Glut-tons for good food! see pg. 3
InBrief
Vol. 4 No. 9
International Fest on tap for QCTC A night celebrating culture is slated for Sept. 22 as Hyattsville rolls out its International Street Festival and Fireworks.The event, held annually, will begin at 4 p.m. at the Queens Chapel Town Center, at Hamilton and 31st Streets.Last year’s fest included a variety of vendors and information booths, music and a crush of community.
Volunteers needed to clean city On Sept. 29 the City of Hyattsville will serve as a host site for National Public Lands Day, the nation’s largest hands-on volunteer effort to improve public land. Last year over 140 volunteers in the city removed trash and debris along U.S. Rte.1, City Lot 1 and Magruder Park. Volunteers also continued to remove non-native invasive plants along the Trumbule Trail. The Office of Volunteer Services is currently registering individuals and groups interested in. Volunteers will be provided with a site location, a set of guidelines, litter sticks, trash bags and work gloves. Please email caistis@hyattsville.org or call 301.985.5057.
Out with electronics Hyattsville residents will have a chance to offload unwanted electronics from 9 a.m. to noon on Oct. 13 during the city’s free Electronics Recycling Program. Items to be picked up include: computer monitors; printers; VCRs; televisions and cell phones.Participants must show proof of identification.
Hyattsville’s Community Newspaper
September 2007
At home in Hyattsville [Residents roosting on Route 1]
by Martha Yager
T
hree rows of the EYA’s Arts District Hyattsville townhouses are complete, and about 30 new neighbors have moved in, surrounded by mud and construction in progress. Many bought before the building began, some waiting in line all night when sales opened in April 2006. The newcomers are enthusiastic about their quaint quarters, but it is the larger community of Hyattsville that drew many to new homes on Baltimore Avenue. Before moving here,Amy Neugebauer, Hyattsville’s former community development manager, knew that the city had “its own community, its own identity.” When she started house hunting, it was clear that Hyattsville offers more for her than other similar areas. She and her husband liked the “funky architecture” and “intentional creativity” of the EYA proj-
ect, which is designed to echo the light-industrial character of Route 1 and the stoops and stone lintels once common in small American towns. Neugebauer lives in the first completed courtyard, a cove with two rows of townhouses facing each other across sidewalks, lawn and gardens. A few steps away, past flowering myrtle bushes, is the old Lustine showroom—now a gym and community center with a juice bar, pool room and art gallery. EYA’s mixed-use development is located in Hyattsville and Riverdale Park. It traverses Route 1 and covers 26 acres of frontage between Jefferson and Madison streets in Hyattsville. The project includes town homes,
condominiums, retail and live-work space. Some newcomers said they look forward to the small businesses planned for their area of Baltimore Avenue, including a Spanish coffeehouse, a day spa, a barbershop,
an ice cream parlor and a Busboys and Poets bookstore, which is also a restaurant and coffee bar with performance space. At present, nine arts-related projects are established along Route 1:
AT HOME continued on page 14
City, county could tighten regulations on vendors by Jennifer Donatelli
T
wo Hyattsville officials said they would support outlawing some mobile street vendors like the pupusa trucks that are
prevalent along Ager Road. The city drafted legislation a couple years ago to do just that, but didn’t act on it because the County Council was considering a similar bill at the time, Mayor William Gar-
Hyattsville Life & Times PO Box 132 Hyattsville, MD 20781
Spiderman swoops in to show kids some of his fast moves at National Night Out Against Crime.
diner said. The pupusa trucks are legal in the county, as long as the vendors get a permit from the health department showing they have addressed issues like refrigeration and a use and occupancy permit that would allow them to run their business, said Brad Frome, legislative aide to County Councilman Will Campos (Dist. 2.) But most of the vendors only get the health department permit and not
the use and occupancy permit, he said. And county officials have not forced the vendors to get the use and occupancy permits for nearly a decade, Frome said. “It’s kind of created a situation when you haven’t enforced the law for so long,” he said.“You should give folks the benefit of the doubt they didn’t know about the law when we
VENDORS continued on page 7
Unfriendly terms: senior housing under review by Sarah Nemeth
H
PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID Permit # 43 Easton, MD 21601
umid hallways, broken boxes and unresponsive management has made life at Friendship Arms Apartments uncomfortable for many, at least that’s what some residents say. This summer has seen temperatures often cresting the 100-degree mark and a lack of air conditioning in the building’s hallways
made for much irritation to people like Dorothy Wilson, who has lived at the facility in Hyattsville’s Ward 1 for over 10 years. “We’ve had the air conditioning problems since June,” she said. “They just kept on saying they were going to fix it…It’s still hot in the halls.”
SR. HOUSING continued on page 11
Included: The September 12, 2007 Issue of The Hyattsville Reporter—See Center Section