By Kit Slack (View FULL STORY online on Hyattsville Life & Times)
A couple of years ago, a few neighbors were initially disappointed to learn that the then-pending renovation of the Arcade Building across from Vigilante Coffee on Gallatin Street did not mean that pinball, Pac Man, and Donkey Kong were coming to downtown Hyattsville.
According to a historical pamphlet available in the gift store, when the Arcade Building first opened in 1890, it was as Pinkney Memorial Episcopal Church. The next major renovation was in 1913, when the congregation outgrew the church, and sold it to a developer who flattened its steep roof, and put in four bowling alleys, a movie theater, and a pool hall. The structure was often vacant from the 1940s until its stabilization, in the early 2000s, by the Hyattsville Community Development Corporation.