Glen Burnie is the kind of place where you can buy a gun, find a plumber, and get a tattoo, all in the same strip mall. I grew up in Glen Burnie, Maryland, on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Everyone here claims their property is waterfront, whether the water can only be seen across the street peeking through trees, or whether it’s just a pond in the distance that you can only smell.
The old ladies will call you sweetie and doll and hon, and they bake apple pies that they probably left out on the windowsill. The young people will scare the hell out of you, and they have neck tattoos that they probably got in prison. In Glen Burnie, you can find a great hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant, as well as play Keno in a scuzzy lounge that serves expensive seafood.
Glen Burnie was the kind of place I was going to get away from as a teenager—as soon as I had a job, I was going to move to some place cultured, some place like New York City. But I never did. I only made it as far as Baltimore City, just ten miles north. Perhaps I’m just lazy, though I suspect I was never actually seeking “culture.” I’ve always had an appreciation for the tacky and honky-tonk.
The girlfriend and I are looking for a house to buy together. In the meantime, we needed an apartment to rent where we could feel reasonably safe and live cheaply for the time being. We chose Glen Burnie. It’s been a learning experience for the girlfriend who grew up in beautifully-landscaped Ellicott City—an upper-class area that was recently named the number two best place to live in America.
Needless to say, her parents didn’t take the kids out to dinner at the Taco Bell in Glen Burnie.
“I never even ate Taco Bell before I met you,” she says.
Around here, she’s afraid to enter the stores before me or pump gas at the station where the crazy man asked if she wanted to buy some CDs out of his bag. She doesn’t understand why the woman at the convenience store blow dries and hairsprays her hair up like that. She wants to know what that child is doing unsupervised in the parking lot. It looks like he has dirt smudged on his cheeks.
Alright. Look, I got this. Stick with me, babe. I know how to talk to these people. I can blend in. I’m from here. Don’t worry about that CD guy. I think I went to high school with him.
Glen Burnie was established in 1812. In the 1950s, my grandparents bought a house here. The area was sometimes known as “Glentucky” because of the people that came from rural parts of the country, but it was a growing hub by the 1960s and 1970s. Its main road, Ritchie Highway, was the only connector between Baltimore City, the state capitol, Annapolis, and the beaches of the Eastern shore.
Glen Burnie was so booming that it supported three huge shopping malls within just four miles of each other. The Harundale Mall was a landmark—the very first enclosed shopping mall east of the Mississippi, opening in 1958. It was followed by the Glen Burnie Mall in 1962, and the Marley Station Mall in 1987, each mall just a mile apart on Ritchie Highway.
You can still find a lot of charming and strange old things around here.
Crab Towne is an old thing—a place where you can buy a dozen crabs and a case a beer. You drink a few of the beers there and take the rest home. In the back, there’s a complete 1980s arcade frozen in time, and all the games still cost just a quarter.
And the National Tourist Association recommends this place—at least, at some point in history they did:
Glen Burnie does still have some charms, little flecks brushed off the shoulder of Charm City just north. But Glen Burnie is also changing, fading in sections and crumbling in others.
The Harundale Mall was where I was supposed to meet Scooby Doo during his whirlwind tour across America in the Mystery Van in 1985. On the way to meet him, I sat in the backseat chattering about how I also wanted to meet Fred, the leader of the gang, and shake his hand. You know, I wanted to meet Daphne, too. I had a thing for red heads.
“I don’t think they’re all gonna be there,” my mother warned. And then she delivered the gut-punch: that Scooby Doo wasn’t going to be real—he was just a guy in a dog suit. This news was so devastating to five-year-old me that I still remember it as one of my earliest memories.
But the Harundale Mall, the first fully enclosed mall that featured innovative designs such as sky lights that allowed natural light into the mall, is now a Superfresh with a skylight. The other half is a Burlington Coat Factory.
