John Hume, the Chair of the Main Street Design Committee, has done a splendid job in collaboration with neighborhood volunteers both personal from local organizations [13 in all including the Takoma Park City Council and the Daisy Scouts/ with their parents (Hooray Daisies!].

Participants laid down 77 bags of mulchin Maryland and the District, planted over $700 worth of plants, plus many donated volunteer plants from Michele's bountiful garden. We collected over 50 bags of trash and recyclable plant material.

This is the best day yet and I must say the joint is smokin'!!!! There are new plants, the trees are growing and all in all, the Main Corridor of EACH of our three sections on Main Street look terrific. I wanted to say thanks to the community, our sponsors, and to everyone who helped make this Clean Up Day a success!

Posted by Main Street at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The survey is done! A great response from the Takoma community - 879 respondents answering at least one question. Now we get into a numbers analysis game, and try to sift through the thousands of comments so that we can draw important and insightful lessons and suggestions for our business community. Here are the results from seven of the twenty-four questions to whet your appetite: {Dan Robinson, Chair, Economic Restructuriing Committee}

1. Could Takoma Park support an additional restaurant(s)?
Yes 792 90.21%
No 17 1.94%
Not Sure 69 7.86%

5. When you go out to eat now, where are your typical destinations? Please check all that apply (fill in text box if your destination is not listed):
Takoma Park 416 15.75%
Silver Spring 791 29.95%
Rockville 122 4.62%
Bethesda 452 17.11%
DC 629 23.82%
Adelphi 17 0.64%
College Park 82 3.10%
Laurel 19 0.72%
Other 113 4.28%

13. What other service business(es) would you like to see in Takoma Park? Please check all that apply and add, if necessary:
Bakery 564 33.49%
Butcher 209 12.41%
Shoe Repair 222 13.18%
Jewelry Store 40 2.38%
Garden Shop 317 18.82%
Other 332 19.71%

14. What other goods business(es) would you like to see in Takoma Park?

Wine Store 505 23.07%
Flower Shop 140 6.40%
Bagel Shop 427 19.51%
Niche Hardware Store 405 18.50%
Bookstore 621 28.37%
Other 91 4.16%

16. What features, apart from goods / service provided, would be very important to your decision to patronize a Takoma Park business? Please check all that apply:
Parking Proximity 374 23.22%
Hours of Operation 635 39.42%
Local Ownership 433 26.88%
Other 169 10.49%

17. Where do you live?
Takoma Park 558 67.39%
Takoma DC 117 14.13%
Washington, DC (not Takoma DC) 33 3.99%
Silver Spring 96 11.59%
Other 24 2.90%

18. What is your age?
Under 21 4 0.48%
22-39 284 34.38%
40-49 261 31.60%
50-59 207 25.06%
60+ 70 8.47%

Posted by Economic restructuring Committee at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Most of us are born with a blind spot. Two, actually: one for each eye. It’s the part of our eye which, literally, does not see. Crudely, I’ll just say that it’s where the extension cord plugs into the back of the eye. The funny thing is, most of the time, our brains fill in the blank area with borrowed information. We never notice our blind spot unless we’re at the eye doctor. Or driving. The rest of the time, the brain just hums along happily, doing its 24-7 thing, and shows us what it thinks we want to see. I find this to be moderately strange, but it seems to have been working for a few million years. Who am I to complain?

There are other blind spots. I noticed one just a few weeks ago. It had snowed a couple of days previously; our city sidewalks had largely been turned to the usual strangled pathways. Everything was kind of slushy, kind of gray, kind of annoying, kind of gross. Then I walked past the gazebo. There, over the entire expanse of the plaza, pure as the proverbial driven snow, was an uninterrupted blanket of white. My first thought was “How pretty”. Then, something else kicked in. I realized that, for two entire days, no one had ventured even so much as one tentative snow boot in the general direction of one of our community parks. The gazebo, you see, is a blind spot. It doesn’t appear on a lot of our mental street maps. A lot of our parks don’t. We drive around them, we walk past them, but most of the time, they don’t exist to us. Unknown territory. It's time to change that. Whose parks are these? These are our parks! Let’s play with them. So, next time you do your T'ai Chi, try it in Triangle Park. Or warm up that beach chair and make Takoma Junction your own Muscle Beach! And as for the gazebo? We'll be amazed at what we can do in the gazebo. Our thoughts should encompass the universe. I don’t think filling in a few blind spots will overtax us.

Here’s a great way to get to know our parks: put on some gloves and clean ‘em up! Yes, it’s time, once again, for our annual Main Street Takoma Spring Clean Up. This year, it’ll be Saturday, April 28 (rain date, May 5), from 9 AM to 12 Noon. Volunteers are gathering at Takoma Junction, the Laurel Avenue Clock Tower, and Triangle Park on 4th Street, NW, to pick up litter, sweep, weed, mulch and plant . From there, we’ll be fanning out into the rest of Main Street Takoma to get our commercial area shined up for the new season. Three hours of intense, hands-on community activism. Value: priceless. Be there. Aloha.

John Hume
Design Chair

Posted by John Hume at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)