The New Felpin's Pond: September 2013

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Rockville, MD-How it changed over time.

Rockville, MD. is in Montgomery County, a prosperous suburb of Washington, D.C. Rockville is far enough away from downtown D.C (15 miles) that till recently, farmland still existed in it's environs.

Rockville was chosen as county seat of Montgomery County in 1777, but it didn't get the name of Rockville (Derived from Rock Creek) till 1801. In the 1800's it was a small town, but by WWII had become a small suburban city.

1803

Since WWII , Montgomery County has been quite a rich county, largely recession proof due to it's proximity to the federal government and it's well educated workforce that comes from all over the country and the world. Partly due to the availability of sections of undeveloped or partly undeveloped land in most of the county, there has been a constant flow of development and redevelopment all through out the post war period. Thus, many of the streets, plots, buildings, highways, in Rockville have all been redeveloped since I first moved there in 1972. I moved there from a residential district in Northwest Washington D.C.called Chevy Chase. I lived in Chevy Chase in the 1960's.

Rockville appears in the movie 1964 movie Lilith. It's a 1964 movie starring Warren Beatty that was partly filmed in the town of Rockville, MD . Right away I was struck about how much at changed in 50 years since the movie, and all at various times. To start with the mental hospital (Chestnut Lodge) , that was depicted (but not shown) in the movie, has been closed (apparently the main lodge burned down) and the land turned into a housing development.

But ,The Rockville of 1960's is nearly almost un-findable today, They blew up the downtown to build the Rockville Mall in the early 1970's and the renovated the mall a couple times before demolishing it. In recent years they restored some of the streets that were taken away to build the mall.

In recent years the main library was rebuilt, , the main shopping strip on Rockville Pike has been redeveloped constantly. The main highway through Rockville, was widened to become a 12 lane parking lot. One of the main roads into town, Montrose Road was redirected in the 1990's. Another road, the Wootton Parkway was slowly built as sort of a town beltway. Most of the open land around the town has been developed.