So what? Stuff changes. Retailers close. New ones open. Maybe I’m too sentimental. Our grandparents lived when America was booming—when we manufactured cars and built shopping malls and saw films in ornate movie palaces. Our parents came of age as part of the youth culture of the 1950s and 1960s, when the progressive music and fashion and leisure shaped their identity.
My generation came in the late 1970s and 1980s—the Reagan Years—a time of optimism and decadence in which the national dept tripled. Yes, we had three shopping malls, six or seven toy stores to choose from, and endless places to see movies and eat hamburgers. But the growth that Americans enjoyed during the 1980s came at a huge price for the generations to follow.
This is why I believe my generation has a sense of nostalgia generally reserved for war veterans. We have watched the places we used to eat, the places we saw movies, and the places we shopped disappear. They shuttered when Wal-Marts came to town, when the economy collapsed—and the buildings still sit, their signs and logos stripped away and fading in the sun, empty shells that have sat dark and vacant for years.
So perhaps you’ll understand my feelings of nostalgia—a word that literally means “a return to home.” I know what it means to be home again, and to be homesick. I am watching Glen Burnie become a ghost town before my eyes.
The aforementioned “family” Taco Bell, where we ate as though it were a three course meal. Nachos and cinnamon twists were the first course. Tacos and burritos were second. A Choco-taco came third.
Here’s the Friendly’s, where we ordered Fish-a-majigs and grilled cheeses, followed afterwards by sundaes with smiling Reeses Pieces faces.
This one has been vacant for years and years—maybe fifteen or more—and there are still Christmas green garnishes hanging in the dark windows.
Then there’s the former Shoney’s, still with the original awning.
Now a Woo Chon. And yes, it is next to an animal vet. My father always gave me this advice: never eat at an Asian place next to an animal vet.
Here’s the Jumper’s Hole Movie theater, where I first saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It was a strange, old purple building has sat there abandoned and chipping away for years and years. I thought it would be a great, haunting photograph. I just saw it last Tuesday, alone in the parking lot with blades of grass poking through the cement, biding time.
But I missed it by a few days—or maybe even by a few hours.
Of all these things, it’s the toy stores that make me sad. As I mentioned, there used to be six or seven toy stores in the area in the 1980s and 1990s. Now there is just one left standing, the Toys R Us.
I feel bad for kids today. Wal-Mart is the number one retailer of toys. Wal-Mart is also the biggest seller of bananas and dog food. To me, toy stores were vast, magical places that had nothing but toys. Wal-Mart has just seven aisles.
I think about the FAO Schwarz in New York City and how it was depicted in the movies Big and Home Alone 2. Watching those movies as a kid, that place seemed like a most perfect Heaven. All those millions of toys, life-size stuffed animals, huge playhouses that one could dart in and out of, and of course, the giant piano that you could play by walking on. Even the way those scenes were shot seemed to be bathed a golden luster. I didn’t just want to visit FAO Schwarz in New York City. That would not be enough. I wanted to live there forever and ever Amen.
I finally did visit the FAO Schwarz for the first time as an adult. The millions of toys were there, as well as millions of people. Herds of them: screeching and poking at the Toy Story 3 display, hemming and hawing next to the stuffed polar bears, mugging and cheesing for pictures wearing every funny hat in the store. A spectacular nightmare. But I still had my hopes of accidentally wandering onto the giant floor piano in some remote corner of the store. At first I’d be modest as my feet tapped the keys, but then I’d enthusiastically hop into a rousing rendition of Chopsticks.
I followed the signs leading me towards the giant piano. In the distance, I heard a crowd. So maybe I’d have to wait good-naturedly for a few others to take pictures on the piano. That’s fine. But then I turned the bend, where I saw the massive black hole of a line filled with bus loads of children and their families. They waited and clamored for tickets to a timed experience on the piano. Meanwhile, the current group of four-year-olds allowed past the velvet rope clumsily hopped around, creating a cacophony of sounds—discordant piano notes, screaming, crying—all to the rhythm of their parents’ flashbulbs.
