew. And the streetcars are out of commission.
The new facade of the school. My god, how things have changed!
Many, many moons ago, R.E.M. advised, in song, “Don’t Go Back to Rockville.” I’m going against their wishes on Saturday… sort of. I graduated from Rockville High School in 1996, and I haven’t set foot on the campus–I think–since 1999.
Saturday is the 37th Annual National Capital Area Scottish Festival (insert gratuitous plug here), and the show returns to RHS for the first time since 2002. Renovation of the school, after repeated delays, finally commenced that summer, and was (mostly) completed last fall.
So how is it I’m “sort of” disobeying R.E.M.? Take a gander at this:
This map–which isn’t to scale–shows the arrangement of the RHS campus’ buildings during my tenure there. There were four buildings–well, technically three–upon my arrival in 1992, each labeled as a wing. A Wing housed the auditorium, the music classroom suite, the art classroom suite, and the main gym and athletic suite; B Wing had the cafeteria and the admin offices; C Wing was the vocational wing, with a wood shop and a computer lab; D Wing was all classrooms with movable walls, and was openly connected to B Wing. An additional building, the auxilliary gymnasium, was added in 1994, and was connected to A Wing.
Needless to say, if someone told you to get lost, that would be incredibly easy. All you’d have to do was turn the corner and you’d have no idea where the hell you were.
Here’s what the school looks like today:
Quite a difference, eh? The gyms and the auditorium are in the same place, but everything else has shifted a lot. I’m actually looking forward to seeing the new structure on Saturday, even though I miss the former version. The big disappointment for me, though, is that just before the renovation began, the school held an open house for alumni to get one last look at the building before it got ripped to pieces. I missed out on that as I didn’t find out about it until after it happened.
At least I have my yearbooks, but it’s not like they’re digests of the school’s architecture. Incidentally, I’ve become rather nostalgic about my high school years recently, but that’s a different entry. Photos to come on Sunday (hopefully).
