Cool article about our friends to the west....

from the Gazette...

Area north of Bethesda struggles with name, identity

Many names are given to the community, but nothing is official

If a lost motorist ended up on Rockville Pike south of Randolph Road but north of Strathmore Avenue, and, pulling over, asked a local where he was, the answer would depend entirely upon the opinion of his helper.

Sometimes pegged as the up-and-coming "North Bethesda," sometimes with the kinetic potential of "White Flint," sometimes the traditional Rockville, the portion of Montgomery County is as unnamed as it is underdeveloped. But people have to call it something, and everyone has a different idea about what that should be.

Barnaby Zall, founder of the nonprofit Friends of White Flint, an organization that provides resources and information about the White Flint sector plan, supports the handle given to the area's Red Line Metro stop. As he sees it, right now White Flint is not a destination moniker because "there's no ‘there' there," but the major development slated to occur in the area over the next 30 years demands an independent name to set it apart.

"One of the reasons people don't like White Flint is because they say there's nothing here, there's just a mall," Zall said. "But in a few years there will be and we need to be in a position to identify ourselves."

Mike Paukstitus, senior vice president of real estate at the Washington Real Estate Investment trust, said the company decided to name its future project on Nebel and Randolph roads White Flint Gateway to play off the proximity of the future residential towers to the Metro.

"We viewed ourselves as at the very pinnacle [of the sector]," Paukstitus said. "In the nomenclature now of the community people are thinking of this as the White Flint Sector Plan. White Flint is the station."

But other developers are running with the "North Bethesda" tag for projects. JBG recently put the roof on its development, North Bethesda Market, which is a residential high-rise on Rockville Pike with a Whole Foods and other services below. Mike Smith, of LCOR development, said the company decided to use North Bethesda Center as the name for its residential and retail project on Rockville Pike at Marinelli Road, partly due to feedback it received five years ago from citizens' associations.

"There's an opportunity to rebrand the neighborhood and make a distinction between Rockville, Bethesda, the nomenclature of those two communities," Smith said. He said White Flint has the danger of only being associated with the White Flint Mall and the Metro station.

Mail in the area falls within the Postal Service designation as Rockville, and some diehards on Web forums argue that calling the area "North Bethesda" is just a way to sound more affluent by riding the coattails of the neighbor to the south.

Zall said there "is something to be said for that, that they want to leverage off the wealthier name."

Resident Per Korowski said when he puts his address into Web programs, it is automatically identified as unincorporated Rockville. His apartment complex, one block from the White Flint Metro, prefers North Bethesda, however.

"I must say that North Bethesda sounds a bit classier and can probably produce about $50 more in rent per month," Korowski wrote in an e-mail, "but also that Rockville sounds so 50's to me, so Smallville, so that sometimes I might feel a tinge of embarrassment but then who am I to know about these things."

Korowski noted that the name of a place can be a major issue. He lived for a long time in Caracas, Venezuela and still has a home there, and said there is now a movement to change the name to "La Cuna de Bolívar y Reina del Guaraira Repano." Korowski warned against "the dangers of too much creativity."

"Why not South Rockville?" Korowski wondered. "Or is it that North Bethesda sounds even better than Bethesda and that all those Central Bethesdians are now complaining?"

Dan Hoffman, vice president of the Randolph Civic Association, joked that his is a "divided family;" his wife writes their address as North Bethesda, he uses Rockville.

"We've actually had a decent amount of conversation about this as an association," said Hoffman, who plans to take a straw poll at the next civic association meeting.

He said as the White Flint Sector Plan has developed, one result has been a consensus that "we identify with the emerging area."

"We're divided, but we're viewing it in a very positive light. We're not divided as in we're fighting with each other," Hoffman said. "It's been a great, engaging discussion as to who we are as a neighborhood."

Area blog, "Just up the Pike" takes on Wheaton

To me, Wheaton is just a place with a metro stop, although I occasionally go to the Giant, Target, and Baja Fresh and cut through the mall on my way home from the metro on a hot day.

