9/5/2023 0 Comments Overpass meaningIn the late ’70s, his firm was designing the zoo’s Beaver Valley. Some of it is at the National Zoo, said architect W. Readers wanted to dish more dirt after last Sunday’s column on what happened to the material dug up for Metro’s tunnels. (In that article, a temple administrator said he found the graffito amusing, although Answer Man figures many Mormons probably don’t like their religion being associated with witches and flying monkeys.) In 2001, state highway spokesman David Buck told Mormon News, “We’ve fought an uphill battle for years with people putting graffiti on that bridge.” Maintenance crews that year shut down two lanes of traffic for an hour to scrub away yellow spray paint. The temple was dedicated in November 1974, and certainly by the early 1980s “Surrender Dorothy” was a common sight for Beltway drivers - and an irritant for state highway workers, who would periodically be brought in to remove what was seen as a distraction to drivers. That graffito (singular of graffiti) was on a CSX railway bridge, meaning the perpetrator(s) risked not just falling onto the Beltway below but being flattened by a passing freight train.Īnswer Man could find no reference to when it first went up. I’ve often wondered if anyone knew the story behind it or knew who the person was.įirst, allow Answer Man to state that he does not condone breaking the law, especially breaking the law in such a dangerous way. While I recognize that it was illegal to do that, I marveled at the writer’s ability to write it so boldly as to be seen from the highway. On an overpass just as the temple comes into view, someone would always spray paints in big letters “Surrender Dorothy.” The line was from “The Wizard of Oz,” and I’m fairly sure it reflected the graffiti artist’s impression that the temple was reminiscent of the spires that Dorothy and company saw as they approached the Emerald City and their subsequent fear when the witch wrote the phrase in the sky. As I traveled on the Beltway in the early ’70s near the Mormon Temple in Kensington, I was always amused by one re-occurring sight.
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