The Route 1 corridor has a thriving arts scene, but some worry that rising rents driven by new development could hurt it.

In a recent segment on “WETA Arts,” Red Dirt Studio owner Margaret Boozer said that she has been able to stay open because she bought a former firehouse in Mount Rainier in 2014.

“Buying this building versus renting let me have security that I wasn’t going to get priced out of the neighborhood, which we were seeing happen on a daily basis here,” she said. “It let me have enough artists renting studio space to pay all the costs associated with the building and keep the costs down for artists.”

Because of that scale, Boozer was able to withstand the coronavirus pandemic, as over half of the 30 artists working at Red Dirt weren’t able to pay rent at one point or another.

But David Mordini, co-founder of the Otis Street Arts Project, said that recent rent hikes at his Mount Rainier location have limited their growth.

The segment also features John Paradiso, artist and studio manager at Portico Gallery & Studios inside the Studio 3807 apartments in Brentwood.

Paradiso said the five studios, which come with year-long leases, are an amenity and a feature for residents of the high-end apartments in the building.

“The developer of the building is very happy with the success of Portico Gallery studios because he loved the Arts District and he wanted the things that happened in the Arts District to happen in his building and they do now,” he said.

But Boozer said that, ultimately, for the Route 1 corridor to continue to have a vibrant arts scene, it will need more artist-owned buildings to prevent rents from going up or building owners from looking for more profitable tenants.

“Without artists owning their own space, we are going to have an Arts District with possibly very few artists,” she said.

You can watch the seven-minute segment here.

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A University Park author’s new memoir of growing up in the infamous Children of God religious cult has already gained national attention, including a chapter which was recently published in Rolling Stone magazine.

Daniella Mestyanek Young’s “Uncultured,” which comes out this Tuesday, has been named by the New York Post and BuzzFeed as one of the top books hitting shelves this fall.

Started in California in the 1960s, the Children of God — now known as The Family International — fused the counterculture with Christianity to form communes that have been accused of abusive and predatory practices.

Young, a third-generation member of the cult, escaped at age 15, putting herself through high school, becoming valedictorian and joining the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer.

She was sent to Afghanistan twice, serving as one of the first women deliberately put into ground combat for the first time in Army history, which led to the repeal of the ban on combat roles for women.

Young is now studying organizational psychology at the Harvard Extension School, and her memoir draws on the parallels she saw between her time in the cult, her military service and other aspects of modern life.

She will hold a book launch at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 26, at Politics & Prose at 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW in D.C.

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Prince George’s County named Friday, Sept. 16, as  “Frances Tiafoe Day” after the Route 1 native’s historic run at the U.S. Open semifinals last week.

Tiafoe, who lost to Spanish tennis phenom Carlos Alcaraz in five grueling sets last Friday night, is being welcomed back to College Park.

The Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, where Tiafoe trained as a kid, is also holding a homecoming at 3 p.m. featuring county leaders and other local officials.

Last week, Tiafoe, 24, became the first American man to reach the U.S. Open semifinals since 2006 and the first Black American to make it to the semifinals since 1972. During his run, he also defeated the No. 2 ranked player in the world, Rafael Nadal.

Despite his loss, Tiafoe was a crowd favorite at Flushing Meadows and has been hailed as part of a “next generation” of American men’s tennis players who will reinvigorate the sport.

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A new eatery in College Park turns fries into the main dish.

Started near Los Angeles in 2017, Mr. Fries Man uses French fries as a base for increasingly intense toppings, including chicken, shrimp, steak, crab and even plant-based meat.

From there, sauces are added ranging from Ranch dressing to mango habanero, with add-ons like bacon, chili and cheese.

The restaurant has since expanded into a chain with 20 locations around California and in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.

Located at 8147 Baltimore Ave., the College Park location is in the same shopping center as Taqueria Habanero, in the middle of several apartment buildings favored by University of Maryland students.

Mr. Fries Man is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. It’s also available on DoorDash, GrubHub and Uber Eats.

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An internationally recognized effort on the Route 1 corridor to promote the coronavirus vaccine and other public health measures through black-owned and operated barbershops is getting more attention through a new comic book series as part of the Barbershop Storybook Project initiative.

During the pandemic, The Shop Spa at 5916 Riggs Rd. was recognized for its work with the University of Maryland Center for Health Equity to promote the vaccination and help dispel misinformation, especially among the Black community.

