Marlow Heights in the early to mid-fifties. This is actually a picture a reader took of a large (3 feet x
4 feet) photo his Dad had in his basement for many years, thus the serious scars in the photo. The rest of the photo shows St. Barnabas Road up to about where the bowling alley is now.

History of Hillcrest (including Marlow Heights). This is from a Harvard link, believe it or not, but contains some good historical information on Hillcrest Heights and Marlow Heights. I didn’t know that Marlow Heights began as a subdivision in 1953! It also references Deer Park Heights, my old neighborhood.

The Italian section of Hillcrest Heights was around Holy Family Church and Shugart Jr. High. All the houses in that section were built by the families that developed the area (Carozza, Tenaglia, Antonelli, Amatucci), and were built around 1955. Hillcrest Heights Shopping Center had G.C. Murphy, closed in 1981, became a Peoples Drug, then CVS, now vacant. Lots of ice cream at Highs. At one time there was also a Carvel that came and went - an elderly person stepped on the gas instead of the breaks when parking and drove through the front of the store. Carvel didn’t reopen. John and Nancy bakery took the spot when the Safeway expanded and wiped out a lot of stores (Candey Hardware, Official Cleaners, public library, etc). [Courtesy Gary, www.dcgrocery.com]

History of Silver Hill/Morningside. Thought I’d include this as Silver Hill was not only down the road from Iverson Mall, but the name of our Boy’s Club back then. Also, Morningside evokes memories of WPGC (“Am and FM, Morningside!”