Tuesday, November 3, 2009

flyover country

Staring out from the top of any tall building in MoCo, like Georgian Towers The Georgian, the most compelling part of the view is the trees, forming an almost-uninterrupted carpet of green across the landscape. It's comforting to know that, no matter how busy the ground looks, there's still a tree canopy here.

I was reminded of this when Evan Glass (pictured above), president of the South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association and friend of JUTP, sent me sixty-eight photos he'd taken while flying over the county with the Leadership Montgomery program a few weeks ago. Slower than a jumbo jet and far closer to the ground, flying in a twin-engine plane gives you a far more intimate look at what's happening below. And if you wave at your apartment building from the window of a Cessna 337, chances are someone will wave back.

Check out this selection of Evan's photos from East County, though there are plenty more from across MoCo that I love, including the Travilah Quarry in Rockville, Northwest High School in Germantown, and the Lakelands in Gaithersburg.

















Construction at the Silver Spring Transit Center.Summit Hills apartments at East-West Highway and 16th Street.
The Red Line tracks cross Georgia Avenue in Downtown Silver Spring.South Silver Spring with Northwest D.C. in the background.
The Mormon Temple (left) and Capital Beltway (right) in Kensington.Montgomery Blair High School in Four Corners.
The interchange at Cherry Hill Road and Columbia Pike. Work continues on the Food and Drug Administration's campus in White Oak.
Construction of the InterCounty Connector at Route 29, looking west.
Construction of the InterCounty Connector through Longmead Crossing in Layhill.

4 comments:

Tom A. said...

Oh my god. Germantown is horribly sprawl-ridden. Those McMansions spread faster than H1N1, didn't they?

Dan Reed said...

This may sound awful but I thought those shots of Germantown were gorgeous, almost like a toy town, and I'm sure the people who live there enjoy how pristine it is (for now). Fortunately Germantown has a pretty big greenbelt keeping the sprawl from spilling out - though, of course, it just ends up in Clarksburg or Urbana.

Terry in Silver Spring said...

Neat photo set. I know the they look terrible from the air, but it's somehow fitting that Rockville does actually have quarries.

Sligo said...

I think that quarry is really in Potomac, though who knows what is called Potomac these days.