But even FAO Schwarz isn’t immune to the economy, having filed for bankruptcy several times. It once was Toys R Us and FAO Schwarz that swallowed whole the mom-and-pop toy stores, but now even the giants are beginning to fall. Toys R Us is still alive and kicking as the number two toy retailer, but I wonder if children today still sing the “I Don’t Want to Grow Up, I’m a Toys R Us Kid” song while running in slow motion towards Geoff the Giraffe.
If you want to know the identity of America, look at the toy stores. We’re no longer one culture focused on the must-have toy like Cabbage Patch dolls, Game Boys, or Rubik’s cubes. We don’t all ride the same red tricycle. We’re a splintered culture with niche interests. Except for the occasional Zhu Zhu pet craze, there’s nothing the kids are begging for en masse, dragging their parents to the toy store. Add the Internet into the equation, and traditional toy stores are facing extinction.
Finally in my review of lost surburbia, I visited the sites of my favorite places to get toys growing up.
Lionel Kiddie City
Kiddie City was a relatively small chain of toy stores of one hundred locations, mostly on the east coast. Their slogan was “Let Lionel Kiddie City Turn That Frown Upside Down.” In the commercial, their mascot a Kangaroo, hopped on the frowning lips to invert it into a smiling face. I have a friend that contends the kangaroo was a pale imitation of Geoff the Giraffe, but I don’t know. I always liked the Kangaroo.
Today, Kiddie City is a Shoppers Food Warehouse.
Ames
While not specifically a toy store, Ames was a chain of discount department stores that at one time was the fourth-largest discount retailer in the country. I have fond memories of the place, wandering the aisles and picking out toys.
I also remember my mother’s burning, deep hatred of the place, which I never understood. You see, Ames was the kind of place that was always a wreck. The kind of place where you bought toys in beat-up boxes that always had a part missing when you came home with it. Where the return policy always wronged you, where the cashiers were always slow, where the cart always hit your car in the parking lot, and where you accidentally jabbed your elbow on the clothing racks that were too close together.
“That Ames,” my mother would say with disdain.
And yet, she always crawled back with her head down. You couldn’t beat their prices on socks.
Though closed for years, Ames inexplicably still stands—perhaps even stubbornly, defiantly.
KB Toys
All KB stores closed about two years ago. In the Marley Station Mall, my childhood KB is now this frighteningly-generic “Bounce Party.”
I keep trying to convince myself I would have loved this as a child, if only to stave off the depression of a room full of inflatable bounces and printed-in-Microsoft-Word-signs.
Come on. That’s kind of depressing, right? Even for kids. There’s no kids in there. Just a man staring at me through the glass as I take pictures of his operation.
K-Mart
K-Mart is one of those things that should have died a long time ago, but it just keeps getting back up and coming back. It’s one of those things that would crawl right out of a solution of borax and bleach.
I particularly love the racks of clothes outside with purple balloons tied to them. I love K-Mart. I used to love getting toys here, too, even if it also meant I had to endure some back-to-school-shopping in the clothing section.
K-Mart still smells the same, that almost-sweet smell of the plastic that the clothes come shipped in. Forget the well-lit and organized aisles of toys at Target. If you want to remember the authentic experience of shopping for toys in the 1980s, find a K-Mart, where the lights flicker and the place looks like a bomb went off. Even the employees look like they just emerged from a fallout shelter, their eyes still adjusting to the sun.
Toys R Us
Finally, there is Toys R Us. Everyone has “their” Toys R Us. This one is mine, the original still standing, the same one I shopped at with my grandmother, holding her hand and conning her into by buying me crap simply by smiling sweetly.
You got to love that dated tiled look at the entrance. I walked around inside. I often still come here, just to browse and get a sense of things. I still buy things that catch my eye, and yes, the occasional birthday present for actual children in my extended family. But I’m not gonna lie. I come here for myself. I’m still hoping to turn the bend and see Geoff the Giraffe, and run in slow motion towards him.