Because of the mall and many car-oriented plazas in Wheaton, I think trying to get more pedestrian traffic in the "downtown Wheaton" area is kinda pointless.


(Original article here.)

An open letter to anyone in Wheaton . . .

. .who has ever said "We don't ever want to be 'fake' like Silver Spring."

Hey, Wheaton? Could you come over here a second? Thanks.

Now please shut up.

As someone who grew up in Downtown Silver Spring before it was Downtown Silver Spring, I understand your pain. I remember walking down streets lined with empty and abandoned buildings and discovering the many ways that different cultures combine bread and meat into various ethnic dishes. (Is it taco, a gyro, or a pita? So many options!) And, yes, I even remember going to Westfield Wheaton before it was Westfield Wheaton, when its tenants included a knife shop and a branch library.

But I don't have any patience for this "I don't want to be like Silver Spring it is so fake" crap, especially because y'all are no Columbia Heights yourselves. Save it, please. I don't see the crowds flooding into Wheaton every Friday night to walk around holding a skateboard and grimacing at people. I don't hear about people paying $3,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment in Wheaton. I hear about public drunkenness and an awesome movie theatre that closed after two months.

Yes, Wheaton is different from Silver Spring. I appreciate that. Yes, Wheaton has lots of small businesses. That's great. I love El Pollo Rico, as well as Full Key, Paul Kee, Max's, the place where the punk club Phantasmagoria used to be (so scary as a little kid), Chuck Levin's (my little brother bought his guitar there and complained the area looked "sketchy"), De Lounge (still haven't gone yet) and DeJaBel Cafe. (I have also heard good things about Marchone's.) And I agree that they're threatened by the ever-lingering spectre of Gentrification, which is sure taking its sweet time. Those townhouses on top of the Metro sold for like $600,000 a couple years back, but their residents are probably spending their time and money at Pier 1 Imports in Silver Spring. (Sorry.)

Remember, Wheaton, you have a mall with "over 200 stores", almost all of which (except for that "Foreign Flix" place) are chain stores. Most every phase of my teenage reinventions took place in Wheaton as I flitted from PacSun to Hollister to Express. I defy you to find that many chains in Silver Spring's entire central business district.

No one is saying that Wheaton has to install a fountain with a colorful mosaic and a plastic turf field and change the name of Ennalls Avenue to Ellsworth Drive. At least, I'm not. But you'll never be anything if you keep going on about what you don't want. I want to hear what Wheaton wants to be. Take that and give it to your elected officials/your citizens advisory board/local developers and tell them "We want X, Y and Z or we will bring you down like Circuit City." Hey, it worked with the Trader Joe's in Burnt Mills. If a group of committed people write enough letters, anything is possible. And now I can have Two-Buck Chuck whenever I want.

So don't fret, Wheaton. No one's calling you Silver Spring North (or Bethesda North East) yet. If you're still feeling cranky later, come along by and I'll give you some tips on how to "brand" yourself so you DON'T become all "fake." Because as I always say, the buildings might be fake, but the people look real to me.

Love,
Dan Reed

Rabid kitten found in Wheaton! Run for your lives!

Apparently a crazed rabid kitty is running around Wheaton near Veirs Mill Road, and health officials fear the kitten may have had siblings that also carry the disease.

Can you imagine a pack of wild rabid kitties?

So if you see some crazy kitties, don't give them a saucer of milk.

Kensington announcements:

have some labor to share?

The Kensington Labor Day Festivities could use a little help. Volunteers are needed for the parade to direct participants, help with the line-ups and man the street closures. The festival is also in need of people to direct revelers and provide information. The activities run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sept. 5th.

To help, contact Sherrill at 301-385-2864 or Kelly-Connor at 301-537-7027.

Are you a mom with too much free time?

