Attention Marylanders

[hkellick]

OK, this is a call out to those of you who read my LJ and live in or have lived in Maryland.

K and I are going off to Silver Spring this weekend, to look at the city and possibly a couple of apartments.

I'm looking for stories, good and bad, about Silver Spring. Tell me what you know. Good places? Bad places? Good apartments? Bad apartments?

I need to know what the apartment adverts aren't telling me.

Thank you in advance!

Comments

[chickenhat.livejournal.com]

Only that the beltway traffic between College Park and Rockville sucks, but you probably knew that already.

Not sure I can tell you about different apartments, because I've tended to stay near College Park. Food and movie-wise you'll be set, and metro access is much friendlier towards Silver Spring and Bethesda (fewer transfers because it'll be on the red line). Most of the best and more ethnic resturants are out there.

[nesme.livejournal.com]

I work in Downtown Silver Spring. There's several chain restaurants (Ruby Tuesdays, Eggspectations, Chipotle, Baja Fresh, Panera Bread, Maccaroni Grill) as well as a good Tex Mex place (Austin Grill) and a Middle Eastern place (Lebonese Taverna). There's new things coming in all the time due to the kind of urban renewal going on here. We're expecting Thai, Pho and Japanese/Chinese to be coming in soon. If you are willing to travel to Wheaton there's a Scottish Pub called The Royal Mile.

There's a nice Giant Food and a Whole Food Market in the downtown area. There's several shops, a Borders, Curves, Gold's Gym and two movie theaters. The mall stinks, though.

Things do get a little rough downtown at night. Evidently some of the DC gangs meet at the mall. The Billiards place I frequent hasn't shown any signs of roughness, but I still have someone walk me to my car. I've never heard any gunshots or seen any crime myself, but one of the guys that works here got robbed at gunpoint a month ago about two blocks from work. He walks to and from work every day, though, and that's the only problem he's had.

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

If it helps any, I sent techs there a lot. I can't remember if they are mostly commercial or mostly residential techs.. but I generally figure something is a decent neighborhood if an alarm company has a sizeable presence there. (Not always foolproof, but it's something to go on when you have nothing else.)