Hyattsville? Love/Hate it? Is it safe?
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Anonymous
| What about public schools? It was mentioned in an early post but if you don't have lottery luck and don't have a gifted kid, how does the local elementary, middle and high school experience look? |
Anonymous
It depends on the experience you want your kids to have. If you are open to a multi ethnic and diverse SES student body then the elementary schools are great. My kids attend a Title one ES in PGCPS and I am very happy with it. The elementary schools in that area also go up to 6th grade so middle school is only 2 years. The middle school situation is slightly different. Hyattsville Middle is OK but I don't know many folks who send their kids into the general population of the school. They have an Arts program that is supposed to be good but you must audition and it is open up to other areas of the county. We are considering it for our child if they can get it. Northwestern doesn't have a great reputation either but a teacher at my kids school has a son there and he is very happy with it. An issue I have with PGCPS as a white family is that in most neighborhood MS and HSs my kid will likely be the only white kid in the class. That's fine in ES but middle school is brutal to begin with and that additional social strain is hard to impose on a kid. My kid is the only white kid in her grade in upper elementary and it is starting to be an issue. Not bullying but the feeling of being different. I live in PG and am a huge advocate for PGCPS. We are making the system work for us but we have also budgeted for the possibility of private school for middle/high school. If you don't have kids yet, I wouldn't worry about MS and HS. That's 12 years away and then you can determine if you want to move further out or to MoCo. In the meantime you will enjoy lower mortgage payments and/or a shorter commute. As a previous poster pointed out, PGCPS could be so much better if families just committed to neighborhood schools. But until the schools get better reputations, that isn't going to happen. It is a vicious cycle. |
Anonymous
Also, TAG in PGCPS is defined as scoring above the 80th percentile on the OLSAT test. There are other factors too but that is the main decider. The bar isn't as high as in other counties in the DMV. |
Anonymous
Same issue, but i'm black and in northern VA. I really want to move to PG for the schools so our kids can be around other high achieving AA. |
Anonymous
I think that there are a lot of families in PG that have the same mindset. I'm happy that my kids experience AA adults in positions of authority at school. I'm happy that they are in class with high achieving AA and hispanic students. I'm happy that being the only white kid in the class makes them a bit uncomfortable. I'm hoping that it will make them more cognisant that not everyone in the country has the white, middle class experience that they have. |
Anonymous
| Just want to point out that very few people in DC send their kids to their neighborhood in boundary schools. I know I didn't. |
Anonymous
| The houses in historic Hyattsville are sized on par with those in Shepard Park, Cleveland Park, Crestview, etc... If you buy in College Heights Estates the houses on more like those you'd find in Palisades and Cathedral. So I'm not sure what the person saying the houses in Hyattsville are smaller was talking about. And the townhouses are bigger than any development I'm aware of in DC. The corner units are huge. If you live in the townhouses you get access to a free shuttle that goes to the Metro during commuter hours. Same is true in University Park. In the fancy part of College Park (Calvert Hills) you can easily walk to the CP metro in 10-12 minutes or ride the local bus. Or you can walk to Whole Foods and catch the shuttle to the metro from there. |
Anonymous
DP but that's not true about Cleveland Park, Shepherd Park and Hyattsville. Only a few houses sold in Hyattsville over the past 3 years have been >3k sq ft and those were new builds. Cleveland Park has a bunch of big mansions and Shepherd Park has dozens sold in excess of 3k sq ft. Hyattsville is more like parts of TKPK, but without as many big bungalows that used to be or still are multi-family. The houses ARE smaller. |
Anonymous
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LOVE it! I have a lot to say about Hyattsville, where I've lived for the past decade. Here are some thoughts, organized by topic (some of which I've shared on DCUM in pieces in the past).