I decided I should buy something for the post. After all, I had visited all my old haunts. I felt needy. I decided a giant one-foot Mecha Godzilla could make me feel whole again.
When I took him to the register, the cashier examined him closely.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“Mecha Godzilla,” I said.
“I thought Godzilla was some dinosaur-lookin’ dude. He all chromed out,” she said in a perfect Glen Burnie accent.
I loved it. He all chromed out. I knew I had made the right choice. And I knew Glen Burnie still has a bit of charm left in her.
Before moving out of my hometown, I went on a trip to a mall where an Ames used to be. I was pleased to see the building was still standing, but–less pleasing–it was now a Gold’s Gym.
Ames is still there abandoned today.
I can identify which each one of these points as applied to my own hometown in central Illinois. We had that exact same Taco Bell (until it was abandoned then later turned into an Indian Restaurant). No Ames but a TurnStyle, where I bought most of my Megos, that morphed into a Venture, where I bought my Atari carts, until it vacated.
This year I’ve already visited my hometown 3x and I’m due back this weekend. That’s more than the previous 3yrs combined. I’m not surprised by the changes there; however, I am a little saddened when I cruise the area. Anyways, very nice post. Thanks for sharing.
I can so identify with this. I grew up in a relatively small town in Northern Illinois and have great memories of places and moments in them, forever lost to time.
The thing about nostalgia is that going back to the “place” cannot evoke the “time.” So many things have changed; parenting attitudes, safety considerations, etc.
I can remember blowing vast amounts of quarters from tips as a newspaper delivery boy at the local bowling alley on round after round of Space Invaders and Asteroids.
Your point about toy stores is the most painful. My kids just don’t experience toys the way I did. And they never will. There is no way I can adequately describe the experiences I had in toy stores to them now. They have no foundation for that type of experience.
I had an Ames, too. Going to Toys R Us was an extremely rare treat. My parents never go past a certain street in my city–Toys R Us was well on the other side of that street. So, besides the mall, Ames was my toy store. Today it’s now a worn down Sago Internet Business Center. Very peculiar business with very peculiar employees. I’m not sure what they do in there, but I suspect alien autopsies. I live and work in my old stomping grounds–it’s heartbreaking to see everything get demolished, stucco’d, or turned into Wal-Mart.
Awesome Godzilla!
I lived in South Carolina for the first 6+ years of my life. I vividly remember the Lionel’s Playworld and many of the purchases I made there before we moved to a town in Illinois that didn’t have a toy store until a few years later when a Children’s Palace opened up. My memory of Lionel’s is that it was HUGE. Of course, it probably wasn’t really. Just the six-year-old in me remembers it that way.
Kmart really did have a unique smell. We also had Gee Bee’s which was the local cheap crap store. It eventually became Value City but not sure if it’s still there. We also had a whole mall that was the shit when we were kids. It had the Friendly’s, the McCrory’s with the huge candy aisle, the big fountains full of change, and of course the Time-Out Center arcade. Once that side of town and its starter homes in neat developments started to run down and lower income families moved in, all the parents of kids our age and new incoming yuppies started moving into the nice new condos and single family homes on the other side of town. Before long, the original mall had started losing a lot of stores and the mall on the other side of town started getting remodeled and expanding.
Today it’s like that bad Chris Rock routine about how every town has the two malls. The newer mall is always full and crowded while the old mall is about half vacant now and all that is left is some sorry anchor department stores and crappy t-shirts and junk.
*sniff*
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v608/garya/ftm/
Wow — great pictures. Very haunting images of an abandoned mall. I recommend others take a look too!
I enjoyed reading your post a lot. I live in a microscopic little southern town. A town that time has forgotten. There’s a family owned pharmacy that sells shotguns as well as foot powder. If your baby is sick on Christmas Eve, Mr. Kemp will bring the medicine to your house. You can still go to the same bakery here that your grandmother went to and buy the same Italian Cream cake she loved.
There’s a thrift store with a section of cool retro toys where I sometimes find a push puppet to add to my collection.
