Years ago, at the corner of Carroll and Westmoreland Avenues, where heads are now coiffed at Shampoo, school children skipped through Sherman's department store. At the other end of the long block, on Laurel Avenue, there was a Safeway, a hardware store, and a Woolworth's nickel and dime store. The 1950s became a time of transition for Takoma Park commerce. Where public transportation once served, the automobile took over, and new suburbs replaced older ones. Everyone was going to Silver Spring, but now, people come here.
Business is good again.
Stand outside the entrance to the former Park Pharmacy, and cast your eye down Carroll Avenue toward the Metro station. Old timers may still mention the rearrangement of topography when the subway was built to pass traffic under the railroad tracks in 1913. Houses on the south side of Carroll became beached whales in the tide of progress. New storefronts were built below some houses, and a level railroad crossing became a thing of the past. The Takoma Park Railroad Station also came down.