Downtown Takoma Park, Maryland (Takoma, DC)

Historic city straddling the border
of Washington DC, this community is
known as the "Berkeley of the East".

Founded by developer B.F. Gilbert, a health-conscious idealist seeking a hilly, forested area next to a railroad stop to which he could build a sanitorium and health spa, the community was dominated from 1890-1960s by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, who moved their global headquarters (from Battle Creek, Michigan) at Gilbert's prompting.

After the social upheavals of the 1960s, Church officials began to disinvest in the area, citing traffic and "demographic concerns" as the area became a hotbed for students fleeing the social unrest of the late '60s. Adventist world headquarters relocated to the suburb of Silver Spring MD, followed by its printing plant; one of several parochial schools; and the Adventist health-food store.

The Electrik Maid, a vegetarian grill (Adventist-founded) and one of the few cafes in a town that was dominated by wholesale businesses and five-and-dimes serving an originally rural population, was sold in 1981 and briefly replaced by the Takoma Cafe, a collectively-owned macrobiotic coffee-house, which went out of business.

The other major influence attracting boomers to the area in the 60's and 70's was the reputation of John Fahey, a blues guitar master responsible for "discovering" Blind Lemon Jefferson and whose label, Takoma Records, became nationally famous in the folk community. Known for such unplugged titles as "Voice of the Turtle" and "Downfall of the Adelphi Rolling Gristmill" whose R.Crumb-esque liner notes were replete with obscure references to deteriorating local landmarks, Fahey ironically repudiated his hometown of Takoma Park as a haven for "psychic vampires and crystal huggers" and disappeared himself, only to be "rediscovered" in a trailer on the outskirts of Corvallis, Oregon 15 years later, where he became involved in the alt-rock scene prior to his death.

Also from Takoma Park were guitarist Root Boy Slim (who lived in a group house and also died prematurely) and actress Goldie Hawn of "Laugh-In" (who is rumored to revisit her childhood home often).

Other locally famous residents include Catman, a legendary DC motorcyclist, and his helmeted companion Motorcat; Walt Rave, a prominent local animal rights activist and director of the Takoma Park Tool Library, a free hardware co-op; several prominent environmental and social justice activists; and two feral roosters, both of which were run over, living in the neighborhood due to the presence of unlicensed chicken coops.

In the 80's and 90's, with continuing upward mobility, many older businesses were replaced by new arts-related uses oriented to the large population of academics and liberal policymakers moving into the neighborhood.

In various spots along Carroll Avenue, which is the main street, a printing plant, a multistory Ford showroom, a boxing club, Barcelona Nuts factory, and a landfill were gradually replaced by:

A studio of the Washington Opera, a folk/blues pizzeria, a jazz nightclub, a major theatrical supply store, and a large food co-op, respectively.

House of Musical Traditions (founded in 1969) is considered the premier venue in DC for folk and musical instruments, anchors the commercial district.

The community sits on the edge of the Piedmont Plateau along the Fall Line, a geological escarpment which divides affluent Northwest DC (and Montgomery County, MD) from the Potomac/Patuxent tidal plains of central DC (and Prince Georges County MD). It is named after Takoma, an Indian word for Mount Rainier meaning: "high, near heaven."

After consolidation in 1997, the Takoma Park municipal line marks the southernmost boundary of affluent Montgomery County, MD dividing it (and the Fall Line) from the more working-class Prince Georges County, MD.

Both counties (including Takoma Park itself) surround Washington, DC to the north and east.

Takoma Park is bisected by two barriers which run parallel to one another:

The B&O (CSX/Metrorail) tracks to the west, which run through downtown Takoma Park at the DC/MD line; and

Sligo Creek Park, which runs through the east side of town in a deep ravine, emerging into Prince Georges County where it joins the Anacostia River in the vicinity of Mount Rainier, MD.

Along with the two nearby towns of Mount Rainier and Garrett Park MD, Takoma Park was recently listed (2006) as among the top ten most statistically liberal small towns in the US.