Now there’s a new Wal-Mart in the next town just 28 miles from here. I’ve sworn I’m not going to buy anything there, but those sales papers…
sleestakk- Central Illinois, you say? I’m in the general vicinity of you, then!
Well, while many of the places of my childhood have died out, many of them are still standing. Granted, the Toys R Us is now a Harley Davidson emporium, and the KMart is gone too.
Actually, now that I think of it, most of those toy places are gone. But they have all been replaced by things that I have come to know and love in their own way. In the place of the old KMart now stands a store called “Rural King” where you can buy old fashioned candies and mailboxes shaped like shotgun shells. And weird off brand toys.
My childhood may be slowly vanishing, but it is being gently replaced with light nostalgia and new places to explore in new ways.
Harundale Mall was the first air conditioned mall in the United States.
I didn’t know that Korean place was a Shoney’s. I knew there was one on Ritchie Hwy, where the Olive Tree is now.
And dammit, the movie theater! NO!
Rumor on the street is that the old $1 movies is going to become a new nightclub…I’ve heard that the guy that owns Bamboo Bernie’s might be behind the project.
You forgot about Children’s Palace in the Southgate Shopping Center. I stood outside with friends for hours there when Super Mario Bros 3 was released for the original Nintendo game system. No references to the 15 foot Air Mailbox or the Giant Pencil near Hospital Drive? Great article though, was a fun read.
it’s because I oddly enough have absolutely no memory of such a thing.
wow, Southdale shopping center? Where Zayres was, and Hutzlers was ? Oh, and dont forget Tylers store at Jumpers Mall. My mom used to shop there all the time. I also loved to go to Baskin Robbins after I got my pics done at Olan Mills across from Glen Burnie High. Two Guys, that was where Cactus Willies was, and Corvettes where Ballys is now! And the “wonderful” Montgomery Wards food in their resturaunt. lol..Oh, and Ritchie Drive in, and Sears used to be where Lowes is now. That was in the day where you would have to go to a News Center to buy magazines..lol
Haha, see, Pizza! I told you about the mighty Palace!
Awesome post!! My grandparents still live in their house in Glen Burnie Park that they bought for $12,000. :) btw, the old Friendlys has Christmas greenery in the window because its a train garden every year.
Great post. I still live in the town I grew up in, so I feel your pain. Though we have a great toystore downtown called Figpickles, with all sorts of vintage toys.. I may love it more than the kids do!
Does anyone remember Child World or Geppetto’s?
The latter may still exist, but if it does, it’s likely all “learning toys” now. When I was a kid, that’s where I would go to ogle the Ghostbusters and Visionaries. They had an entire basement filled with action figures. That’s where I first saw that 12″ Inspector Gadget that has always eluded me.
Child World was great too. I remember stopping in there a lot when I was trying to find the Ghostbusters trap!
I find being nostalgic for Ames kind of funny, as it was the second job I ever had. I had the fortune to work for them as they went under, right up until the day they locked the door. Not fun. My Ames is still an empty shell, waiting to be torn down for a grocery store expansion that will probably never happen.
Growing up in Waldorf, we didnt’ have a mall until I was about 8 or 9 and there was no “Toys R Us” until then either. We had to go into PG County town to do any major shopping. But, there was a Peebles Department store that was just horrible yet we seemed to go there all the time.
I grew up in The Bronx and Westchester County NY. I live in upstate NY now, and have lived here for the past 7 years. I have been to FAO Schwartz numerous times, and it is amazing! There’s a mall in Westchester, called The Westchester, that had a smaller FAO Schwartz on the upper level. It was bigger than a regular mall store, but the prices were the same as they were in the NYC location. I just liked to go in there and check out all the new toys they had. This one opened around 1993, so I was past the acceptable playing with toys phase. But, me and my friend Jeff always went to FAO Schwartz and the nearby Toys R Us all the time.
The area you live in looks cool. We don’t have anything remotely loking like this in my general vicinity.
