Preserving Camp Evans to enable
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9001
The Marconi Hotel
Lounge
Preservation
Progress
at
InfoAge
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The Marconi
Hotel Lounge is a work in progress. We have alot of work
done as you can see
below.
We need to remove the 1980s wall and ceiling
treatments from the east side. Then we need
to repair the moisture damage to the plaster on the outside wall. This will
require new expanded
metal lath and new plaster. We need to repair damage to the floor
and columns created when the
walls were added in 1941. Then the whole room will be
repainted.
This is an April 2006 view of
the west end of the Marconi Station Operators lounge..
This is the current state
of our work.
This is a January 2006\7
view of
the east end of the Marconi Station Operators lounge..
Note our chairs. It was not too long ago we did not own more than
25 chairs.
This is the current state
of our work. We are eager to remove these 1980s treatments.
This is a photo
the hotel lounge published in the August
1914 issue of Wireless Age. The photo above was taken
at the nearly the same place.
The Hotel lounge is a room
connected with distict historic events,
persons and groups.
Based upon physical evidence and the builders plans the original lounge
was one room as
can be seen in the photo above.
In 1941 the lounge was divided into two conference rooms.
Two walls were built using clay
blocks between the exterior wall support column (column on left in
photo above), to the center
column. Then from the center column to the interior support
column. The west room
contained the fireplace.
In the 1960s the west room (with the fireplace) was again divided
into one large office
and a secretary office.
This is a year 2000 view of
the office with the fireplace. The door to the right leads to the
secretary office. This wall
was added in the 1970s. The carpenter was InfoAge member Mr. Dan
Skinner.
A 1939 photo of The Kings College students in the
lounge, which they used as a classroom and chapel.
Another 1938-41 view of The
Kings Kids in the lounge. The east
wall is in the background
A 1938-41 view of The Kings Kids in the lounge. The south
exterior
wall is in the background.
The photo above is of the Project Diana team in the lounge in 1946. We believe
this is the same
wall as in the photo above. Note the wall sconce has been
replaced with a clock outlet.
Click here for more information and photos on
Project Diana.
During the 1960s the REMBASS team spent
weeks in the room developing a covert system of sensors
to provide electronic surveillance of the Viet Nam to implement the
McNamara line. We were told
the project was so important the team did not go home for Thanksgiving
holiday.
Photo of THE ORIGINAL MAJOR PROJECT OFFICE
TEAM JULY 1973
The photo above is of the east side
of the lounge in 1973.
When the base
was closed in 1993 the offices had carpet, the rooms
were clean
and all painted
surfaces were intact. The rooms were ready for
reuse.
During the winters of 2000 and 2001 the
electric power was turned off allowing the
basement to
flood. We had to
raise our protests to Congressman Smith's office to compel
the BRAC
office to restore the power.
The 18 months of no power and high moisture
saturated the walls with
moisture and caused
mold to bloom. The paint peeled too.
The lounge was particularly hard hit by moisture. Mold
infested all three rooms. The removal
of a downspout on the south exterior allowed rain water to saturate the
masonry. This caused the
interior plaster to fail and a section of the oak floor to rot.
Due to
the BRAC office - This is
what we started with....
This is a year 2004 view
showing the effects of high moisture.
Paint has peeled, mold has bloomed and ceiling tiles have
collapsed.
The rain water damage is
evident on the column. The plaster has failed.
The wall to the left of the column with the brown baseboard was added
in 1941.
This end of the room was the spot where Senator Joe McCarthy held a
conference ( see below) on
October 20, 1953 when he visited Camp Evans expecting to review
personnel records to find persons suspected
to be communists. Note the dehumidifer on the radiator. We
ran this unit and five other for three months to dry
the masonry before we could begin repainting.
This is the same spot as
above. We plan to repaint this corner
of the lounge to match this photo.
To learn more about Senator Joe McCarthy's
visit click here.
Faced with the
terrible condition of the hotel lounge we had no choice but to
dry out the building masonry with dehumidifiers
over many months.
Then we removed all mold infested materials and washed all surfaces
with a
bleach solution, then a hydrogen peroxide solution.
The next step was to remove all loose and peeling paint for proper
disposal
then repaint all surfaces with a latex sealer. This caused
InfoAge volunteers hundreds
hours of extra work and thousands of dollars unnecessary expense in
just this room alone.
The secretary office is
filled with mold. Note the black stains. The wall to the
right of the door and column was added in 1941.
The secretary office looking
throught to opening that once held double doors
entering into the foyer. That is the foyer fireplace seen in the
background.
InfoAge Volunteers go to work....
We removed the acoustic tiles
from the wall and ceiling. Then we removed the sheetrock.
In August of 2005 Dan
Skinner, who built the divider wall in the 1970s
posed before we removed the 2 x 4s and electric.
In April 2006 we removed the
1941 added masonry wall as approved in our NPS approved plan.
Note the electrical conduit exposed that was constructed into the
wall. The wall and ceiling to the left have
been painted with a sealer to cover the mold stains.
This section in process of
being removed shows the extent of the water damage to the wall
plaster on the column.
As we were removing the tile blocks we discovered a vestage of the
original hotel picture rail hidden behind the
block. If you take a close look at the 1914 photo above you can
see the picture rail on the back right wall.
The black paint above the picture rail is a mystery.
A better look at the embedded
conduit and the electrical boxes. In the background are two of
the NATCO clay
blocks salvaged from the wall.
A view of the channel in the
floor where the wall was. The channel is
where the original 1914 oak floor was cut and removed. There is
concrete
below the oak floor. The channel was filled with
concrete to support the
clay tile block wall.
Bob Grieb, a member of MARCH, did the hard
labor of removing the
concrete from
the
channel. We had him pose for this photo (no gloves or safety
glasses).
Note the cut on
the support column the masons made in 1941 to stabalize the new
wall.
Also note the east half of the lounge
has mold stained blue wall paper and dark paneling.
Page updated January 27,
2007
page created January
7,
2007
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