All three towns are Victorian suburbs of Washington, DC, built on the B&O (CSX) railroad which runs along the northeast boundary of DC.

Of the three, Garrett Park is small, extremely affluent, and has no commercial district.

Mount Rainier is much more working-class, and resembles a small mill town more than a suburb of the nation's capital. Of the three, Mount Rainier has a more ethnically diverse population and a more perceived "counterculture" reputation (whereas Takoma Park, has been accused of resembling a "counterculture theme park").

Takoma Park is the largest and most central of the three communities, and it predates surrounding areas which were still mostly farmland in the 1880s-1920s.

In 1900, Takoma Park was the commercial hub for the entire mostly-rural area to the east of Rock Creek Park in both DC and MD, including the eastern half of Montgomery County (present-day pop. 900,000) because until 1961, Takoma Park marked the northern boundary of the DC Transit trolley line.

It was also a stop on the original B&O railroad in 1888, when the town was developed.

The original railroad station was destroyed by arson in the 1960's and was replaced by a Metro station on the same site in the 1970's.

In accordance with a document known as the "Mustard Plan", a substantial number of older homes and businesses adjacent to the train station were also removed, in anticipation that a major freeway along with the Metro would be built through the area.

The commercial hub, situated on the DC side of the line, is mostly gone, replaced by the Metro station and adjacent lots created by station-area development.

What were originally two small satellite shopping strips built on the east and west edges of downtown during the 1920's, when there were two trolley terminii in the neighborhood, are today the twin shopping strips of Takoma DC (4th and Butternut Sts. NW, marked by the Takoma Theater on the west side of the tracks) and Takoma Park MD (intersection of Carroll and Laurel Avenues, marked by the gazebo and clock tower where Carroll Avenue performs an S-curve).

These two downtown shopping hubs can be seen at opposite ends of the highlighted rectangle on this map.

Separated by the east-west axis of Carroll Street, which crosses under the Metro tracks, they both retain a significant area of small, independently owned stores, often situated on top of or behind one another due to the irregular streets and terrain.

As a result of proposed development plans, including a 10-lane highway which would have bisected the entire metropolitan area, the city of Takoma Park MD beginning in the 60's instituted some of the strictest historic, rent control, and tree preservation laws in the nation.

As you can see by zooming out on the map, Takoma Park is clearly visible as an area with the densest tree cover in Washington, DC outside of Rock Creek Park.

The trees are large (50-70 feet) deciduous second growth, predating the Civil War.

Due to lack of surrounding regulation and Dutch Elm blight on the DC side of the line

(all of the grid streets in DC were planted with Elms in the 1800s, and many were severely cut back to eliminate the disease),

the area of dense tree cover closely defines the boundaries of the Takoma Park, MD community.

In 1860 Takoma Park was a woodlot owned by the Carroll Plantation, adjacent to the 7th Street Turnpike (modern day Georgia Avenue, one of the main north-south streets in DC) which was defended against the confederate troops of Gen. Jubal Early at the nearby battle of Fort Stevens in DC.

Early's troops occupied the home of Montgomery Blair, postmaster for Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist, along the turnpike near the DC line.

Blair's plantation, Silver Spring, became the major unincorporated city of Silver Spring (pop. 50,000) and the Carroll Plantation became Takoma Park, MD. Both towns are situated on the DC line adjacent to one another.

Georgia Avenue, to the west, is the main N-S gateway into Silver Spring from Washington, DC.

In the 1930's, nearby Silver Spring was one of the first automobile-oriented "suburban shopping centers" in the country.

At the time, it was a pit stop on the railroad on the periphery of Takoma Park, a town of 17-21,000 (not including adjacent Takoma DC).

Today Silver Spring is much larger and more heavily developed, and the suburban areas of Silver Spring envelop Takoma Park to the north and east, while Takoma Park has remained relatively unchanged outside of the immediate Metro station area.