Could you possibly take some pictures of the arcade in the back of Crabtowne USA for us? I’d really like to see what games they have for only a quarter.
yeah the arcade has totally been on my “short list” of posts to do for a while now. i’ve also got board games of alf and home improvement to review…green bean ice cream…the list of never ends thankfully.
so, I was at friendly’s in marley station when it shut down. my mom, me, and my cousin were all shopped out and enjoying a quick dinner. our entrees hasn’t come out yet but we were eating mozzerella sticks. all of a sudden I’m guessing the manager rolls out and announces “Attention, everyone needs to leave now. your food is free, have a good day”
I have no idea what happened, but that was that… friendly’s has been closed since. I like to think it was a health code violation or something….
holy shit. that is so funny and disturbing.
To Paul: Child World owned Children’s Palace and operated stores under both banners until they went under in 1993.
Hoorah for Wikipedia!
I’m 21 years old and grew up in Glen Burnie. My mom used to work at that Ames and I used to work at that Kmart. I would definitely feel weird if that Kmart no longer existed. I also used to work in Marley Station Mall (teenager = retail job), and a lot of the stores are closing down. They closed Borders Books!! It’s now an indoor mini-golf course. I used to know all the stores in that mall; Now I can hardly find anything.
I really loved Glen Burnie; my Grandmother graduated from Glen Burnie High School, when it was just one building- the “Old Main” building. When I applied for college, I decided not to go too far: I applied to Towson University in Baltimore, just 40 minutes away.
It will be interesting- and a little sad- to see how GB continues to change over the years.
wait. there’s an indoor mini golf there? this changes EVERYTHING. mall indoor mini golf sounds depressing…but also fun.
actually, its *black-light* indoor mini golf…
@Ashley. Well, I still thought of the Borders in there as Walden Books! :/
Yes, at least we still have Kmart where time has stood still. I used to shop at that Kmart with my Mom in the early 70′s and I still pop in now and then for the ocassional odd item. I’ve spent many happy hours toy shopping there at Christmas time (when my kids still played with toys). Not much has changed there in all these years and I love the feeling of being back in time when I’m there, a simpler & less hetic way of life
Funnily enough, I was in Glen Burnie a couple of weeks ago!
As you really know the town, do you mind if I pick your brain? I’d heard that the “World’s Largest Pencil” was in Glen Burnie but when I was there, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I was wondering if it had been removed: do you remember seeing anything like that?
Sadly, even if it’s there there’s now at least three pencils which are bigger (one in the United Kingdom, on in Malasia and one in West Virginia), but it’d still be awesome to find it if it’s still there!
someone above named Joe references a giant pencil. I’ve been here my whole life and have never seen this pencil–which is weird because I live for this kind of shit. Either way, I don’t think it’s still there. anyone know? here is a picture of it
http://www.wlra.us/wl/wlpencil.htm
Oh my gosh, what an awesome site. Just found it today, and I’ve done close to nothing — at work — for the past hour and a half.
–I go to Baltimore almost yearly, and I see signs for Glen Burnie like crazy! I should definitely head on over to Crabtown USA sometime! An 80s arcade, frozen in time? That sounds awesome!!
Great site, man. Everything I’ve read so far (working my way down..) is gold.
We still have Kmart in my town and it’s been less than 20 years since we got it to begin with. Almost all the Kmarts in neighboring towns have closed.
We moved from Williamsburg, VA and Huntingtown, MD to GB not quite 10 years ago. Even in 10 years, things have changed a LOT. By the end of this you had me rolling with laughter, I’ve bought birthday gifts at that Toys r us, and watched that glen burnie mall get refurbished only to still sit and languish waiting for new renters, even a standby, the Hair 2000 moved to marley station! Great post!
If anyone would like to join my facebook group about Glen Burnie Mall, here is the link…. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=365632734654
I grew up in Linthicum Heights, but Glen Burnie was where we shopped. My mom worked at Korvette’s, and I worked at Joann Fabrics and Record Bar in the GBMall in the ’80s.
