A Hyattsville music teacher’s new EP is getting attention in the crowded D.C. music scene.

Called “The Fork Universe of Funky Love,” the five-track EP has already been written up by the Washington Post and Washington City Paper after it came out on July 29 on the the local nonprofit label This Could Go Boom!

The pop-punk band is called Professor Goldstein, a nod to lead singer Aeryn Goldstein’s day job as a music teacher at an elementary school in Bowie. One track, “The Ballad of Alfred Wegener,” is a nod to the originator of continental drift theory.

Goldstein jokingly describes the sound as “Weezer-core,” after the popular 1990s band that has spawned a thousand imitators.

“I’d love to find my niche in the Weezer-core genre,” she writes. “Whether it’s a nasally, stream-of-conscious screechfest of a song or a carefully crafted ballad that subtly describes how Dinosaur documentaries shaped my childhood.”

Goldstein, who grew up in Berwyn Heights, now lives in Hyattsville, where she and bandmate Venkatesh Ananth Batni run a DIY venue from their home called The Classroom, which records and streams shows from bands like Spring Silver.

You can buy the EP for $4 on Bandcamp here.

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Riverdale Park is expanding bike lanes in the areas around the future Purple Line stops.

Although the light-rail line isn’t slated to open until 2026, the town has begun preparing to make it easier for residents to get to and from stops.

The city recently added on-street bike lanes on Rivertech Court in the Discovery District, a 150-acre private-public research hub run by the University of Maryland.

Other plans from a working group of local governments include a dramatic “road diet” on River Road, which runs through the middle of the Discovery District and will have Purple Line stops at Haig Road to the east and at the College Park Metro station to the west.

That’s a relatively recent innovation to reconfigure roads by reducing accident-prone five-lane roads to two lanes with the extra space used for wider sidewalks, a protected bike lane and a grassy, tree-lined median.

Planners say that would work on River Road, which gets fewer than 10,000 cars on an average day, according to data from the Maryland Department of Transportation. By comparison, a typical suburban street can handle up to 20,000 cars a day without getting congested.

These and other improvements, such as new lights and connections to the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail, will start to add up, making it easier for residents to commute by bike along the Route 1 corridor.

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The latest piece of public art on the Route 1 corridor is a new mural in Bladensburg.

Located at the Ernest Maier masonry supply store at 4700 Annapolis Rd., the mural shows the town name over a sunset on the nearby Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River.

Artist Cindy Fletcher Holden, who currently lives in Annapolis, spent a lot of time on the Route 1 corridor visiting family in Riverdale Park as a kid.

Completed earlier this month, the new mural was done freehand with 1 Shot sign enamel.

Holden also painted a mural last summer showing Bladensburg’s history and everyday life around the corner on the same property. She has also done several murals elsewhere in Maryland including in Baltimore and Annapolis .

Murals have become a popular form of public art along the Route 1 corridor, with another one going up this month along the side of Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. Riverdale Park also has a mural showcasing the town name, and Hyattsville has two murals with its name.

A building with a popular mural that said “Handmade in Hyattsville” was torn down to make way for the new Canvas apartments and shops next to the historic Armory building in the Arts District.

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A section of the Northwest Branch Trail has been repaved, part of a broader effort to improve trails for biking and walking along the Route 1 corridor.

Earlier this month, the Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation Department repaved a .7-mile stretch of the trail from Melrose Skate Park in Hyattsville along the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River to the 38th Avenue Neighborhood Park, best known for its outdoor gym.

The new path includes lane markings, including white borders, a red center line and symbols for bikers and pedestrians.

The repaving comes as the state Department of Transportation is beginning work on a missing link connecting the Northwest Branch Trail to the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail between the skate park and Franklins brewery.

That work is expected to be completed by October of next year.

When it’s done, you’ll be able to bike from the intersection of Route 1 and University Boulevard in College Park south four miles to the skate park and then along the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River and then northwest to Silver Spring.

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Several restaurants on the Route 1 corridor were highlighted at the 40th annual Rammy Awards Sunday.