Due to the urbanization of downtown Silver Spring, which deteriorated in the '50s and '60s, Takoma Park saw the construction of numerosu high-rise, low-income apartment buildings on small plots of land dotted throughout the community in anticipation of '50s style urban development around the Metro that never came. These apartments later became protected, but restricted, by extraordinarily stringent historic and rent control ordinances. During the same period, aging civil servants and Seventh-Day Adventist settlers began subdividing their houses into apartments to attract postwar baby boomers.

By the late 1960's, Takoma Park MD had expanded from a normal population of 17,000 to a dense population of 27,000 people, mostly renters.

In the wake of the decision to kill the North Central Freeway, the last major freeway planned to bisect Washington, DC, state and county officials discovered that the houses near the Takoma Park metro could not be written off anymore, which was one of the reasons that so little modern suburban development had taken place, and began to regulate them.

Due to an extremely controversial zoning decision, the vast majority of the group homes were given 10 years to vacate, resulting in a mass exodus of "hippies" and working class retirees from 1979-1989.

Their numbers were replaced with more affluent (and predominately liberal) single family homeowners, including upwardly mobile baby boomers fleeing high home values in places such as Dupont Circle, DC and Berkely, California. Attracted by proximity to the Metro station, this trend continues.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, the population losses associated with gentrification began to be offset by the enormous migration of immigrants of all nationalities, particularly El Salvadoran, to the adjacent areas of Langley Park and East Silver Spring, which surround Takoma Park on three sides.

While these populations (West African, Ethiopian, Indian, East Asian, and especially Salvadoran) have made Takoma Park one of the most multicultural communities in the DC metropolitan area, their commercial centers are all on the east side of town, in Langley Park and East Silver Spring, which are regionally significant centers for immigration.

To date the majority of Takoma Park residents who are black immigrant (52%) and who are predominately tenants (60%, most in high rises) have had little influence in Takoma Park MD politics or downtown commerce on the DC/MD line, which continue to be oriented to the sensibilities of the (largely white) New Left of the '60s-'70s).

An additional complication is the fact that the vast section of DC east of Rock Creek (including adjacent Takoma DC), is mostly single family homes and has remained suspicious of both immigrants and countercultural influences.

These areas have remained integrated (almost entirely African American or white) thanks to the common effort of civil rights activists, mobilized by future Takoma Park Mayor Sammy Abbott and future DC Mayor Marion Barry, to defeat the North Central Freeway which would have run north-south through the area.

Thanks to a successful asbestos salesman, the victoran community of craftsman homes on irregular streets (on both sides of the line) became known in the 1960's as "Tacky Park", or less affectionately "Glaucoma Park" due to the large number of original residents who still owned their homes.

Due to massive generational shift in the 60's, the large quantity of older homes close to the University of Maryland, and the presence of a vegetarian grill and a vegetarian co-op, both owned by the health-conscious Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Takoma Park became a major countercultural hotspot in the 1970s for hippies who could no longer afford to live in Dupont Circle or Adams-Morgan in DC.

Many

South of the Silver Spring gateway, Georgia Avenue is also the western boundary of the Takoma DC neighborhood, a large right triangle on the northern edge of DC.

It is bounded by Georgia Avenue to the east, Van Ness St. and the diagonal Eastern Avenue, which bisects downtown Takoma Park (DC/MD). Eastern Avenue is the DC line.

Takoma Park actually was in three separate jurisdictions until the city voted to secede from working-class Prince Georges County in 1997 and consolidate in Montgomery County, MD.

After secession was voted on but before it took place, a petition drive was organized to annex four neighborhoods in Prince Georges County in an area of steep hills and shotgun houses formally known as Pinecrest/Circle Woods and informally called "Hells Bottom". Takoma Park accepted the petition to annex the four neighborhoods before the secession took place.

It is anticipated that the large Washington Adventist Hospital in the center of town may close, although several large Adventist Churches and a parochial college (Columbia Union College) remain in central Takoma Park.

Takoma Park is the headquarters of CASA de Maryland, an organization dedicated to assisting immigrants, particularly undocumented construction workers. Non-citizens may vote in municipal elections.