Houses The historic district of Hyattsville is a neighborhood-y neighborhood filled with beautiful tree-lined streets, active civic groups, charming houses — including old (and large) Victorian manses, bungalows (often Sears Craft houses), Cape Cods, and Colonials — and neighbors who care about each other. Housing prices here are also about $200,000 lower than the other areas we were looking at inside the Beltway, with some pretty extraordinary deals to be found. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were built in the early 20th century and many have unusually large yards for the DC area. |
Anonymous
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People
Many Hyattsville neighbors have lived there for decades, but a sizeable and growing contingent of newer residents are changing the existing community in big and small ways. Latinos, artists, hipsters, academics, LGBTQ(A) community members, and young families (clearly these groups are not mutually exclusive) are increasingly moving to the area. The neighborhood is genuinely diverse in many ways, racially, ethnically, and socio-economically (for a start). Our population is about 18,500 and the breakdown of the population from the 2010 Census was 35.6% Black or African American, 34% Hispanic or Latino, 24% Caucasian, and 4.4% Asian. It’s a friendly and welcoming community. A few years ago Hyattsville became the first small community in Maryland to add transgender-inclusive non-discrimination protections to its laws. Residents have a strong commitment to social justice and it's a pretty liberal place, as voter registrations and neighborhood yard signs will attest. Some have referred to Hyattsville as the “new Takoma Park.” We were the second city in the country (after Takoma Park) to lower its voting age for municipal elections to 16, in a deliberate attempt to foster a culture of civic engagement in the community. We’ve extended the municipal franchise to non-citizen residents and have codified our longstanding Sanctuary City practices. Our Mayor, City Administrator, and Chief of Police are African American women. The neighborhood is about 10 years into a baby boom, with no end in sight. A 70's era approach to parenting seems to be shared by many Hyattsvillenos (Hyattsvillains? Hyattsvillagers? There's no real consensus on the collective name). Hyattsville kids often have an unusually large and free range they’re allowed to travel on their own through the neighborhood. Children roam the streets together in groups, going from one house to another. This is still a neighborhood where kids (of appropriate ages, the precise age varying family to family) are sometimes thrust outside on a summer day and expected to return home by nightfall. If you’re part of this community of parents, you may find that you have an unexpected guest or 10 show up to your house wanting a snack. It's a great place to start a family. Parenting is a communal activity in Hyattsville. The area seems to have a higher than average number of librarians, archivists, artists, actors, scientists, professors, and people with PhDs. Hyattsville is about halfway between the University of Maryland and Catholic University, about two miles from each with an easy commute to either campus. A number of residents work at the nearby National Archives II or Goddard. There’s a regular neighborhood Dungeons & Dragons game, attended by 40-somethings. Neighbors go to Burning Man and Renaissance Weekends. Hyattsville residents are generally quirky, idealistic, and nerdy. While the Caucasian and African-American populations are pretty well integrated into the community as a whole, the fastest-growing (and probably now the largest) demographic group, Latinos, are less so. In light of the potential barriers of language, culture, socio-economics, and geography (the largest concentration of Latino residents live west of Queens Chapel Road, in what’s referred to as West Hyattsville), the city and residents could do a better job of reaching out to all of their neighbors. I know this is a priority many share, but are not quite sure how to achieve. Right now a large segment of our population is effectively absent from the community’s civic life. Latino residents might equally claim the converse, about the lack of engagement of Caucasians and African-Americans in Latinx community activities. |
Anonymous
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Events
You can always find something fun to do in Hyattsville. The City puts on numerous festive events throughout the year. In the fall, there’s an Arts Festival, International Festival, Spookyfest, and outdoor movies; in winter, a tree lighting/caroling event; in spring, an egg hunt, the Hyattsville Anniversary parade and carnival, Citizenship Day, and Dogs for the Arts; and in the summer, National Night Out and monthly Friday evening Summer Jams where neighbors gather to listen to music, eat, watch their children frolic, and hang out with friends. Our neighboring community of Riverdale Park holds a similar series of jazz music concerts (Jazz on the Lawn) on Wednesday evenings in the summer on the huge lawn of the Riversdale House. Block parties spring up throughout the neighborhood in the spring and fall. Hyattsville puts on regular and well-attended dances for teenagers and for young children and their