On an early spring afternoon in North College Park, Md., a few residents tended their gardens and an occasional jogger strode along the tree-lined streets. The Prince George’s County community, also known as Hollywood, was quiet, despite its proximity to bustling Route 1 and Interstate 495.
North College Park, includes the neighborhoods of Branchville, Hollywood and Daniels Park. However, the title of North College Park is often referred to when discussing resources provided in the city. Hollywood is the largest of the neighborhoods north of Route 193.
“I have lived in North College Park for 30 years now,” said Arelis Perez, a real estate agent with Samson Properties. “I came as a single mom, with two beloved children. And the main reason was — wait for it — affordability.”
“I really kind of fell in love with it when I was just driving around, waiting [for] the evening, just making sure that it didn’t feel like it was bustling [or] like it wasn’t safe,” said Jacob Hernandez, a College Park council member who has lived in the community since 2021.
The community benefits from engaged neighbors who know how to work together.
“I’m a senior, I’m 66 years old, but I’ve always been that activist and advocate, and I don’t like bullies.” Perez said. “We’re pretty loud when we have to go before the mayor and council. So we’re pretty united for a cause.”
Those activists got to work earlier this year when the city discussed the possibility of temporarily closing the Hollywood Farmers Market, citing budget issues and a lack of vendors and staff.
“We had a week and [the city] got over 100 emails and they were like, okay, okay,” said Jaclyn Bruner, a four-year resident and assistant professor at the University of Maryland. The market, held on Saturdays from April through November, will remain open.
Other activities engage residents as well.
Bruner, president of the Hollywood Elementary School PTA, helped plan a Trunk or Treat for Halloween last year.
“We’re a Title I community school; our parents aren’t necessarily the ones who could be the trunk. So we went out into the community, and they showed up for us, [the] kids had this amazing time,” Bruner said.
The community was developed from land farmed by colonists in the 1600s and home to the Piscataway tribe of Native Americans for centuries before that, according to a history project overseen by College Park Mayor Fazlul Kabir, a former District 1 council member.
Businessman Edward Daniels Jr., son of New Zealand immigrants, began residential development in “Hollywood on the Hill” in the early 1900s, which he named for the abundant Holly trees in the area.
Daniels wanted the area to be a utopia and thought of it to be “for persons of moderate means who have a taste for country life. I am not thinking of the poor and unemployed, but of the large class of clerks and business men who are confined to the city during the day most of the year.”
Years later, after World War I, Daniels’ almost prophetic vision came true — veterans and their families moved to Hollywood as a rural respite from working in the city.
In 1946, the Burch Realty Company bought the community and redeveloped the plots of land into a more modern community. It eventually became known as North College Park and was ultimately incorporated into the City of College Park.
Many of the original houses from the early 1900s are gone and most current ones date somewhere between the 1940s and the 1960s, according to information listed on Redfin. There are even a few that are considered official historical sites by Prince George’s County.
“You kind of get a sense of where you are in the history of this place, which is, which is really something I never would have considered before I lived here,” five-year resident Donald Hays said.
Today, walkability and bikeability are priorities for Hollywood’s residents.
“I had finished my master’s, and I was looking for somewhere in the DMV that was commutable to the city, interestingly enough, via bikes,” Hernandez said. “It’s because traffic on 295 is already like an hour, regardless, wherever you’re going. So I thought if I could bike somewhere in an hour, I could bike down into D.C. And I’ve done it multiple times now.”
“Even though we are a suburb, we are surprisingly walkable,” Hays said. “That has been really important to me to be able to just like actually leave my house, especially during the pandemic. … After this phone call, I’m going to take a break from work and my wife and I are going to get on the Trolley Trail, and we’re going to walk to Whole Foods and get pizza and walk back.”
The community’s passion for walking and biking turned Proteus Bicycles and Brews in Hollywood Plaza into a popular gathering spot.
“It’s a bicycle store, but it’s also a hub for a lot of the local cycling clubs and activism groups, like cycling and pedestrian activism groups,” said David Alicea, president of the North College Park Community Association (NCPCA), which hosts a weekly social and the store. “It’s a stop for local politicians too, because they want to come and talk to cycling groups who usually meet there. But they have a little cafe inside of the bike shop, which is fun to go to.”
“You walk in and everybody wants to talk to you and know your story,” Bruner added. “I think one of the real strengths of where we live is you walk into places with these warm and welcoming faces and it really feels like a community.”
Resoundingly, the residents of North College Park value fostering their sense of community in part because of its tremendous diversity.
North College Park “captures a little subculture of the entirety of what makes our world great.” said Hernandez, the first Latino to represent the community. “... It’s literally the personification of what it can look like if we all work together and live in harmony.”
The residents of North College Park are greatly invested in the past, present and future of their neighborhood, with a strong conviction to the values of community, sustainability and diversity. Hernandez reflects on his hopes for the neighborhood and wishes that residents stay and become more heavily involved with local government and get to know their neighbors.
“I think as we continue to think about it, what North College Park is and what it can be, like, the more voices that are a part of it, the more it’ll look like what it is that we want,” Hernandez said. “And I, being the first Latino to represent North College Park in the way that I do, I want to make sure that we build a space that really provides the opportunity for everyone who lives here to be a part of the community, whether they look like you or they speak the same language as you. If we leave a space there, we can define what North College Park is and will be in the future.”
Living there: The neighborhood consists mostly of single family houses with three to five bedrooms and one to four bathrooms. In the past year, 54 houses sold. The lowest sale price sold was $325,000; the highest $550,000.
Amenities: Hollywood playground, Muskogee playground, Hollywood Gateway Park, Hollywood Dog Park, Duvall Playground and Athletic Field, Hollywood Plaza, access to Trolley Trail.
Schools: Hollywood Elementary, Greenbelt Middle and Parkdale High.
Transit: Greenbelt MARC SB and Metro’s Green Line on Greenbelt Metro Drive, off the Capital Beltway. Bus route 83 runs through the neighborhood on Rhode Island Ave. and Bus routes 17 and 86 run along Baltimore Ave. Route 1. The University of Maryland Shuttle 127 also runs through the neighborhood.