The Kensington Park chapter of the MOMS Club, a national support group for mothers who primarily stay home with their children, invites mothers to attend the monthly meeting at 10:15 a.m. at Aug. 26 at the Kensington Park Library, 4201 Knowles Ave. in Kensington. At this meeting, a Funfit� instructor from Funfit Family Fitness Center in Rockville will provide a demonstration class including songs, short stories, and movement for all children in attendance.

The MOMS club is open to moms whose children are zoned to attend Garrett Park Elementary School and Kensington Parkwood Elementary School. The group's activities include trips to parks, lunch and coffee get-togethers, playgroups and more. More information is available at www.kensingtonparkmoms.com or you may email kpmomsclub@yahoo.com.

Mr. Drummand brings Arnold and Willis to town...

From the Gazette:

In 1960, only 10 of the people living in Kensington's town boundaries weren't white. In the 2000 census that number had jumped by 175.

It may seem still a small total, but for a town of about 1,800 people, the increase represents a great leap in diversity that residents say they see everywhere and which is likely to continue in the upcoming 2010 census. The changes are even more dramatic outside town boundaries in the Kensington ZIP Code, but the nearly 10 percent shift in the town's demographics are an indication that the face of Kensington is changing.

Jose Ayala said he has "absolutely" seen the area diversify since moving to Kensington's Parkwood neighborhood from Ecuador 30 years ago. When he first moved to the area, Ayala was one of few Latinos.

"We have a large community, Latin community, which when I first came it was not that big like it is now," Ayala said.

Kensington's central location near Rockville, Bethesda and Washington, D.C., probably contributes to young families moving there, Ayala said, which is increasing the diversity of the residents. He said he has had to double the amount of candy he buys for trick-or-treaters at Halloween in the past four to five years, and is glad the area is becoming more diverse.

"I think it's good because we learn to live with each other," Ayala said. "We learn about their culture, the different traditions, it's interesting."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Kensington's changes are in line with the national trend, which projects that minorities, which now make up about one-third of the country's population, will actually become the majority by 2042. By 2023, more than half of all children will be minorities.

Froilan Orille, who moved to the United States from the Philippines 19 years ago, said like many Filipinos, he chose to move to Kensington four years ago because it reminded him of home.

"I think a lot of Filipinos like the way the houses are set up, it's traditional and I know that's what caught my eye," Orille said.

Orille has since moved to Silver Spring, but still spends much of his time in Kensington at the Filipino specialty store he owns, Kuba sa Kensington, which caters to the large population of his Filipino brethren in the area. The store is a slice of home for Kensington's large Filipino community, selling Patismansi, a fish sauce with lemon, coconut milk, pickled bananas and other hard-to-find items.

Ninety percent of his customers are Filipino, Orille guessed, but his wife Brenda said curiosity seekers also poke around the store.

"Sometimes I see people like the Indians, the Koreans, they live in the neighborhood and have Filipino friends, and come in looking for something their friend had," Brenda said. "Now we see them every week."

Marjorie Stewart, 67, has lived most of her life in the historically black Kensington neighborhood KenGar, which she said has become more diverse along with the rest of Kensington. Her family has been in KenGar so long, Stewart's grandmother Carrie Davis began what would become the neighborhood's Baptist church from her living room. Stewart remembers when the streets were unpaved and her children attended a blacks-only school—the same one she had gone to as a girl.

Now, Stewart said, KenGar has changed so much she describes it not as a black neighborhood, but as "an international neighborhood."

"In our neighborhood there's all kinds of people, I went around just to see how many different kinds of people there are. Everybody's different now," Stewart said.

"I just think now it's just a great improvement, it really is, and most of the neighbors seem to be pretty nice. We're the minority now," she said of long-time KenGar families. "They're the majority."

She said the changes in KenGar are evidenced in the Methodist church there, which has a much more diverse congregation than it once did.

"It was just a black church," she said. "Now it's integrated, which is fine, with Spanish, Africans, Indians. I think it's OK because this is really how God wanted it to be. He wanted us to come together."