Before we go on, I need to respond to a question about the Dudley Beauty College.

It’s located at 20th and Rhode Island NE, on the same corner with the Dudley B Sharp Music School, and the Dudley Real Estate company. I was asked who Dudley is.

Looking at the websites, I see that Joseph Dudley owns the beauty school (one of eight across the country) and lives in North Carolina,  that Daryl Dudley, a local musician, owns the music school, and that the realtor is Cornelius Dudley. That is all I know. You will have to connect the dots.

Okay, moving on.

At Eastern Avenue, about 50 blocks from where we started this exercise, we cross from DC into Maryland.  There is no “welcome” sign to the state (in the opposite direction, you are welcomed to DC), but there is this:

Yes, you enter the town of Mt. Rainier, built as a suburb along former street car line 82, as this terrific mural shows. How do they get such perspective?

Mt. Rainier is known as an artist mecca, as are the next few towns we will visit (Brentwood and Hyattsville), with a small downtown stretch, some galleries and more studios, art supply stores, and lodging for artists of limited income. It is far from a wealthy town.

Now, remember that I am sticking to Rhode Island Avenue (US Route 1), and that does limit what we see. But there’s enough to keep us going.

As you can see, you can eat, you can see a diorama in the Make Art box, and you can get your own studio and loft.

Unfortunately, you can also see a number of empty store fronts, although you can buy oriental rugs and antiques, if you so choose. And eat some more.

As you walk on past houses and Saint James Catholic Church, you cross into Brentwood and North Brentwood. It is probably economically similar to Mt. Rainier, and both have a 30-30-20 Black-Hispanic-White mix. Here’s the church.

Brentwood doesn’t have the “downtown” stretch you have in Mt. Rainier, but does have some things of interest.

This apartment building, one of several, has studios and galleries for artists, apartments for regular people, and a food court with four or five restaurants, a fancy herb shop, and a big bar on the ground level.

I was in the food court mid-afternoon. There were several filled tables beyond the bar, which you can’t see, and the bar clearly lights up at night. It has been open about 5 years.

Here is  another apartment building across the street, also directed towards artists.

Next to Studio 3807, you find several depictions of Don Quixote. “Oh”, I thought, “local art”. But no, it comes from Maine. For a local art center, there is a surprising lack of public, outside art.

But things will change on the next segment of our walk, as we head past the North Branch of the Anacostia Watershed into Hyattsville  which is a metropolis compared to Mt. Rainier and Brentwood.

In the meantime, you can see a portait of happy, or perhaps perplexed, customers on the wall of the Brentwood Animal Hospital.

That’s it for today.