State turns Glenmont history into piñata as it demolishes 1953 fire station

By Sonny Goldreich

The State Highway Administration knocked down a big piece of Glenmont history today, as a crew demolished the clock tower at the fire station that protected the north Silver Spring neighborhood since 1953

Making room for a road interchange, a worker operating a Hitachi excavator tractor treated station #18 (formerly Kensington Volunteer Fire Department No. 18) like a piñata, repeatedly poking and prodding its 40-foot tower with a steel beam until it toppled.

“I was in that tower many times to stretch the fire hoses to dry them,” said Richard Bourque, a former cadet at the station.

The demolition is part of a $74.8-million project to build a traffic bypass around Glenmont, where Randolph Road will run beneath Georgia Avenue. The knockdown of the old station will be followed by the start of construction of a new $14.8 million station in the fall across Georgia at the southwest corner of the intersection with Randolph. The 19,150-square-foot structure will be about three times the size of the old one, which cost $93,000 to build, including $18,000 for the land.

When the station opened, community leaders staged a parade that drew more than 1,000 visitors.

Now, Bourque stood alone in the hot morning sun, snapping pictures as the building fell away, brick by brick. He hoped to recover a couple of those bricks in honor of his late brother, Donald Bourque, who also started at the station as a cadet and rose to fire chief of the Kensington volunteer department during a 30-year career.

"She was built to last," Bourque said, as the tractor grabbed the steel beam to take another whack at the tower.

There was a feeble attempt to preserve the old station under the process of writing the new 2013 Glenmont Sector Plan, which is designed to bring higher-density development to the 300 acres surrounding the last subway station on the Metro Red Line. Montgomery’s Historic Preservation Commission recommended saving the structure, which was the northernmost county facility when it was built.

But the station was doomed by the state highway paving imperative and the Planning Board denied it historic protection. Now all that will remain of the structure is an original architectural model on display at the county fire and rescue training academy in Rockville.

Station #18 relocated temporarily in April to the Grandview Avenue site of the former Wheaton Fire and Rescue Station, which moved to a new, $14 million station less than a mile south of the Glenmont station. The Wheaton station is 29,000 square feet and includes 7,400 square feet for a community room and kitchen on the upper floor.

The county fire department will take ownership of the new Glenmont station, which allowed it to qualify for $4 million in federal funding.

The county has chosen a colonial design with peaked roof lines for the new Glenmont station, echoing the old one. Planners rejected modern-looking options that featured flat or asymmetrical roof lines.

Plans call for four vehicle bays, which is twice the number of the old facility. The station will sit at the location of the former Glenmont Elementary School, which was leveled as part of the state interchange project.

Hughes Group Architects, based in Sterling, Va., designed both the new Glenmont and Wheaton stations.