I remember the radio ads for “10,000 pairs of Levis/all under one roof/you’ll love the Pants Corral/and that’s the truth!”
Do you remember the elderly man who stood outside his home on Crain Hwy and just waved to passing cars? The drive-in that was across from the Mall, and the big slide at the A&P end of it? Harundale Mall had the big fountain, and at Christmas, they put a ferris wheel in there.
Was the biggest pencil outside a store on Crain Hwy visible from the 100 overpass? I have a very vague recollection, but I’m really not sure. Anybody?
Somebody wanna cue Streisand singing “Memories?” ;)
thanks for sharing a few of your own!
The giant pencil was in the parking lot of Glen Burnie Stationers (a family-owned office supply store). It was on Crain Highway at the end of Hospital Drive. I think it’s where the Seaside Carry-Out is located now. The 15 foot airmail box referenced above is in front of a house on Wellham Avenue, on the left side if you’re traveling from Ferndale to Glen Burnie. I think it’s still there (at least it was a few months ago). Fun memories!
2Pizza–you’re welcome! Thanks for the mental jog!
2Lisa–thanks for your info–I knew it was by Hospital Drive!
OH MAN.
I was looking through this list of arcades tonight, and look what came up!:
http://www.arcadelocations.net/PlaceSearch.php?code=mdglecra
Thats right! Reviews from people who have visited Crab Towne USA and have also played the ~70 classic arcade games! Pretty impressive lineup. I dig it heartily. Thought of you when I saw it; enjoy!
I grew up in Glen Burnie…and I, too, couldn’t wait to move away. I moved away in 1978 and have only returned for funerals and weddings. I can’t believe the tiny house we lived in and the tiny yard…even though we had the biggest home on the street. I don’t miss anything about GB. My great grandparents had 13 children who all lived their entire lives in GB, so lots of kin lived nearby. The schools were the worst. So thankful I was able to move away!!
That’s pretty rad, grew up right by Crab Town near Corkran. Love going back there to the GB.
Wow i cant believe you didn’t mention one of the biggest historic places in GB, Honeybee Restaurant. Where all the true Glen Burnians go at 3am for a drunken breakfast. That place is a landmark here.
…No…Annes Dairy Cream…or Glen Burnie Carnival…you really were a deprived child.
Was that ever a Shoneys??? I know Bobs Big Boy turned into one on Ritchie HWY…but that HU-NAN place was originally RAX ROAST BEEF, on Aquahart
Sorry…. Cal-Dor went out of buisness, too…As well as Jumpers Mall which is now your K-mart, if you recall…but when SIZZLER closed , that was it for me!!!
Reading this in 2011 I am happy to say we are seeing growth again though it is changing its great to see new store fronts and full parking lots. Though I do miss that Friendly’s. My Ganddad use to take me there. I remember wanting to bring my own kids someday.
hi i lived in brooklyn all my life up until 6 years ago and moved to minnesota i went back home and went down to glen burnie, omg it really has changed, no more glen burnie mall, toys re us moved across the street, mars grocery store is gone, no more value city, just the furniture store, i used to walk from brooklyn down the the mall and korvettes when i was younger, i felt all grown up lol, i miss the drive in and also the theater that used to be on the corner right across where the malls was that has been a chuckey cheese for along time now, i worked at anns dari creme for 11 years, i miss it there, i still can remember as a child ging down ritchie highway and there was hardly anything there, i forgot to mention enses it was an italian restuarant that taco bell is now, me and my friends would go there and have late dinners, but one thing is still the same the honey bee restuarant, i was there this past april and it hasnt changed a bit and the breakfasts are still cheap and good, i do miss the fact that you can find anything on ritchie highway and you really dont have to go anywhere else, where i am now i have to go out of my way just to find a mall or a restaurant, and above all there is no ocean here lol thank god i have all of my memories
Geez, old memories for sure. we were the 6th family to move into Glen Burnie Park in maybe 54 or 55. We had the most expenspenive model, $13.900. I used to pick black berries in the wild in back of the Doll motel and Crab town. Now there is a freeway there. I went to school with the guy whose grand parents owned the next motel, the Forest and in 56 I think it was he went home for lunch and didn’t come back. The next day the teacher asked him why. He said I wanted to watch the world series. It was the year of the cross town New York series, NY Yankes vs. the Brokklyn Dodgers.We moved to Ohio in 64 and while I’ve only been back twice, in 69 and 89 Glen Burnie will always be home to me!
