Day 1 – Light Dodger Installation
This gallery contains 36 photos.
Sculptor Tj Aitken and crew begins installation of 20-ft Light Dodger sculpture at Bainbridge Shady Grove Apartments in Rockville. The sculpture was delivered on a flatbed truck early this morning. Parking spaces and a lane of King Farm Blvd was blocked off to make room for the massive crane. The sculpture pieces were then hoisted […]
“Light Dodger” Installation
PRESS RELEASE – “Light Dodger” Monumental Sculpture install August 4-7th (click image to enlarge)
The sculpture will be delivered in sections on a flatbed truck early on August 4th. Parking spaces and a lane of the street will be blocked off to make room for a construction crane. The sculpture pieces will then be hoisted by crane up and over the trees to the foundation pads.
Placement and assembly of the large pieces will be done with the crane. Scaffolding will then go up for the glass components. This will take all day on the 4th. The Hemi Piston Street Lamps will be installed along the walkway on day 2 in addition to sidewalk etching of the Dodge gasket patterns.
Levitating the big mothership for loading
Graham Brothers Trucks
In the 1920s Reed Brothers sold Dodge Brothers Motor Cars and Graham Brothers Trucks
History fascinates me, and something about the development of the Dodge pickup truck fascinates me even more. It’s a story inextricably linked to our country’s history like baseball and apple pie.
After the introduction of mass-produced automobiles, people started to modify their vehicles for enhanced utility. These people stripped off the rear bodywork and mounted open-topped boxes that resembled the first step towards the modern pickup truck.
Dodge trucks actually began with three brothers named Graham. In reality, it is the story of two companies – the Dodge Brothers Company and the Graham Brothers Company. In 1916, seeing the need for a good, dependable truck to serve people such as themselves, the Graham brothers entered the truck body business. By 1919, they had produced the “Truck-builder,” which is a basic platform from which a customer could spec a truck according to his or her needs. The Truck Builder was essentially a truck conversion that began with a passenger car. The Truck Builder worked this way: The new-car dealer would sell a new car to a customer, then suggest to the buyer that his old car could be converted into a truck.
In 1921, Dodge Brothers began to market Graham Brothers medium-duty trucks through its dealerships; in turn, every Graham vehicle utilized a Dodge engine. This partnership provided Dodge dealers with a full line of trucks to sell in addition to the highly regarded Dodge passenger cars, and the resulting sales increases prompted Dodge to buy the Graham Brothers Company.
The Dodge trucks would carry the Graham Brothers nameplate until 1928 with a few of the designs lasting as long as the 1930s.
Rockville Garage, 1918 – Hudson Super Six, Oldsmobile, and Dodge Brothers Motor Cars on display at Rockville Fairgrounds. Lewis Reed is seated in the drivers seat of the Rockville Garage Graham Brothers Service Truck.
Source: Allpar
The Story of “Light Dodger”
Here is a video about the creation of the Light Dodger sculpture narrated by the artist, Tj Aitken. The sculpture is slated to be installed in 2015 at Bainbridge Shady Grove Metro Apartments at the entrance to the Shady Grove Metro Station. The site also will also include Tj’s “Hemi Piston Street Lamps”. It will be seen by thousands of commuters taking the Red Line from the Shady Grove Metro Station to Bethesda, Maryland and D.C. Center.
It is a part of a project that will commemorate the history of Reed Brothers Dodge.
Winner – 1931 Reed Brothers Third Annual Goodyear Dealers Zeppelin Race
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE, 1931 REED BROTHERS THIRD ANNUAL GOODYEAR DEALERS ZEPPELIN RACE WINNER
In the early 1930’s, the Goodyear Zeppelin Company produced a series of framed prints as rewards for Goodyear dealers as prizes for high sales. Sales was based on a two months quota, and participated in by thousands of dealers all over the country. The print shows USS Akron on a mobile mast, leaving her hanger. The frame is made of the sheet metal and rivets used in dirigible construction, and each frame has an engraved duralumin plaque at bottom center of the frame.
The inscription plaque reads:
-WINNER-
Reed Brothers
Third Annual Goodyear Dealers Zeppelin Race
July-August 1931
THIS FRAME IS MADE OF DURALUMIN USED IN THE GIRDER CONSTRUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES AIRSHIP “AKRON” BUILT BY THE GOODYEAR ZEPPELIN CORPORATION
Inscription plaque
This original Margaret Bourke-White photograph of the United States Airship “Akron” is SIGNED in the lower right hand corner by the famed 20th Century photographer.
Photo is signed by the photographer, Margaret Bourke White
The USS Akron, first of a class of two 6,500,000 cubic foot rigid airships, was built at Akron, Ohio. Commissioned in late October 1931, she spent virtually all of her short career on technical and operational development tasks, exploring the potential of the rigid airship as an Naval weapons system. During the remainder of 1931 and the early part of 1932, the Akron made flights around the eastern United States and over the western Atlantic, including one trial of her capabilities as a scouting unit of the fleet. While beginning a trip to the New England area, Akron encountered a violent storm over the New Jersey coast and, shortly after midnight on 4 April 1933, crashed tail-first into the sea. Only three of the seventy-six men on board survived this tragic accident. During the search for other possible survivors, the Navy non-rigid airship J-3 also crashed, killing two more men.
Note: Margaret Bourke-White (1904 1971) is best known as the first foreign correspondent to be permitted to take photographs of Soviet industry, the first female war correspondent, and the first female correspondent permitted to work in war zones.
40th Anniversary with Goodyear
Lewis Reed was recognized by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for reaching his 40th year as a Goodyear dealer. Reed Brothers Dodge began selling Goodyear tires in the 1920s. Below is a letter from Russell DeYoung thanking Lewis Reed for his 40 years “in business together”.
Please see Margaret Bourke-White: The Photography of Design, 1927 – 1936 for more information
Books
Related Resources
Copyright Notice
Reed Brothers Dodge History (1915-2012) by Jeanne Gartner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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