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 until 1958. Its new entrance, built in 1940, greeted trolley riders with an 11-foot-high green neon Glen Echo Park sign supported by 48-foot pylons. The arcade replaced an older castle-styled structure and included Hamburger Haven, a shooting gallery, Skee Ball alleys, the Sportsland penny arcade, and an archery range. Skee Ball had been introduced 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 building also housed administrative offices and many refreshment vendors, offering cotton candy, popcorn, sodas, candied apples, ice cream, beer, and barbecue. Arcade stands 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. Kewpie dolls, first appearing in 1912, were a common prize, especially in the 1920s, and the shooting gallery remained a popular attraction, with moving steel targets and a pond of moving duck targets shot at with real rifles and live ammunition. After years of deferred maintenance, a $6.5 million renovation and rebuilding project began in 2002 and was completed in the summer of 2006, with funding from the Federal Government, the State of Maryland, and Montgomery County; the complex was then intended to house The Puppet Co., Adventure Theatre, Photoworks, glass blowing, administrative offices, galleries, art studios, and general classrooms.