parents. The City teams up with Hyattsville Aging in Place (HAP) to host regular programs for older residents. As mentioned above, the neighborhood is filled with a LOT of young families and there's an incredibly active Parents group. They hold a Hops Hop in the fall and a Vine Crawl in the spring which start out as potluck dinners in a park for 200 to 300 people, with the large group breaking into smaller groups of about 35 that travel from house to house in the neighborhood and sip beer or wine depending on the season. Lately these events have ended with a big dance party. There’s an overlapping listserv for Catholic parents in the neighborhood. In fact, there are many traditional Catholic families in Hyattsville, who have recently garnered national attention for the “intentional community” they've created in Hyattsville. There are many other active neighborhood groups with their own calendars of social events, including the Hyattsville Preservation Association (HPA), which puts on an historic house tour in the spring, and the Hyattsville Horticultural Society (HHS), which sponsors a big seed sale/bake sale in the winter which runs concurrently with an intergenerational art-making event hosted by Hyattsville Aging in Place. Nearby Riverdale Park holds a well-attended farmers market on Thursdays with live music. This moves indoors in the winter months. Hyattsville hosts a Cyclocross race in the fall and another bike race in the spring sponsored by the University of Maryland. Hyattsville residents like to drink and they like to dance. Impromptu celebrations abound (zany Mardi Gras parades, snow day parties that go from house to house, semi-annual and free to all clothing and baby supply swaps, etc.). Potlatch culture thrives here, along with potlucks. |
Anonymous
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Location
One of the best things about Hyattsville is its location. This is a dynamic, up-and-coming community, close to the nation’s capital, with impressive proximity to major roads, public transit, and trails, enabling residents to travel easily throughout the region. Hyattsville’s motto is “A world within walking distance” (well, one of our mottoes). We’re only about a 20-25 minute drive to downtown DC. It takes about 30-45 minutes to get to Metro Center via Metro, about 45 minutes by bike. It’s a straight shot on the Metro to the Mall or Nationals Stadium. We’re less than a mile from the Prince George’s Plaza Metro station (and the stadium seating multiplex movie theater, restaurants, and condos at University Town Center) and about a mile from the West Hyattsville Metro. We're about a mile and a half from the MARC train station in Riverdale Park and some neighbors take the MARC (free parking there) to work near Union Station. We’re also less than a mile from the Hyattsville Arts District community on Route 1 with all the attendant development (Busboys and Poets, Tara Thai, Spice 6, Yes! Organic Market, etc.). Vigilante Coffee opened in Hyattsville a few years ago and became an instant gathering place. Vigilante holds occasional live music events there, along with various gallery openings, fundraisers, and receptions. During the summer, there’s even more live music weekly at the Town Center Market in Riverdale Park and monthly at Community Forklift in Edmonston. Hyattsville is also about halfway between the University of Maryland and Catholic University, about two miles from either with an easy commute to either campus. This might be one reason why there are so many academics in the neighborhood. It’s easy to get to either the Green Line (Prince George’s Plaza Metro Station) or the Red Line (Rhode Island Avenue Metro Station) by bus from the Historic District. The Purple Line will be coming to nearby Riverdale Park in a few years, which will make it much easier to get from our area to Northwest DC/Bethesda/Rockville. There’s significant development imminent near the PG Plaza Metro Station. The County has ambitious plans to renovate the Hyattsville public library and the county recreation center near the Prince George’s Plaza Metro in the next few years. A new development has broken ground near the West Hyattsville Metro station, and I expect to see major changes in the western part of the city over the next few years. When I first moved here, some maintained that Hyattsville was an arts community in name only. I think it would be hard for anyone to make that claim with a straight face these days. Hyattsville hosts an Arts Festival in the fall and has revived ArtSpin, an event where art and artists take over City Hall for a weekend. Murals and public sculptures are found throughout the city, in front of businesses and private residences as well. Art Works Studio School moved to Hyattsville from Mt. Rainier (with a Pizzeria Paradiso next door) and Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center relocated from Silver Spring last summer, just a little further north along Route 1 in a building right next to City Hall. Both Art Works and Pyramid Atlantic are arts organizations which pair their creative missions with commitments to social justice—they’re perfect fits for their new Hyattsville home. A fantastic art supply store is located in the middle of these two art meccas. In the heart of town, Renaissance Square provides subsidized artist