Parkhopper_Vince
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Dec 6, 1999
- Messages
- 399
Well, for those of you who have had the opportunity over the years from 2001-2008 to attend one of our Parkhopper Pin Parties in our pin gallery in Rockville Maryland, the pin gallery is now officially gone. 
The building had a contract on it shortly after our last meet in February this year. I found out right before leaving for the Expedition Everest event that the purchasers wanted to settle on Friday May 9th.
I had not even begun to take down anything and now I was going to have to be finished in less than 5 days after I returned from the event. 
It wasn't easy, but we cleaned out the place entirely and finished about an hour before settlement. Those who have visited know what a large task this was, but for those that haven't I do intend to share some pictures soon of what it looked like right before we took it all down.
We had a lot of fun and made a ton of great memories in the pin gallery over the years while our collection of Disney pins and friends both grew in numbers. It is kind of fun thinking back over the pin parties we had through the years. After attending other pin meets we had thought it might be fun to host a couple ourselves. We ended up hosting 14 of them over the years, 2 in 2001, 2 in 2002, 2 in 2003, 3 in 2004, 2 in 2005, 1 in 2006, 1 in 2007, and 1 in 2008. We thought we would have some fun with some local pin traders and found that we often had attendees that came from both near and far away including the following states that I can remember: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and California...did I miss any?
I know some people who attended the last couple meets thought that it was just a rumor that the building was being sold and and laughed because we had the last Parkhopper Pin Party more than once
and who knows, maybe someday there will be another pin meet that we can host, but it won't be in the pin gallery where we had all the others 
because it is officially gone.
Our thanks to everyone who attended our meets either once or many times over the years! We had a blast!
The building had a contract on it shortly after our last meet in February this year. I found out right before leaving for the Expedition Everest event that the purchasers wanted to settle on Friday May 9th.
I had not even begun to take down anything and now I was going to have to be finished in less than 5 days after I returned from the event. It wasn't easy, but we cleaned out the place entirely and finished about an hour before settlement. Those who have visited know what a large task this was, but for those that haven't I do intend to share some pictures soon of what it looked like right before we took it all down. We had a lot of fun and made a ton of great memories in the pin gallery over the years while our collection of Disney pins and friends both grew in numbers. It is kind of fun thinking back over the pin parties we had through the years. After attending other pin meets we had thought it might be fun to host a couple ourselves. We ended up hosting 14 of them over the years, 2 in 2001, 2 in 2002, 2 in 2003, 3 in 2004, 2 in 2005, 1 in 2006, 1 in 2007, and 1 in 2008. We thought we would have some fun with some local pin traders and found that we often had attendees that came from both near and far away including the following states that I can remember: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and California...did I miss any?
I know some people who attended the last couple meets thought that it was just a rumor that the building was being sold and and laughed because we had the last Parkhopper Pin Party more than once
and who knows, maybe someday there will be another pin meet that we can host, but it won't be in the pin gallery where we had all the others because it is officially gone. Our thanks to everyone who attended our meets either once or many times over the years! We had a blast!
and can not imagine what it took to get that all cleared out. I would have like to have seen what it looked like empty!!
