The Chestertown landscape is rapidly changing. Fabulous pieces of public art are popping up and old buildings are flopping down. And while the preservationist fuddy-duddies were wringing their hands and filing objections about The Armory, 98 Cannon and the poor soul who got run out of town just because he wanted to build a home on an abandoned coal yard — a pretty looking house, mind you — while all this purposeless flailing and wailing was underway, two of the town’s architectural treasures were lost to the wrecking machines.
First to go: the darling little muffin of a structure on Washington Avenue we knew as Rita’s. Once touted by Southern Living magazine as “the most relevant art deco ice cream shop in the mid-Atlantic states,” Rita’s was a priceless piece of the town. Architectural Digest called it “the jewel box of The Chesapeake Region.” Southern Living went on to list it among its “10 Most Charming Roadside Attractions in Delmarva.” Or was it Garden and Gun? I don’t remember, but it was one of those high-brow influencers.
And now Ritas’s has been replaced by the House of Tyvek. I heard it was going to be a Starbuck’s. Wow. In this forgotten crevice of the Shore? Starbucks and the seventeen-dollar tall latte? What’s next? Nordstrom’s?
Then we have No. 2 on my list of toppled historic treasures, the biggie on High: The Pickle Factory.
Most recently housing Dixon Valve, the Pickle Factory, unlike the more recently constructed Armory, had stood for centuries, once brining billions of cucumbers and canning tons of herring and employing generations of diligent Chestertonians. If you didn’t work at Vita Foods or Dixon at one point in your life, you were nobody.
And now that handsome monument to Chestertown’s enterprising past is just rubble, being pulverized into pea-size bits of concrete. The once bustling property looks like a Bakhmut apartment block after a Russian drone strike.
To become what? Who knows. I heard the Ravens are eyeing the site as a summer training campus. And Wawa is coming somewhere. So maybe we’ll finally get a decent hoagie.
But here is our legacy under assault., the destruction of heritage. It’s a sad story, and apparently Chestertown sees this as progress. Sadder still.
Oh well, I’m sure to find comfort admiring the statuary along Spring Street paying tribute to human genitalia and that magnificent blue head that just landed in Fountain Park. Oh, the blue head, peering out at the folks lounging on the sidewalk at Bad Alfred’s. The mysterious blue head. Someone should write an ode to that thing.
J. Taylor Buckley
Broadneck
Lead photo is 1950 plan for Vita Foods, the “Pickle Factory.”
Kay says
I agree…the people in this area are strange. The so called “art” belongs in a Metropolitan area or the local dump. Just because someone gifts it to your town doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for said town. I don’t get all the doings here in Chestertown. Dollar General only place around to shop unless you’re into hoity toity shops and you have money to blow.
Joan Elburn Farley says
Washington College has demolished the Dixon Valve building. Funny, that’s the same thing they want to do to the armory! Sounds like some preservationist fuddy-duddy dropped the ball on trying to protect the pickle factory and the ice cream shop.
Patti Hegland says
Taylor – less and less people understand sarcasm these days…
John Seidel says
Or irony….
Liz says
As an actual, real live , born here in C’town person; I have mixed feelings about the changes. I’m all for the arts and the gussying up and preservation of those elements that make this old town very dear to many of us. It kinda makes me proud to see much of the town looking so preserved.
What I find the most unappealing is the insidious creepy invasion of “ the chains”. I can’t for the life of me get my head around the fascination with the drive thru mindset – the I don’t want to get out of my car mentality and the eagerness to support distant corporate entities that could care less about our quaint historic town.
As usual Taylor, you have nailed it and we remain kindred spirits! I suspected that years ago when I babysat for your kids in that cool historic house on the Chester.
I just count my blessings that the fast food joints haven’t discovered Quaker Neck – yet!
Lanny Parks says
Bravo!
Jamie Kirkpatrick says
How does Taylor do it? Write with his pen in his cheek!
Elaine Bowman says
Well said!
Ann Miller says
This is the best, most spot-on bit about Chestertown I’ve read in a long, long time.
Really Chestertown??? You let hardly anything in, but you welcomed a Starbucks???? Good, so if I want some fru-fru coffee I’ll be able to get in in Chestertown. Anything else we need or want I’ll continue to head to Easton, Middletown or elsewhere.
Jack Stenger says
Wonderfully clever piece, Mr. Buckley. I’m glad that you have returned to the Spy. Indeed the Armory and 98 Cannon issues have divided the citizenry. The fuddy-duddies, as you so politely described them apparently want to see Chestertown as a mini-Williamsburg, while the proponents of the College’s waterfront plan favor the economic and cultural benefits which it would provide. Keep up the satire; good chuckles keep up our spirits.
Jen McColigan says
Totally agree with you about the genitalia sculptures and the blue head guy. Totally inappropriate and creepy looking.
Karen says
Completely Agree!!!
John Smith says
Difficult for a new eatery to be successful in Ctown without an employee base to ‘man’ it. Burger King failed. Rita’s failed. Probably not too many areas on the shore where those two were both failures in the same town (granted one happened a few years ago). Others as well because the local employee base may be unwilling to work at entry level wages. Everyone wants to start at management level.