[RP TownTalk] ERCO buildings

[Jeffrey Yorke]

The Aviation Avenue, if you will, began in with the Wright Brother's
$25,000 contract with the US Army (not unlike the one Brooks Brothers had
for uniforms, or LLBean for boots) to teach servicemen to "fly". The
brothers won the contract at Fort Belvoir and located a flat field adjacent
to rail tracks near the Maryland Agricultural College, now UMD. College
Park Airport was, until Sept. 11, "the world's oldest continuously operated
airport." The first aviation death happend there -- Cpl. Frank Scott (the
"Drive" is named for him), the first female to fly ever happened there, the
first airborne machine gun was fired over that airport, and the airport was
the the second half of the first US Air Mail flight that began with a
takeoff on the National Mall with a bag of letters that landed in College
Park.

As a youngster before the start of World War I, Paul Garber would ride his
bicycle from his home in College Park to the airport after school and chat
with the Wright Brothers as they worked on planes and with Army personnel.
The chats spawned his life-long interest in aviation and he played a key
role in the creation of the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum. The museum's
preservation, restoration and storage facility in Temple Hills is named for
him.

The late "Hyattsville fly boy" and radio personality Walt Starling, flew
more than 2 million miles over more than 20 years, starting his day with a
sunrise take-off from College Park and circling the outer reaches of the
Metropolitan area first, closing in on the most-downtown part of the city
by 10 am. He then made client calls or took friends to the Calvert House
Restaurant (he was a part-owner for many years) for lunch, then back to the
airport at 3:30 pm for three-and-a-half hours of evening rush from above it
all. For a brief time, Starling also held the lease on the airport's repair
facility at the end of the runway. Over his career, Starling was heard on
WAVA-AM/FM, WASH-FM, WPGC-AM/FM, WLTT-FM and WARW-FM.

While aviation may have been born in Kitty Hawk, NC on Dec. 3, 1903, it
grew up in College Park and Riverdale Park, Md.



On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Aaron Marcavitch <acornhp at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Indeed - as we say, the entire span of human flight is between Bladensburg
> (first unmanned balloon launch in US) and Greenbelt (Goddard was the first
> "Houston"). Kenilworth ave should be Aviation Blvd.
>
> I have a back channel note about the fate of ERCo (not good) which I am
> following up.
>
> Aaron Marcavitch
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Feb 12, 2012, at 10:20 AM, Euniverz at aol.com wrote:
>
>  It's a surprise to see how many air fields there were in this area in the
> infancy of aviation.  The history of airflight and this area is fascinating
> even for non-aviation buffs.
>
>
> Adrianne Lefkowitz
> Madison Street
>
>
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>


-- 
Jeffrey Yorke
Yorke Property Management, Inc.
Yorke Partners
Jeffrey at YorkeRents.com
301-502-1243
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