Hosted by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C., the black-tie event featured restaurants on the corridor as both nominees and winners.

Nominees had to be members of the RAMW, and winners in the seven of the categories were decided by members of the public.

Two restaurants on the corridor won their categories: Brentwood’s Little Miner Taco, which recently moved into its own location, won the award for Favorite Fast Bites, while Riverdale Park’s 2Fifty Texas BBQ won Standout Family Meal Packages To Go.

Two others were nominated: Mount Rainier’s Pennyroyal Station was nominated for Favorite Gathering Place of the Year while College Park’s Tacos A La Madre was nominated for Outstanding Pop-Up Concept.

Hyattsville mainstay Franklins also received an Honorary Milestone Rammy Award for 30 years in business.

The number of restaurants on the Route 1 corridor at the awards ceremony was a sign of how far the local dining scene has come in just a few years.

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Zeke’s Coffee in the Woodridge neighborhood of D.C. just south of Mount Rainier is planning to expand to a vacant space next door.

The coffeeshop and roastery at 2300 Rhode Island Ave. NE is planning to fully renovate and take over the 1,500 square foot vacant space next door, formerly home to Kaaos Gym, which closed its physical location earlier this year to focus more on personal training.

Zeke’s owner John Kepner told the Hyattsville Wire they were working on permits to start the buildout in the next few months with plans to open the new space by this coming winter.

“This is something we wanted to do for a long time and we were just watching the block for anything to open,” he told the Wire.

The new space next door will serve as Zeke’s coffeeshop while its current space on Rhode Island Avenue, which it has been at since 2013, will be used for production only.

Kepner said he is working with interior design firm Bandura Design, also next door, on plans for the buildout but that the new space will have more seating for customers to relax, hang out, and enjoy their coffee.

“We are working to come up with a design that’s new and exciting but still feels true to our brand,” he said.

Last summer, Zeke’s Coffee upgraded its outdoor sidewalk patio facing Rhode Island Avenue with a new year-round seating structure after receiving a grant from the D.C. Building Industry Association‘s sidewalk improvement program.

With plans to hold in-person gatherings in the new space such as coffee cuppings and tasting events, and even host producers to come talk about the coffee they grow, Kepner says he is also planning to expand the outdoor sidewalk patio so it extends in front of the new space next door adding even more outdoor seating.

Since the second half of the pandemic as people got vaccinated, but continued working from home, Kepner says his location in Woodridge has seen a steady uptick in business.

Zeke’s is part of a growing area of Route 1 with new condos, a mix-used development planned and an expanding lists of businesses including Art Enables, Provost, His & Hers, Subbs by Carl, Bandura Design, Jamerica Restaurant and Bar, and Rita’s Ice Crean, making it more of a destination as people nearby look for retail and dining options close to home that they can walk to.

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Chick-fil-A is opening a ghost kitchen for multiple chain restaurants in College Park.

Called Little Blue Menu, the kitchen delivery service will be located on the former site of the Applebee’s restaurant at 7242 Baltimore Ave., next to the new Aster development of apartments, shops and a Trader Joe’s coming soon.

Named after the menus at the original Chick-fil-A, the service will offer food for delivery from Chick-fil-A and these four virtual restaurants:

• Outfox Wings, which focuses on wings and sides like roasted Brussels sprouts
• Flock & Farm, which offers items like a flat-iron steak and arugula salad;
• Because Burger, which offers traditional hamburgers and sides; and
• Garden Day, which focuses on salads.

The kitchen will deliver within a 10-mile radius of the location, which would include most of the Route 1 corridor, using hybrid electric vehicles. Food will also be available for pick-up but there would be only limited outdoor seating.

The College Park location would be the second for Little Blue Menu, which opened in Nashville in October of last year. Another location is planned for Atlanta.

The city has disputed whether the ghost kitchen concept would fall under the zoning for the Applebee’s location, which was a traditional sit-down restaurant, saying that the service would be more akin to a drive-thru and asked the county to reject or modify the proposal.

Some residents have also complained about the chain’s history of donating to anti-LGBTQ rights groups, according to the Diamondback.

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