Roads

Old Georgetown Road

Luxmanor’s main street has an ancient lineage, borrowing its path from old Indian trails. Each generation builds a new road over the old one. In the recent past, it has looked different than it does today. For example, it used to have some ups and downs. You can still see one of the ups – the Baptist church and cemetery across from Wildwood Shopping Center are on a rise of the old road, though the road itself was lowered, leaving the church alone atop the peak. And one of the downs was at the site of the Aish Synagogue, at the corner of Old Georgetown Road and Tilden Lane. The Synagogue lies far below the road level, which was raised over the years to ease the gradient. Old Georgetown Road remained a two-lane street until 1968, when it was widened up to the point of Nicholson Lane. [Q]

Tuckerman Lane

Tuckerman Lane was a two-lane road that ran between Old Georgetown Road and Seven Locks Road. In the 1950s and 1960s, the stretch of Tuckerman between Old Georgetown Road and Rockville Pike was not there. Instead, this was a farm field. Even in the 1960s, after Woodward High School was built on Old Georgetown Road, the farm remained and cattle grazed in the fields. The farmhouse was located behind the school and was accessed from Rockville Pike. In the 1960s, it was rented by the Shriver family, whose most famous member, Sargent Shriver, lived here with his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and their children. In 1972, Sargent Shriver ran for vice president on George McGovern’s ticket, and a Luxmanor resident who was working on the campaign remembers seeing Shriver at the polling place, Woodward High School, on election day. [M]

The Interstates

In 1951, construction of I-270 began (then called US 240 and later I-70). The eastern portion of the Grosvenor estate was taken for this project. The southern portion of I-270 opened for traffic in 1957, the last section to open. Beginning in 1957, construction started on the Capital Beltway. Again, this took a portion of the southern end of the Grosvenor estate. The Beltway opened in 1964. [PD] One Luxmanor resident who moved here in 1964 recalled the then-relatively-new I-270 as being completely empty and surrounded by farms. She thought, “Who will ever need this road?” [M]

Tilden Lane

Not so long ago, Tilden Lane was an unpaved two-lane road. It began at Old Georgetown Road and ran slowly down hill until it ended at the creek, at what is now Tilden Woods Recreation Center. [S]

Nicholson Lane

On the other side of Old Georgetown Road, Tilden Lane continues into what is now Nicholson Lane. This part of Nicholson, between Old Georgetown Road and Rockville Pike, used to be known as Wall Lane, for the Wall family who lived in a prominent mansion where the Montgomery Aquatic Center was later built. The Wall family was connected to the Woodward & Lothrop department store. (The current Wall Park retains the memory of this name.) [Q]