B&O Railroad Station Restoration

Every time I look at the B&O railroad station, I get mad all over again at some of the work that was done in the name of restoration. If there was anything that I learned while serving 16 years on the Sykesville Historic District Commission, it was that proper restoration is also sensitive to changes or additions made to a building over it's long history. The  "restoration" of the B&O station removed 3 chimneys, and cut a new entrance hole in the South wall similar to the 1830 building. The chimneys, as well as most of the multi-paned windows were not original to the 1830 structure, but were added about 1870. Thankfully, the windows were not changed.
Don't even get me started on that stockade fence.

My Old Buddy, Gary Robertson

Some of you may still remember another artist that worked in the old section of town. Gary was a great artist, mostly working in pen and ink, acrylics, and watercolors, and selling them in his gallery on Main Street. He collected primitive furniture, crockery, and the like and incorporated them into his paintings.
Gary contacted me recently, and he's returning to the area for a visit. So if you see 2 distinguished looking men walking up and down Main Street, graying, and bent over, and having the time of their lives, it'll most likely be us.

Fog in the Valley

On mornings like this, with fog rolling into the Patapsco river valley, I miss living in old Ellicott City the most. A lot of years have passed, since I lived there, but it still remains the place that I've lived the longest. On foggy mornings like this, I can still imagine the lonely train horns echoing through the valley, hear the rustling river, see the moisture in the air, and the persistent green of the vegetation. I can still hear them where I live now, upriver in Sykesville, but it's just not quite as picturesque.

Chez Fernand to Tersiguel's

Fernand Tersiguel and his wife Odette opened the "Chez Fernand" French Restaurant in the mid 1970's. The second floor, where the restaurant operated was earlier known as "Libertini's Italian Restaurant. Before that, it was where Ken Olin originally opened his "Olin's Art Shop" before it moved just up the street.
Fernand was a very friendly fellow, and Odette a great cook, and it was not long before the restaurant was the most successful restaurant around. After getting to know Fernand and seeing some photos of their hometown area in Brittany, France. I came upon the idea of doing a series of oil paintings for him to hang in the restaurant. After selling him a few paintings, and mostly spending the money to take girlfriends there, we came upon an arrangement whereby after finishing a painting, and hanging it, I could just go to dinner and sign the check. A good arrangement for us both, he got the paintings, and I got to impress my girlfriends.
Sadly, in 1985, I received a telephone from Claudia, the girlfriend that I was to marry that year, telling me that Chez Fernand had burned down, and with it, all of the paintings, about 20 in all.
Just 2 weeks earlier, Claudia had been to the restaurant, and photographed the paintings.
After this tragedy, Fernand and Odette relocated their restaurant to Baltimore, for which I did another series of oil paintings of France. They must have missed the old town and it's people, for later, they sold the city location and returned to Ellicott City to the building where they now are, and re-named the restaurant "Tersiguel's.
When they reopened, we framed Claudia's photos of the destroyed paintings that hung in the original restaurant, and presented it to them as a gift. It now hangs in the "Memories" room.
I also re-created some of the paintings for the new restaurant, along with most of the framing that hangs throughout the restaurant, including all of the Tersiguel family photos.
Fernand and Odette's son Michel now runs the restaurant, and is giving it a new life that will remain long into the 21st century.

All in the Life of One Building

One building... My first memory of it was when it was known as Rock Hill Liquors, owned by the Zito brothers.

• 1960's - As a child, I bought ice cream, candy, and potato chips there.
• 1970's - Being older, I purchased beer there.
• Later 1970's, I visited there to sell my paintings of the old town to Preston Pairo, in his law office.
• 1980's - 1990's - I visited there to pick up and deliver framed artwork to the Margaret Smith Gallery.

The building, like many during the current economic depression is empty. I wonder what use is coming, and if there will be a reason for me to go there?

Crazy for "Forts"

It does seem that children need a feeling of security, of place. Cowboys, Spacemen, and Monsters always need a fort, a base of operations. We always liked to find secluded hiding places, or secret places of any kind. One of the favorites was between Main Street and Church Road. There is a fence line along which a long line of forsythias bushes grow. As forsythia grow, the branches arch over creating an umbrella effect. Planted along a fence line this becomes a tunnel. Such was the one that we played under.
Large outcroppings of granite boulders created hidden areas, hiding us from our imagined enemies. Sometimes, it was just a hand-dug hole in the ground, covered with sticks and leaves. Or a large broken tree limb that led up into a large tree. Or "found" building materials such as plywood, or house siding.
Once the base fort was established, and there were several, we would wage war on the other forts, carrying off parts of the other fortifications to reinforce our own.
Sometime around 1961, we had the best series of forts ever, when it snowed persistently through the Winter. On the playground of the Ellicott City Elementary School, we all built huge igloo styled forts with protective walls and areas for the manufacture, storage, and launching of snowballs. I recall with some fogginess, that this was encouraged by the school teachers, perhaps in an effort to use up some of the energy that we were all so full of every day.
Yes, we were all crazy about building forts in those days.

