Yum Foods, the corporate force behind Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, wants to put a drive through fast food KFC/PH restaurant in the Woodmoor residential community in the Four Corners area of Silver Spring MD. They propose to locate this restaurant in an area already burdened by traffic and directly across the street from a high school, a church, and dozens of homes.

The fast food KFC with a 24' high tower with Col Sanders on it is proposed as an addition to the historic Art-Deco Woodmoor Shopping Center. KFC has the gall to state that their prototypical building design is being altered to complement the Art Deco style of the ca. 1938 shopping center. They plan to accomplish this by painting the normally white brick a shade of yellow. That's it.

If this kind of corporate sham against a community and against historic architecture offends you, let the Montgomery County Planning Commission and Board of Appeals know about it. Find out more information about the community's fight against KFC by clicking here.

-- Dr. Kenneth Hawkins (seahawkman2001@yahoo.com), April 22, 2002

Answers

I am Preservation Chair of the Art Deco Society of Washington. I am intrigued by the idea that one can transform a building into an Art Deco structure by the application of a coat of yellow paint. This must be rather extraordinary paint. Please direct me to the spokesperson who made or wrote this statement as well as all of the written materials that discuss all of the ways that KFC's new building will complement the existing historic resource and perhaps become an instant historic resource in its own right through the application of this magic paint. With luck, I will be able to locate this paint, buy and test it, and share the results of my research at future public hearings on this issue. Wayne Goldstein

-- Wayne Goldstein (waynemgoldstein@hotmail.com), April 22, 2002.