Born of Need, Shaped by Nurturing

In the midst of the Great Depression, 5,700 families applied to live in 885 Prince George's County townhouses and apartments built to make work for unemployed men.

The new community, Greenbelt, was one of three suburbs around the country built by the federal government as an experiment in creating walkable, attractive places for the working poor. There, they could live in dignity and create a community through cooperation.

During World War II, the government added another 1,000 townhouses for workers. Both those and the original art deco cinder-block and brick buildings are part of what's now known as Old Greenbelt. The area includes an art deco structure that was built as an elementary school and is now a community center, as well as Roosevelt Center, a cluster of stores, restaurants, offices and a movie theater around a central plaza.

Today, Old Greenbelt is no longer low-income rentals but middle-class co-ops surrounded by the more conventional suburb that has grown up around it.

Still, the spirit of community lives on. Many families who could afford larger free-standing houses choose to stay for that reason.

When Mary Lou Williamson's husband decided that they should house-hunt in Greenbelt because he would be working at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center nearby, she was not impressed with the institutional look of the cinder-block and frame townhouses.

"I thought, 'I'm not ever going to stay here,' " said Williamson, 70.

Forty-six years later, she said: "It's such a rich life here, with so much to offer people. I've never wanted to move out of Greenbelt."

She is the editor of the weekly Greenbelt News Review, one of dozens of cooperative ventures in the town. She said 60 people volunteer on the newspaper in some capacity, including a dozen who spend at least 10 hours a week on it.

Lynne Chandler, 31, volunteers with the News Review and at the Greenbelt Museum. She is also one of the residents who has been working to start a farmers market at Roosevelt Center.

She and her husband, a doctor who works in the District, bought a townhouse in 2004 for $175,000 and immediately jumped in.

"There are a lot of people who are new to Greenbelt that volunteer. They are encouraged because there's such a doing spirit," she said.