housing. Further up Route 1, about a quarter of a mile north of Hyattsville, is the Riverdale Park Station development, including a Whole Foods, which was the first to open in Prince George's County. Over a billion dollars worth of development is underway in College Park, including an outpost of Philly’s MilkBoy + Arthouse. I expect the area to our immediate north will be completely transformed (for the better) in 2-4 years. Since moving here, I've been grateful for our close proximity to Target, Home Depot, Community Forklift, and further out (but still an easy drive) Ikea, REI, and a terrific nursery (plants, that is). We’re about a 20 minute drive from one of the best farmers markets in the DC area (Takoma Park, Sunday morning). Now there's a Wegmans about 20 minutes away too (with another Costco there) and we are a 15 minute drive from the DC Costco (which sells alcohol, to neighbors’ delight). Hyattsville is in a great location if you’re heading to Silver Spring, Brookland's burgeoning restaurant scene, or National Harbor, all of which are relatively nearby. It's also easy to drive a little farther and get to Baltimore or Annapolis without having to fight DC traffic. Hyattsville has a great public splash park in town. There are splash fountains at University Town Center and Riverdale Park Station where kids frolic in the summer. My family belongs to the PG Pool, a co-op pool in Mt. Rainier (about 1.5 miles away from our house), which serves as a big part of the summer social scene for many area families (including families from Mt. Rainier, Takoma Park, Riverdale Park, Brentwood, University Park, and Capitol Hill). The pool has tent nights, nights where the pool stays open late, scheduled food trucks, and live music throughout the summer. Suddenly there’s an overwhelming wait list (1500+ families, where 40-60 families have been offered spaces each year for the past few years) for our particular pool (again with the young families), but there are other area pools (like the Adelphi Pool and Cheverly Swim Club) that Hyattsville families have started joining in significant numbers. Adelphi Pool has a popular reduced-price August-only membership, which is a good way to try out the private pool experience. Hyattsville also has a thriving community garden (also with a wait list, but not nearly as long as the pool’s). |
Anonymous
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Challenges and Growth
One downside to Hyattsville is that this is definitely an area in transition. Hyattsville was hit especially hard by the Great Recession and the country’s economic situation meant that the timeline for the anticipated economic boom for the area was pushed back repeatedly. Although people in the DC area are suddenly starting to notice this historically undervalued area (here, here, here, here, here, and here), obstacles that may keep newly ascendant Hyattsville from achieving its potential, such as poverty, crime, underperforming public schools, traffic congestion, diminishing tree canopy, and unwise development choices. Public perception of Prince George’s County is deeply influenced by racism, but many of the county’s problems are of our own making (e.g., the very recent bribery scandals involving Will Campos and Michael Vaughn are reminiscent of the corrupt Jack Johnson political regime from a few years back. The political infighting among the school board members is a continuing headache that seems to serve no-one). This is not a wealthy area with uniform, well-manicured lawns. It’s the kind of neighborhood where an artist, lawyer, janitor, retiree, social worker, and Nobel Prize winner might share home-brewed beers at a block party and talk about raising (secret) chickens in their backyards. We have some of the last few affordable neighborhoods inside the Beltway. We have a rapidly growing population, including large numbers of recent immigrants (many from El Salvador), and Hyattsville residents are having children at an impressive rate. New high-end townhouses are popping up all around us. There are ambitious plans for future development near our two Metro stations, both of which are among the least utilized in the entire Metro system (which, for now, means you can still get a parking space much later in the morning than at other comparatively close in Metro stations). All this rapid growth has spillover effects on traffic and parking and residents are concerned about the increase in cut-through traffic and speeding through formerly sleepy residential neighborhoods. The crime stats of the neighboring communities continue to be disconcerting, although you’ll see that the Hyattsville Hills and University Park areas are seas of relative safety within this area. Still, this is no gated community. Gambling has come to National Harbor (about a half hour drive away) in the past few years. That's a double edged sword. It brings development and jobs to the county, along with a number of new entertainment options, but probably doesn't help our county’s reputation for wholesomeness. On the other end of the spectrum, the FBI was supposed to be relocating its headquarters in a few years and nearby Greenbelt was generally viewed as the strongest candidate of the three finalist locations (Landover, also in Prince George's County, was also a finalist). This decision was