Amidst the floral names of Amalyn, Hardin and Weaver alleys stand out

August 30, 2024

Arlington’s Deborah Peetz said she’s been enjoying my columns about street names in our area — and that she has a question of her own.

“One I’ve always wondered about is Tunlaw Street in Washington,” she wrote. “A friend who lived there for a while pointed out that it is ‘walnut’ spelled backward. Perhaps it was a grove of walnut trees in the past?”

There was a grove of walnut trees there. They weren’t the inspiration for the street name but for the farm after which the street was named. Here’s what I had to say about the farm in 2010, when I last wrote about the Tunlaw/Walnut connection:

“The farm was owned by Adolphus Pickerell, who built a large house at what is now 45th and Klingle in what is now Wesley Heights. The land was dotted with black walnut trees, and Pickerell’s house was shaded by a massive example of the species. The tree gave the farm its name (supposedly at the suggestion of Ulysses S. Grant). When a road was built after the Civil War, it took the name of the farm.”

When you think about it — or when I think about it, anyway — walnut is really the only North American tree that works in that manner. Would you want to live on Elpam Avenue? Ralpop Lane? Yrokcih Street?

Or Nednil Revlis Street? There’s a Silver Linden Street in the new Amalyn development being built at the confluence of the Beltway and I-270 in Bethesda. The neighborhood is rising on the site of four, 400-foot WMAL radio towers that were demolished Nov. 4, 2020.

That was a bittersweet day for Dave Sproul. He’d spent his entire career at WMAL, retiring in 2014 as the chief engineer.

“I took care of the transmitter site,” Dave said. “I just loved going out there.”

Dave thought it was important the site be memorialized in some way for future generations. Wouldn’t the families who would eventually live at Amalyn want to know about the land’s history? And so Dave approached the developers, which are Toll Brothers and Tri Pointe Homes.

As it happened, Dave was useful to them. He knew where the bodies were buried — not actual bodies, but the subterranean infrastructure at the transmitter site. He had been WMAL’s chief engineer, after all. He knew about the wires, pipes and wells hidden underground. And that allowed him to make a few suggestions when it came to street names for the Amalyn development.

Actually, Dave made more than a few suggestions. WMAL once had a mighty roster of on-air talent: Felix Grant, Bill Mayhugh, Tom Gauger, Bill Trumbull and Chris Core. Dave thought they could all get streets named after them. That would certainly stand out in a world of Oaks and Maples.

In the end, Dave’s grand plan didn’t pan out, but something more modest did. If you look at Google Maps, you will see two streets in the development’s southwest corner: Harden Alley and Weaver Alley. They honor Frank Harden and Jackson Weaver, the original WMAL cut-ups. The partners ruled morning drive-time in D.C. for more than 30 years.

“Harden and Weaver stood so much above everyone else,” Dave said.

Dave, 73, lives in Bethesda, and every few days he drives over to the Amalyn site to note the progress. Besides lobbying for Harden Alley and Weaver Alley, he urged the developers to have some sort of artifact on display that referenced the property’s broadcasting past.

When the new clubhouse opens, there will be a plexiglass case holding a red light. The light was once affixed to the radio towers to warn nearby aircraft.

“The top beacons — big, bright, heavy beacons — got smashed when the towers fell,” Dave said. “Each tower had six side beacons. That was one of those.”

Dave wrote some text for a little plaque: “This surviving beacon is an emblem representing the long history of WMAL Radio AM630, transmitting from this 75-acre site for almost 80 years. During those years WMAL Radio was a dominant and beloved institution in the Washington, D.C., area and its programming was received as far away as Scandinavia.”

That does leave one question: Where does “Amalyn” come from? You could be excused for believing there are a couple of women in the developers’ families named Amanda and Lynne, but it’s a little quirkier than that. Toll Brothers tells me that when seen from above, the building site resembles a heart. That inspired the marketing team to riff on “love,” or “amore.”

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