Thanks for the delightful event you were kind enough to hold on Sunday at the Silver. It was good to celebrate the Silver’s 75th as well as what you have accomplished over the past 10 years since the theatre’s new beginning as the AFI Silver. We came so very close--far closer than people realize--to losing it all.
The Silver was a part of the dominant KB theater chain in the DC region. Fred Burka (the “B” of KB), by 1984, wanted to close the theater and sell the property for development. Fred optioned the theater and shopping center property to Kaempfer Company, a large regional development company run by Joey Kaempfer. Rick Striner, head of the region’s Art Deco Society, and colleagues were working hard at the time to have the theater and shopping center designated as historic on the County’s master plan. A hearing to consider the question was scheduled for September 5, 1984.
On Friday afternoon, August 24, Kaempfer quietly sent in a crew to commence demolition of the buildings--in particular, they were instructed to rip out the art deco features: the colored tiles, grillwork, glasswork, doors, the Silver’s signage and signal chimney, etc. On that late August date, many key people in authority were away--the County Executive, County Attorney, Planning Board Chairman, Councilmembers. I received a frantic call of what was happening. I and a few others moved quickly on several fronts. Bottom line--on Monday, August 27, the County issued a Stop Work Order on the demolition. In short, what came to be called the Silver Spring War began on that August 24.
Kaempfer shortly later left the scene and was replaced by Lloyd Moore of Annapolis. Fred and Lloyd made clear to me and everyone they met with that the only way to “save” Silver Spring was to demolish these not-so-old, ugly, abandoned buildings and begin anew. Many people in the community and County government (including the County Executive elected in 1986, a politician from Silver Spring, as well as a majority of the County Council and Planning Board) agreed--tear it down and start over. Hence began the tortuous struggle, complete with litigation and political upheaval, of the ‘80s and early ‘90s. In the end, we wrote a new Plan for the downtown (adopted in ’93), designated (protected) the theater and shopping center, and Lloyd was pressured to go through a mediation (which I honchoed) that led to the compromise from what he and Fred really wanted to do.
Taking potential developers through the trashed theater (closed in ’85 by Fred) was a grim exercise in those early ‘90s. No one was interested in the place. Thinking of the possible interest of the AFI down at the Kennedy Center was literally an idea of last resort; I was out of options. And as Ray [ed.: Ray Barry, Director, AFI Silver] knows so well, and painfully I’m sure, even that wasn’t so easy to do. But you and AFI and the County did it. 2003 was indeed a great year.
It’s hard for people who see the Silver Spring of 2013 to imagine what it was like in 1983 and 1993. And to understand that what they see and experience today was not at all inevitable. Not by a long shot.
--Gus Bauman
gamechangershow
vaporwave
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
prguitarman
kianamaiart
romaincrisis