"Pop" Hill

One of the characters that I was fascinated by as a child was "Pop" Hill. Pop was always mixing cement in a trough, always building walls. He would build wooden forms, mix and pour cement into the forms, and throw in some rocks. He was building cement retaining walls to hold back the hillsides behind his properties on lower Main Street. Along this area there is a lot of decomposed granite, and it's always being washed down the hillsides. It seemed like every day, there he was, in his 60's, carrying 40 lb. sacks of concrete mix up 50 stairs, to the top where the work was going on. I don't know what Pop's background was, and I don't know where he learned to build, but he could take abandoned shipping pallets, some angle iron, some cement and build a building. I know this first hand, because after watching him build all those walls in the early 1960's, I was later employed rebuilding some of the buildings he had built earlier. We constantly found pieces of shipping crates and pallets used to build interior walls. He in many ways the original re-cycler, must have been learned it by living through the Great Depression.
Now, I find myself, nearing my '60s, building retaining walls for my own property, wonder where I got that from...

The Rock

Ellicott City is built of granite, on granite. Large stone outcroppings are everywhere. Most of the ones along Main Street were blasted away long ago, but one remains. The "Rock", that's all we called it. I understand it was earlier known as Powell's Rock, although I don't know the story behind the name. In a more innocent time, we used to sit up there, and think no one could see us or know we were there, and watch the world go by. It is a little hard to climb, but once you get used to it, it is hard to resist. Once you have climbed up, there is a nice level place to sit. To get down, you sit on your behind and slide.
After some of us grew older, we still liked to sit on the "Rock" but being older, some of us were boisterous, and called out to people and poked fun at them, from our protected position. This eventually led to a time when the local police would try to keep everyone off of the Rock.
I think next time I'm in town, I'm gonna get a little time to myself up on the "Rock".

Mom and Pop Hill's Boarding House

"Mom and Pop" Hill owned a few properties on the lower end of Main Street. One of them was a "Boarding House" where a gentleman could rent a room by the week. The sign used to say "Rooms to Let". They also provided a small room for the men to eat in, and a cook for them, named Susie. Local kids used to call it "Susie's Kitchen", because that's all there was, just Susie in her little 2 room kitchen. Susie was quick to supply some hot buttered toast to the hungry waifs that would visit her, sometimes just for the warmth of her generous smile. Some days, when it was cold, she kept the toaster going all morning supplying us with toast. And sometimes there was also hot chocolate.
I got so sentimental while writing this, that I had to rush off and have some hot buttered toast and hot chocolate in honor of Susie. Ok, I'm back now. So Susie, thank you, with your wide smile, and generous nature, you were sometimes the only bright spot in endless days of empty stomachs.

Removing the old Streetcar Tracks

The #9 streetcar originally went from Catonsville to Ellicott City, and turned around at Fel's Avenue next to the old fire station for the return trip. It was perhaps 1966, maybe a little earlier, when the old streetcar tracks were removed as part of a new Main Street paving project. Much of the town's character was lost that week. Ripped out were the streetcar tracks, cobblestones, granite curbstones, granite drain blocks and much more. Already gone was the streetcar, gone was the bumpy ride, gone the shiny rails of steel. Smooth asphalt was the new excitement, finally a smooth ride through the old town. They didn't make the narrow streets any wider, it's still a narrow street, and it is said: "If you can drive through old Ellicott City, you can drive anywhere".
As I said before, much of the town's character was lost that week, but amazingly, the town has lost much of it's character throughout its long history, and still, it remains one of the most interesting places anywhere.

Mile Markers Along Frederick Road

When Frederick Road was built, granite "mile markers" were placed along the side of the road marking the miles to Baltimore. These markers, along with the "Seven Hills", "Tiber River", and "Castle Angelo" are yet another bit of history in the old town inspired by ancient Rome. I often wonder, who was involved in the early planning of the old town that was so moved by the history of ancient Rome and went on to use so many references to it.
I have often wanted to do a photographic survey of the remaining markers, but have never found the time. In my lifetime, several of them have disappeared, most notably, the one under the Oliver Viaduct railroad bridge at the foot of Main Street.