Now two local artists have taken the same research and their own interviews to tell stories through a new book series they hope will improve public health.

In the Barbershop Storybook Project Jasmine Mitchell, a multi-disciplinary artist and Marcus Ford, a poet, filmmaker and designer, created a series of comic books with local settings that interweave key health facts within the narrative. Both Mitchell and Ford are Prince George’s County natives and graduates of the University of Maryland at College Park.

The first book is set in Brentwood, and the second takes place entirely at Thomas S. Stone Elementary School in Mount Rainier.

When the series is complete, the books will be placed in Black-owned barbershops and salons participating in the Health Advocates In-Reach and Research (HAIR) and Wellness Warriors programs developed at the Center for Health Equity with support from the Cigna insurance company.

“The coolest part about the project is that all these stories and plot lines are based on real data collected by the team at the University of Maryland as well as conversations we’ve had with people throughout this project,” Ford said. “We’ve talked with barbers, scientists and crossing guards and all of those conversations made their way into the books.”

The Center for Health Equity is holding a staged reading of the first two books at 7 p.m. Monday, September 12, in the Rehearsal Hall at 641 D St. NW in Washington, D.C.

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During her first visit to the United States as a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II made a rare unplanned visit to a home in University Park.

The date was Oct. 19, 1957, and the Queen and Prince Philip were attending a football game at the University of Maryland.

Next, they would tour a Giant supermarket on Queens Chapel Road before returning to the White House, where they were staying with President Eisenhower.

Exactly what happened next is not formally recorded, but multiple neighborhood sources vouched for by neighbor George Calcott, a retired history professor, say that the Queen decided to make a stop in University Park.

One account is that Joseph Deckman, who was one of the university’s representatives with the Queen that day, asked if she would like to see a typical American house and offered to let her tour his two-story brick Colonial at 4310 Clagett Rd.

Another version of the story is that Deckman and others thought the stadium bathrooms were not fit for a royal and offered to let her use the facilities at the top of the stairs of his house.

The home’s current owner, George Wilkinson, who is British, told the Hyattsville Wire, that either way it was a rarity for the Queen, who did not regularly visit people in their homes.

“A lot of people visited her home,” she said, referring to Buckingham Palace. “But it was pretty rare for her to visit someone else’s.”

No photographs have been found from the stop, but neighbors recounted standing on their lawn to watch the row of stately cars pull up for the Queen’s brief tour, and for years afterward local kids referred to it as the “Queen’s house.”

Based on Calcott’s research, Wilkinson, who is a graphic designer, was able to order a blue historical marker like the ones found all over London to commemorate the visit.

Wilkinson says her parents bought the house in 2006 after moving from England to the United States and had no idea of its ties to the Queen until Calcott stopped by for a visit one day.

“He just assumed that they had bought it because the Queen had once been there,” she told the Wire.

Her mother later participated in a recreation of the visit for a University Park historical celebration, and Wilkinson, who bought the house from her parents in 2017, threw a party replete with a cardboard cutout of the Queen this past June to commemorate the 70th anniversary of her taking the throne.

In reflecting on the Queen’s death, Wilkinson said she was surprised how emotional she felt when she heard the news.

“She was just this constant presence in our lives,” she said.

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The Route 1 corridor’s very own tennis phenom Francis Tiafoe will play in the semifinals of the U.S. Open Friday, his highest-profile match yet.

The 24-year-old player’s wins earlier this week have already made him the first American man to reach the tournament’s semifinals since Andy Roddick in 2016 and the first Black American man to do so since Arthur Ashe in 1972.

At 7 p.m. Friday, September 9, he’ll face rising Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz in Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City. The winner will advance to the final.

His inspiring life story has already gotten renewed attention: In the late 1990s, his father, Frances Sr., helped build the 15-acre Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park near the Metro station, then got a maintenance job there. Tiafoe got his start at the center, a place where he essentially grew up, and still returns to train and coach.

Tiafoe’s wins have been hailed as the “feel-good story” of this year’s U.S. Open, and, if he wins the final, “movie material.” His success, meanwhile, has also brought new national attention to the JTCC, which was the subject of a recent New York Times profile.

The JTCC is holding a watch party at The Hall CP on Friday, September 9, beginning at 7 p.m., to cheer on Tiafoe.

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