The large pencil was outside a stationery store on Crain Highway near Hospital Drive. The store was owned by Glen White. I’d love to get in touch with anyone from his family. They were old neighbors of ours in Brooklyn.
I’ve lived in Glen Burnie since 1996, grew up in South Baltimore until 1976 and from 1976 – 1996 lived in Brooklyn Park. I enjoyed your story and the pictures. I can’t believe I didn’t see any photos of the famous impromtu CAR SHOWS that always seem to be around in the summer! :) LOL Great job!
The “Woo Chon” resturant used to be Rax and not Showneys. The Showneys was on Ritchy Hwy and is now “The Olive Tree”
Good article. I lived in Glen Burnie for a long time. I posted this on facebook to share with my friends who still live there or once did. I don’t miss this place at all. I always hated it. But I am glad someone has written an article helping to articulate what it is or what it was to be in this odd place.
Sweetheart,
you did capture a large part of the dying GB, but to say your parents and theirs are not as sentimental is far from accurate. We may not display it to you, but its the way we were taught, Be strong, work hard treat others as you would like to be treated, and leave the next generation (Our children) in a better state than we.This may never have been said to you but understood as the way of life. We saw those stores come and go, the schools you went to first there was only George Fox,Marley and Glen Burnie, High, than came Northeast for one area and oh dont forget Andover and everyones rival Severna Park. We saw the first hamburger store, made buy a Baltimore Colt Our football team, Ft Smallwod was a Park and Ft armstead had tunnels to explore, if you had the nerve., and the rd that led there was cement and you could ride horses and carry a gun down the St and everyone knew you had been hunting not out for trouble.
There was a lot that came and went in your time period, and it is great to see that you have cherrished memories.
Keep these close to you and never forget that the times were much diferent. I agree, much has gone and the children of today may not enjoy walking for fun, playing now is on the computer, Even this, in the past you would pick up the phone, make plans, and meet at that mall or a park or maybe even vist someone face to face, to show your pictures and discuss memmories of the days in school or childhood friends.
. This is a phase we all go through I my children are of your generation, in fact I am there with you on much of it, I had children young and shared these things. Back when Glen Burnie and Pasadena, as its known now, (we never called it that we were fron the various beaches, Greenland, Rivera, Sunset) were a county and rural areas.
The movies were much better when seen from the car, you could swim in the bay area, I could go on and on. But we also have the issues you are speaking but ten fold, we see our Grandchildren forced to encounter things that should never have happened.
Our generation was taught that we were to take what we have and work hard, be honest and sincere, treat others as we would like to be treated, and to give our children a better life than we had, if at all possible.By doing these things, it will secure the future, Many today do not feel this way, they feel they are owed everything. Many of the generation today also feel they have entiteld to much of the things that are gotten through long years of hard work. We and our parents did this so things could be better. Its not too late, but a change in attitude, and structure is needed.
You did a great job and you are one of the generation that see the good and are working to secure some of the valuble things from the past, many of which are not of a material nature. We must keep and continue the goals of fellowship and togetherness. We as groups can secure the great things for all present and future generations.
We are just as sentimental and nastalgic, probably more so, since we saw such major changes, from post WWII era with, major wars and conflicts(race relations, Vietnam, Political Correctness) to the current computer age, mechanical everything (even people).. We were just taught to not show it to our children, they don’t need to know everything, it will come, and they will experiance (though we hope not) enough all in due time.