New York-based bubble tea chain Kung Fu Tea is expanding to Hyattsville’s Arts District, and it’s bringing Taiwanese fried chicken with it.

Located at 5501 Baltimore Ave., No. 105, the tea shop will take over the space previously occupied by Yogi Castle frozen yogurt shop.

The shop will also serve as a joint location for TKK Fried Chicken, a long-running Taiwanese chain, similar to its setup in Laurel.

The two chains first teamed up in 2019 in New York, where TKK’s signature kwa kwa bao chicken drew rave reviews.

Kung Fu Tea, which has a popular shop at 7313 Baltimore Ave. in College Park, has locations in the U.S., Canada, Cambodia, Taiwan and Japan. It’s expanding elsewhere in D.C., with new shops planned on H Street and Arlington.

Bubble tea has taken off around College Park in recent years due to the influx of Chinese exchange students at the University of Maryland, but the new Hyattsville spot shows how it’s expanding further along the Route 1 corridor.

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Mount Rainier is revamping the exterior of several businesses along Rhode Island Avenue.

Facade improvements are underway on buildings on the eastern side of Rhode Island Avenue dating to the 1920s and ’30s, from the roundabout south to the border with D.C.

The businesses where the exterior revamp is taking place include Potomac Fish House, Medina Market and Kitchen and Pan Lourdes Bakery.

The construction is being done through the Rhode Island Avenue Facade Improvement Program,  a project of the city’s Department of Economic Development.

The second stories of the popular Pan Lourdes Bakery and the neighboring Mediterranean Cafe now feature an abstract mural with intersecting bars of bright colors.

Originally meant to serve the regular crowd of passengers getting off at the streetcar station at the roundabout, the buildings were all designed with flat-fronts and big first-floor show windows. Several have second-story apartments.

The city is working with the Neighborhood Design Center, a nonprofit that helps with community design, and contractor J.D. Clark Professional Services on the facade improvements.

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Three towns along the Route 1 corridor allow non-citizens to vote in local elections, a policy aimed at getting new immigrants more involved that is gaining ground nationally, and now Washington, D.C. is considering its own measure, which would affect some 51,000 foreign-born residents.

Hyattsville allows 16-year-olds who have lived in the city for at least 30 days before Election Day to vote in local races, regardless of citizenship. In Riverdale Park, they must live in the city for at least 45 days. And in Mount Rainier, voters must be at least 18.

In all, 11 Maryland towns allow non-citizens to vote, out of just 15 in the entire U.S.

Although these measures only allow voting in local races, historians say that non-citizens were able to vote in local, state and federal elections at various times in 40 states from the founding of the country until 1926, especially when territories were looking to attract immigrants or boost their population to achieve statehood.

Some members of Congress are seeking to block the D.C. proposal, and several states have moved in recent years to bar local governments from allowing non-citizen voting, but for now it looks safe in Maryland.

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The New Deal Cafe, Community Forklift and other businesses along the Route 1 corridor were named winners in the annual Washington City Paper ‘Best of D.C.’ readers’ poll. And this year, a surprising number of entrants from the corridor were finalists.

Greenbelt’s New Deal Cafe won Best Place to Experience Local Music, beating out Blues Alley Jazz and the venerable 930 Club, and Best Place to Have Dinner With Live Music. It was also a finalist in Best Jazz/Blues Venue.

Edmonston’s Community Forklift won Best Green Business, which it has won before, while Hyattsville’s Bianca + Jean won Best Handmade Accessories. Federalist Pig, which is opening a location in Hyattsville, won for Best Barbecue, while Riverdale Park’s 2Fifty Texas BBQ was a runner-up in that category. Spartan Plumbing won Best Plumber.

Other local finalists included:

Best Street Art: Driskell Park

Best Theater Festival and Best Film Festival: Greenbelt’s Utopia Film Festival 

Best Art Class: Pyramid Atlantic Art Center

Best Movie Theater: Old Greenbelt Theatre

Best Music Festival: Greenbelt Blues Festival

Best High School: DeMatha Catholic High School

Best Arts & Crafts Supply Store: Artist & Craftsman Supply

Best Delivery Service (Food): Foodhini

Best Record Store: Red Onion Records

Best Brew Pub: Denizens

Best Kid-Friendly Restaurant: Franklins

Best Mexican Restaurant and Best Taco: Taqueria Habanero

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A new imaginative playground just opened in Mount Rainier at 3711 37th St., giving kids another fun outdoor play area to explore on the Route 1 corridor.

Located between Perry Street and Otis Street, the 37th Street Park was recently upgraded with new playground equipment on a rubber ground surface which includes two shaded slides along with play rocks, a spider web and other rope systems to climb on.

The city plans to hold a ribbon-cutting soon but Mayor Celina Benitez said she wanted residents to know about it now so they could take advantage of it now.

The small neighborhood park is already home to a pollinator garden and several fruit-bearing trees which were added by volunteers a few years ago.

The city recently upgraded the nearby 31st Street Park with a rain garden, a “food forest” with paw paw trees and other natural features like tree stumps for jumping and climbing on, brush piles, a walking trail, and even a lean to where kids can play.

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A long-running masonry store in Bladensburg added a third mural, adding an artsy touch to an industrial area of the Route 1 corridor.

Located at the Ernest Maier masonry supply store at 4700 Annapolis Rd., the mural depicts paving stones and retaining walls in geometric patterns and bright colors.

Artist Cindy Fletcher Holden, who currently lives in Annapolis, told the Hyattsville Wire that her goal was to depict the bricks and stones that Ernest Maier sells in a “twisty and fun” way.

“It is about finding life and fun in what is otherwise an everyday object,” she said.

Holden previously painted a mural in the same area showing the town name and a sunset over the nearby Anacostia River and another showing scenes from Bladensburg’s history and everyday life.

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Riversdale House Museum in Riverdale Park unveiled its first portrait of an enslaved resident, the latest step in the museum’s new mission to deal more directly with the legacy of slavery.

As part of a recent celebration of Maryland Emancipation Day, the museum publicly showed a portrait of Adam Francis Plummer, whose personal journal is an important part of the post-Civil War historical record.

The portrait is a mosaic by Chanel Compton, a former executive director of the Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center now working in Annapolis.

The mosaic, which shows Plummer in a blue suit and tie, fits with her other works, which often use the same technique to create portraits of American historical figures such as Nat Turner and Martin Luther King Jr.

It is the first time that a portrait of an enslaved person is being permanently displayed at a place of enslavement in Prince George’s County.

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