Talk to me about college park and hyattsville
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Anonymous
| Looking for a house somewhere in these neighborhoods. We prefer urban but with commuting to Annapolis three times a week for work these neighborhoods make more sense. Are these liberal neighborhoods? Easy to find new friends? Anything walk able? Anything more "crunchy " than other? |
Anonymous
| I don't live in College Park but I work there. Lots of professors live in the neighborhood right next to campus (the area between East-West Highway, Baltimore Ave, and Adelphi road. Nice quiet neighborhood of post-war houses. However, this area is not walking distance to the Metro (although you can walk over to Regent's drive and take the UMD shuttle to the Metro without an ID or take a short drive and park in the lot.) If you want crunchy, try Takoma Park or Old Greenbelt. We used to live in Old Greenbelt (rented) and loved it. There are some great houses right on Greenbelt lake that are so affordable and walking distance to the Greenbelt co-op grocery store and the elementary school. (Try looking on Lakeside Dr.) |
Anonymous
| college park is a hidden jewel. it has a lower violent crime rate than all the other acc college towns. (charlottesville has 4x the violent crime, chapel hill has 4X the violent crime.) Umd brings in huge employment and government installations (nasa, noaa, homeland security,hhs,national language center,national archives). breaks down in different neighborhoods...try to stay away from the students...they can party a lot. the Umd facilities are open to the public for a small fee and they are rated #1 in the country by princeton review. lots of different sports to attend (Umd has more national championships than any acc school.) there is a new restaurant (fishnet) thats a gem. public elementary (university park) is EXCELLENT...but after that is sucks. Awesome for catholics though...holy redeemer and st marks are awesome k-8 . then Dematha, Palotti or Mcnamara for HS. |
Anonymous
| Check out old Hyattsville (the neighborhood closest to Franklin's) or Mount Rainier. Both are definitely crunchy, very social and community-oriented, fairly liberal (though a smattering of conservative thrown in -- actually very nicely diverse IMO), good walkability - especially if you are near route 1 in hyattsville, and close access (closer than College Park) to route 50 to head out to Annapolis. The other great thing about these areas is that right now you can find an extremely inexpensive house to buy. The downside is that these areas are a bit dingy, so if you are looking for something polished you definitely won't find it here. You will still need to drive - to Annapolis for example - for a nicer shopping mall. However, PG plaza is close enough for Target, Starbucks, and other basic shopping. |
Anonymous
| We live in Hyattsville Hills, walking distance to Busboys & Poets and all the other restaurants and shops there, and Franklins, the post office, the bike path, soccer fields, 4-5 playgrounds. We have to ride our bikes or take car/bus to the library and PG Plaza, movie theater. Walking around Hyattsville is more pleasant than walking around Mt Rainier, though we do love the Glut, Joe's and PG Pool. Do you have kids? Do you care about school options? |
Anonymous
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Mt. Rainier, Brentwood, and Cheverly are all places you might want to look at.
I live in Mt. Rainier, but I think Hyattsville and College Park are nice too! |
Anonymous
| University Park in College Park is a really pretty neighborhood. For commuting to Annapolis, I agree that Cheverly could be a nice option. |
Anonymous
This is the town of University Park. |
Anonymous
Also, most the houses were built in the 30s and 40s, just to clarify, although there are homes from the late 40s and 50s in the more northern half of town. |
Anonymous
Not to flog a dead horse, but University Park is a separate neighboring town. So if you are looking for information about housing costs, local taxes, rental percentages, town services, and/or the police department, all of these are different. You can find more online at the town website: http://www.upmd.org |
Anonymous
College Park is one of the least attractive towns for a major university in the country. It's not a hidden jewel; it's an open sore. There are some excellent researchers there, but I feel sorry for the undergraduates that attend school in such a depressing environment. |
Anonymous
| PP, have you ever driven off of Route 1? |
Anonymous
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Can you tell me more about Mt rainier and hyattsville? Is there a downtown or other urban neighborhood we should be looking at? How's the diversity?
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Anonymous
Sad, but true. |
Anonymous
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Historic Hyattsville is fairly crunchy. University Park is really nice, but the home prices are considerably more expensive than many of the neighboring areas. Old Greenbelt and Berwyn Heights are also nice family oriented neighborhoods. There's a small pocket of old Riverdale that is also nice. We've lived in Hyattsville, old Riverdale, and now Berwyn Heights and had great, friendly neighbors in all of them. Old Riverdale and Greenbelt both have nice farmers' markets. Old Riverdale is walkable to the MARC which is nice. College Park has some nice neighborhoods (off Berwyn Rd and the college named streets are nice) too. Lots of good local restaurants in the area - Shagga, Franklin's, Fishnet.
A note on schools though, St. Mark's no longer has a school. So HR and St. Jerome's are the Catholic options. |