Takoma Park, Md., residents embrace quirky image
correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Takoma Park, Md., is northwest of D.C. The article also incorrectly listed Takoma Elementary and Takoma Middle schools instead of Takoma Park Elementary and Takoma Park Middle schools. The article has been corrected.
Takoma Park, Md., is a place where a long-dead rooster is regarded as a hero, where a 17-foot crocheted octopus was once wrapped around the downtown clock tower (and remained there for months), and an official ban is imposed on nuclear weapons.
Longtime resident Jay Keller describes the Montgomery County city of 17,000 as “quirky, delightful and maddening.”
Keller said he loves the city for its vibrant arts scene, transit access and walkability, but also for its engaged — if sometimes overzealous — residents.
“People love to debate everything here,” he said with a laugh. It’s a community of activists, where proposals to build a parking lot or rename a street can spark prolonged and intense public discourse. (The city’s official website notes that, during a fervent protest of highway construction in the 1960s, newspapers dubbed it “The People’s Republic of Takoma Park” and “The Berkeley of the East.”)
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Keller’s take is typical of Takoma Park residents, who speak with affection and humor about the city’s long-established oddness.
“Eclectic is a word that gets used a lot around here,” said Dan Metcalf, a born-and-bred Takoma Parker who now makes a living selling homes there.
The city was one of the first railroad-accessible suburbs in the D.C. region, according to its website. With a higher elevation than the nation’s capital, it was attractive to those in search of respite from the mosquitoes that plagued the city.
Takoma Park was incorporated in 1890. It straddled Prince George’s and Montgomery counties until the late 1990s, when it was wholly absorbed into the latter.
Metcalf said the city’s long history is evident in its diverse housing stock.
“Like a lot of urban environments,” he said, “it’s built in rings.”
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Around the historic downtown, there’s a collection of homes dating to the late 19th century. Moving outward, there’s a ring of bungalows, then a smattering of modest capes and cottages, then a band of classic colonials, and finally, a group of ranchers dating to the 1950s.
“It’s not all cookie-cutters,” Keller said. “Every house looks a little different.”
The streets of Takoma Park are winding, hilly and colorful, peppered with bright shutters and facades. They’re lined with young and mature trees, thanks in part to the city’s urban-forestry efforts. Despite the proximity to the Capital Beltway, the residential areas feel quiet and secluded.
Keller moved to Takoma Park in 1988. Before, he’d lived in Arlington, Va., and Dupont Circle in D.C.
At first, Keller said, the Maryland city seemed much too far from downtown for his liking.
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But “it’s not, at all,” he said. “It’s very close in.”
For the final eight years of Keller’s and his wife’s careers, both biked to work in downtown D.C. Now retired, they enjoy easy access to wooded biking trails.
For Emily van Loon, also retired, the ease of navigating Takoma Park on foot is one of its biggest assets. She and her husband can walk to a grocery store, pharmacy, post office and hardware store.
“Someday, somebody's going to take our car keys away from us, because they're going to say we're too old to drive,” van Loon said. “And it's going to be easy to cope.”
Sarah Scriven, a graduate student at the University of Maryland in College Park, has lived in Takoma Park for three years, drawn to the area because of the convenient commute it offered her. Plus, “there’s a lot to do,” Scriven said.
Indeed, a walk down Takoma Park’s main thoroughfare — and even its quieter side streets — reveals no shortage of posters and fliers for upcoming events, from flea markets to food and music festivals to the weekly, year-round farmers market.
Scriven has made a point to visit every restaurant in downtown Takoma Park, where diners can find Italian, Thai, Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Ethiopian and American fare.
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The racial, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the city is one of its most valued features, several residents said. So is the quality of the public schools.
Brendan Smith, who works for the city as its arts and humanities coordinator, said Takoma Park’s strong sense of place has a lot to do with its commitment to the arts. His wide-ranging work includes coordinating the placement of the aforementioned octopus, to helping orchestrate a poetry contest in which the winners — 10 adults and 10 children — had their work etched on the city’s sidewalks. Takoma Park has a poet laureate, hosts a humanities lecture series and offers regular film screenings.
Smith said it’s not typical for a municipality this size to have an official position like his — or to devote quite so much energy to artistic pursuits.
“It really is part of the identity and culture of the city,” he said.
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It may also be atypical for a city this size to have so much lore — perhaps most notably the tale of Roscoe the Rooster.
Though his origins are shrouded in mystery (a 1995 Washington Post piece said it was rumored to have escaped from an illegal cockfighting ring), the wild bird who once roamed the city’s streets and captured the hearts of residents lives on as its unofficial mascot.
Metcalf, the real estate agent, said he recalls hearing Roscoe’s cry as a teenager in the 1990s. It was a telltale sign that he’d stayed up far too late playing video games.
Now, Roscoe is memorialized in bronze with a life-size statue on Laurel Avenue.
More than any of its eccentricities, the warmth of the people is what sets Takoma Park apart, van Loon said. She’s from New Orleans, and her husband is from St. Louis, so the pair had no nearby family when they were raising their children in the city.
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The friends and neighbors they met became their surrogate relatives. It’s something that meant a lot to her kids, she said.
“They have tremendous respect for the fact that they grew up in a community where other adults really cared about them,” she said. “And I think, overwhelmingly, that is probably the thing about Takoma Park that we have appreciated the most.”
Living there: One hundred and sixty homes, including about 40 condos, sold in Takoma Park in the past year, Metcalf said. The median sale price among all types of homes sold was about $645,000.
The most expensive was a seven-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom Victorian that went for $1.5 million. The least expensive was an efficiency condo that sold for $130,000.
There are 12 homes on the market, Metcalf said, ranging from an efficiency condo listed for $135,000 to a newly rebuilt six-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom home listed for $1.4 million.
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Schools: Children in Takoma Park attend Takoma Park and Piney Branch elementary schools (the former offers kindergarten through second grade; the latter offers third through fifth grades) or Rolling Terrace Elementary School, Takoma Park or Silver Spring International middle schools, and Montgomery Blair High School.
Transit: The Takoma Metro station, on the Red Line, is just across the city border with D.C.
The Takoma Langley Crossroads Transit Center, operated by the Maryland Transit Administration, is at the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard on the city’s border. It offers service for bus routes managed by Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, Metrobus and the University of Maryland Shuttle.
The city describes itself as bike-friendly: “Signed, on-street bike routes connect commercial districts, the Takoma Park Community Center, and transit facilities with regional multiuse trails,” according to its website. There are seven Capital Bikeshare stations in Takoma Park.
The Capital Beltway is about two miles from the city and can be accessed via New Hampshire Avenue or University Boulevard.
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