Several years ago, Bill Schmalfeldt – who was Program Director of the On Broadway channel at (pre-Sirius) XM Satellite Radio – and his producer Ben Krech discovered a stack of old wax recordings in the basement of The Eckington Theatre. Though most were destroyed by the ravages of rats and time, some were salvageable. Transcribed to digital format, from 2001 to 2003 they aired in the 10 to midnight slot on XM Channel 28 as the Sunday Stagebill. As I recently discovered, some of the best episodes are available online as mp3s. Both the The Eckington Theatre's founder, Walter Puddingbottom, and Eldon McCarricker, his sidekick, faded into ignominy. Yet, today these two dubious characters remain an important (if, well, fictitious) part of our community's history.
Someone used a train simulator to launch the Acela off the Eckington Yard ramp. Okay, the trees and buildings are all wrong, but rail enthusiasts are dead serious about the actual tracks, so you can bet that part’s accurate.
Yep, there's a third Eckington, and it’s right here in the USA. The only web reference to this presumably vanished community appears in the Historical Highway Marker for the “other” Eckington School. If anyone actually sets foot in Eckington, VA, please let us know.
The contributor called it a “scumhole”, so clearly he wasn't referring to our fair neighborhood. Still, this means t-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers, caps, and hoodies are available with the word “Eckington” on them (and in some cases, only the word, not the pejorative Urban Dictionary definition offered by this one individual).
For many years, at least two wholesale florists have been thriving in the small commercial strip between FedEx and R Street Storage:
KL, July 2010