ThayerAvenue.com

Thayer Avenue Bungalows

Another vacant lot rears its ugly head on Thayer Ave. The 1920s bungalows are gone – demolished, it would appear, in the dead of night. It only took a day to take everything down and another to haul it away. I would liked to have scavanged the places for extra floorboards and fixtures, but I understand everything was trashed. What a shame. It all probably stank of urine and feces anyway, considering the transients living there for the past few weeks.

Truthfully, I feel they were really out of place in what is predominantly a commercial district. Yes they were nice. One might even say “historic.” (I recommend listening to Eddie Izzard’s diatribe about Americans and our history – go to the 2:56 mark in the video.) But I think zoning dictates that the density of the property could be increased a little. And once the Safeway gets redone, it’ll add a little much-needed panache to the area.

Speaking of Raping the Community…
Did anyone else notice that Chevy Chase has increased their ATM fees to $3.00 per transaction? What a gyp. I use a non-local financial institution and do all my banking online, and while I get reimbursed for ATM fees because I don’t have a local bank, I think this is still a racket. And since my bank is one of the best in the country, there’s no way I’m switching over to some hack-job, Ben-Franklin-touting rip off. I recommend you go someplace else to withdraw your money. If you can get your hands on a Credit Union, so much the better.

In Other News…
My wife spent quite some time yesterday going around the stores in Silver Spring looking for black pantyhose for a Christmas party last night – all to no avail. Her thought was: “What do all the professional women in Silver Spring do when they need a pantyhose fix? I know it’s got to happen. Where do they go?” She even broke down and went to Shitty Place. Granted, she said she couldn’t bring herself to go in the trashy little teeny bopper stores (where she might have found something as pictured – not that I would have minded), and her excursion into Burlington Coat Factory left her feeling creeped out and in need of a shower, but she was wondering if anyone had any intel on the situation. And she wanted to give a shout out to her peeps at places like Ann Taylor to pick up the slack.

Merry Christmas, everybody!
I hope you get that one-year membership to the Jelly of the Month Club. After all, it’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.

I could take out 23 of the little bastards before they took me down.

23

Try for yourself:
http://www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com

A trip up Rockville Pike this weekend revealed a new area near Nicholson Lane: NoBe (North Bethesda). And I saw additional North Bethesda/Bethesda North development signs as far North as Randolph Road. It’s ROCKVILLE, people. This is ridiculous. I guess they figure they can charge more if they put “Bethesda” in the title. NoBe has got to be a JoKe. I fully expect additional useful terms to come out of this.

In other news:
Congratulations to Jerry McCoy and all the people involved in getting historic status furthered for Falkland Chase. Nice win – and I hope the County will make it official.

This site would not be half what it is today without the people that comment and contribute. This is a prime case in point, and a venture back to our eponymous roots.

The earlier post about the history of William Thayer (and that awesome Thayer’s Quest game) seemed to strike a chord with some people. Rhona, our newly-obsessed Thayer historian (and the bug has spread to our house, thanks to her), trekked through a brisk late-autumn day to find William Thayer’s tombstone at Rock Creek Cemetery. I am now determined to have a shin dig in honor of either his death or his birth. Either way, many thanks to Rhona for all her work.

We’ll have more posts to come about the Thayer family and its history, but for now, I leave you with an excerpt from a Washington Post article dated August 24, 1893:

The will of William M. Thayer, filed yesterday, bequeaths one third of all his real estate holdings to his wife, Julia Thayer, in lein of dower. The remaining real estate located in the District of Columbia is to be divided equally between Nathanial Thayer, Caroline Thayer Manning, and David Halcheson (? – bad print – unsure of last name). The remainder of the real estate, located in Montgomery County, is to be divided equally between the above-named heirs and Lucius W. Thayer and Mary Thayer Jones, the sixth apportioned to Nathaniel and Elenor Thayer to be held in trust for their children.

For the record, the middle name “Melanchthon” comes from the Lutheran theologan Philipp Melanchthon, a key leader of the Lutheran Reformation. I can almost imagine Philipp standing next to Martin Luther, nailing the note to the church door saying, “Hang on a minute.” But I guess it was in German, so it would really be “Ein minuten, bitte.” Or something like that.