slated for spring of 2017, but, unfortunately, the Trump administration cancelled the planned move, without actually proposing a solution for addressing the problems that made the move necessary. Ugh! I suspect this decision is not completely derailed, but on hold for an indeterminate period of time. Although the potential timetable is pushed back and this has gone from likely and imminent to uncertain, if Greenbelt (or Landover) were eventually selected to be a new FBI headquarters in a post-Trump world, this would be a game-changer for the area. It's hard to ignore the fact that Prince George's County has lived in the shadow of some of our neighboring jurisdictions for many years, but that dynamic is changing … quickly. I've noticed the usual tensions between the pro-development forces and the pro-residential neighborhood ones (for want of a better way to characterize the divide), which seem to flare up around election seasons. I've spoken to a number of people who lament the passing of the Hyattsville that used to be [X] number of years ago "when neighbors really knew each other," but I can't understand the reason for the sense of loss. Decades ago, Hyattsville was a close-knit, blue-collar, largely white, predominantly Catholic community. These days it’s a close-knit, multi-cultural, wildly diverse community (including many Catholics). Economic differences among Hyattsville residents may be increasing, with people moving to the community on both ends of the economic spectrum. Some neighbors are concerned about the number of immigrants moving to Hyattsville, about houses being turned into rental properties, or about multi-generational housing with “too many people” living in the households or “too many cars” taking up the available on-street parking, others are worried about gentrification, the loss of affordable housing, or that Hyattsville is on its way to turning into “new Bethesda.” With the population surge and attendant development, there is always a danger that those qualities that make Hyattsville special could be lost, and some people think that has already happened. These tensions will be with us for a while to come, but in that sense Hyattsville is only a microcosm of the larger society. My impression is that Hyattsville is still the most welcoming neighborhood I've ever lived in AND I'm enthused about being able to walk to so many great things. This is an artsy, funky, scrappy, and welcoming community, and most people here are committed to keeping it that way. |
Anonymous
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Schools
The people on our block send their kids to a mix of public (neighborhood and charter) and private (independent and parochial) schools. There's a large homeschooling community around here too. Candidly, my sense is that the public schools aren't perceived as being strong, and that many view the schools as this area’s Achilles heel, but this seems to be slowly changing for the better (too slowly for some). I see a lot of energy being put into the local schools by parents, particularly the elementary schools. There are some highly-regarded public charter or specialty schools nearby where admission is determined by lottery (Montessori, French Immersion, and Spanish Immersion) and there's an arts magnet program at the local middle school. A new elementary school (Felegy) which opened a few years ago in West Hyattsville has an arts specialty program as well. Many neighborhood kids test into a strong public math and science magnet program (Eleanor Roosevelt) in Greenbelt for high school. Some well-regarded private schools in the area include an early education laboratory program (Center for Young Children) under the College of Education at the University of Maryland, a classical Great Books curriculum and Montessori program at the local Catholic elementary/middle school (St. Jerome), a Catholic boys high school with a national profile (DeMatha), a recently-opened charter school (The College Park Academy), and a progressive Quaker School (Friends Community School), among others. Art Works and Joe’s Movement Emporium run beloved after-school programs. Parents choose from a wide range of nearby summer camp options for seemingly every interest under the sun. As I keep emphasizing, there's been an influx of young families in the area in the past 5-10 years and there are some great local educational opportunities, but there’s a great deal of poverty in this area and a large immigrant population. Test scores reflect all of these aspects of Hyattsville life. I hear widespread concern about the quality of our public schools compared to those in neighboring counties and some believe that this is one factor keeping people from moving to the area and keeping property values lower than you'd expect. However, I've seen first-hand a number of highly educated and engaged parents who are deliberately choosing to get involved in the local public schools to transform and improve them. Pride in our local elementary schools is widespread. I have seen the enormous difference a small group of people have been able to effect in a few years. I see signs that this effort is strong, growing, and will continue into the future. There’s work to be done, but a lot of people who are committed to doing it. |
Anonymous
| Thanks for this wealth of information! |