Glen Echo’s Art Deco Arcade

Beginning in 1940, Glen Echo Park added a new Art Deco arcade designed by the Philadelphia firm of Edward Schoeppe, chief architect of the Crystal Pool and Spanish Ballroom, and constructed in stages from 1940 to 1958. Its new entrance, built in 1940, greeted trolley passengers with an 11-foot-high green neon Glen Echo Park sign supported by 48-foot pylons. The new arcade replaced an older castle-styled one and its storefront housed Hamburger Haven, the shooting gallery, Skee Ball alleys, the Sportsland penny arcade, and an archery range. Skee Ball had first come to the park in 1915 and remained popular, while the penny arcade, originally called Pennyland, opened in 1925 and soon featured 98 amusements including mutascopes, pinball, and fortune telling machines. The arcade was built to contain the park’s administrative offices and many refreshment vendors offering cotton candy, popcorn, sodas, candied apples, ice cream, beer, and barbecue. Arcade stands also sold popcorn, creamy whip, and sandwiches, while sit-down service was available at the Concourse Cafe and the Roof Garden Cafe on the second-floor terrace overlooking the park. The shooting gallery, popular from the park’s earliest days, featured moving steel targets and a pond of moving duck targets shot at with real rifles and live ammunition. A 6.5 million dollar renovation and rebuilding project to repair years of deferred maintenance began in 2002 and was completed in the summer of 2006, with funding from the Federal Government, the State of Maryland, and Montgomery County, and the complex was to house The Puppet Co., Adventure Theatre, Photoworks, glass blowing, administrative offices, galleries, art studios, and general classrooms.

Glen Echo, Maryland · United States