Thank you to all who attended the 7th Talbot Avenue Bridge Lantern Walk on Saturday, November 16, 2024! This year we crossed the completed new Talbot Avenue Bridge for the first time and also honored the memory of lifelong Lyttonsville resident and civic leader Charlotte Coffield. This was our most well-attended Lantern Walk yet!
Check out photos and videos of the event! See photos by Jay Mallin (Rosemary Hills) and Lilian Pintea (North Woodside), and view the Talbot Avenue Bridge Events Youtube Channel’s 2024 Talbot Avenue Bridge Lantern Walk playlist.
Special thanks to all who volunteered their time, energy, resources, and talents, and helped make the event as wonderful as it was! In particular, we would like to recognize the following people and groups:
- Erika Hush Samuels and Raeanne of Joyful Signing. Your American Sign Language interpretation helped us honor Charlotte Coffield and continue her longtime advocacy for accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing community. In particular, thank you for teaching us how to sign “This Little Light of Mine.”
- Washington Revels Heritage Voices for leading us in song. The songs you shared with us–from Rise Up O’ Flame and We Shall Overcome to Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round and Great Gettin’ Up Morning–were fitting, moving, and inspiring! Thank you for infusing the event with such spirit. Special thanks to Andrea Blackford and Harold Blackford for coordinating the group’s participation.
- All who donated refreshments and volunteered for event tasks, from setting up the reception space to serving as safety monitors at street crossings. Many thanks also to all who jumped in to assist with spur-of-the-moment tasks, e.g. helping get the Unity Lantern lit! Special thanks to Pat Tyson (Lyttonsville) for coordinating refreshments and Martha Berger (North Woodside) for ordering the pizza, Eva Santorini (Rosemary Hills) for coordinating volunteer sign ups, Joel Teitelbaum (Rosemary Hills) for coordinating safety volunteers, and Merrie Blocker (North Woodside) for assistance with safety aspects.
- Elmoria Stewart (Lyttonsville), who decorated the portrait of Charlotte Coffield placed in the middle of the bridge and adorned the 20 white lanterns carried in honor of Charlotte with sunflowers to match. (Portrait credit: Alan Bowser). And Miriam Pemberton (North Woodside) for setting up paper bag lanterns across the bridge.
- Bertie LoPiccolo (North Woodside) for hosting a lantern-making workshop the day before the event which drew current and former residents of Lyttonsville, North Woodside, and Rosemary Hills, including the two children shown holding their workshop-made lanterns in the Montgomery Community Media article. And Barry Galef (North Woodside), for creating Talbot Avenue Bridge coloring pages for kids during the community reception.
- Jay Elvove (North Hills) for performing his Talbot Avenue Bridge song on guitar during the community reception. (Fyi, the song was the soundtrack of this short Talbot Avenue Bridge Candlelight Vigil video by Jay Mallin; see Charlotte Coffield and Jay together at the beginning.)
- Jay Mallin (Rosemary Hills) for his beautiful photos of the event and documentation of bridge-related events over many years. It was his 2017 film The Bridge that helped spur the communities connected by the bridge to come together. Many thanks as well to Lilian Pintea (North Woodside) for also capturing the event through photos and videos.
- All those who made monetary and in-kind donations to cover event costs. Special thanks to IMPACT Silver Spring for serving as the Talbot Avenue Bridge Committee’s fiscal sponsor and enabling community members to make tax-deductible donations towards the lantern walk, and to the Lyttonsville Civic Association, North Woodside Citizens’ Association, and Rosemary Hills Neighbors’ Association for co-sponsoring the event. And a shout out to Mamma Lucia for giving us a 10% discount on the pizza!
- All those who contributed in other ways behind the scenes, including Magdalena, who was on call at Rosemary Hills Elementary School for the six hours we rented the All-Purpose Room and helped with set up, and all event planning group members, some of whose contributions are listed above (a comprehensive list of all their contributions would be too lengthy to include 🙂 ). Special shout out to Anna White (North Woodside), Pat Tyson (Lyttonsville, and Eva Santorini (Rosemary Hills) for their event outreach, and to Ana Marshall and Willie Smith (Lyttonsville) for filling in where needed.
- David Rotenstein, public historian, whose research related to the history of the Talbot Avenue Bridge and Lyttonsville serves as an important foundation for a more inclusive narrative of Silver Spring and Montgomery County history–one that does not avoid painful truths and perspectives related to past racial segregation and bigotry, and that serves to uplift, instead of erase and marginalize, the stories and contributions of Black communities and residents.
Last, but not least, A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who showed up for the event. In addition to current and former residents of Lyttonsville, North Woodside, and Rosemary Hills, attendees came from Forest Grove, Gaithersburg, National Park Seminary, Rock Creek Forest, Sligo Woods, South Silver Spring, Washington Grove, Wheaton, Woodside, and more! It was wonderful to have all of you join us for a special evening, and we hope all of you had the chance to meet and get to know someone new!
In particular, we would like to recognize the many public officials and other special guests who joined us, including County Executive Marc Elrich; Councilmember Kate Stewart; D-18 Del. Jared Solomon and Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher; Silver Spring Regional Director Jacob Newman; representatives of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Rep. Jamie Raskin and the Montgomery County Commission on Remembrance and Reconciliation; MCPS Board of Education member-elect Rita Montoya, and Ching-Fang Chen, designer of the future Lyttonsville Neighborhood Park, where the girders of the historic Talbot Avenue Bridgeare to one day be placed.We appreciate your continued support of our community and bridge-related events and matters.
Thank you to all who helped, in small and large ways, to make this a wonderful event.
Ana, Anna, Bertie, Elmoria, Eva, Joel, Martha, Merrie, Miriam, Pat, Willie
(2024 Talbot Avenue Bridge Lantern Walk Planning Group members and Lyttonsville, North Woodside, and Rosemary Hills neighbors)
If you would like to provide any feedback on the 2024 Lantern Walk and/or would like to be involved with planning the 2025 Talbot Avenue Bridge Lantern Walk contact organizers at talbotavenuebridgecommittee@gmail.com.
Talbot Avenue Bridge Community 