TAKOMA PARK, MD – Anticipating a Planning Board approval of the “minor master plan” to upzone the site of the former Washington Adventist Hospital, Takoma Park city officials purchased the property and began planning for the creation of the county’s only major theme park: NIMBYLand.
“NIMBYLand is where you go to make all your dreams come true,” said the City Manager while wearing the theme park’s signature Nimbee antennas. “And that dream is creating the happiest place on earth where everything stays exactly the same as the day you moved here.”
NIMBYLand promises to be a fun-filled paradise with adventurous, exciting rides. The main attraction will be Parking Space Mountain, an exhilarating rush in a Subaru Outback through a large surface parking lot, making sharp turns to avoid cyclists and pedestrians and ending at that perfect parking spot just steps from an organic grocery store’s entrance. Visitors looking for a slower ride can hop on a floating raft in “It’s a Small Town” where whimsical animatronic figures sing a catchy little song about how NIMBY neighborhoods all over the world keep their little suburbs free from development:
“It’s a town of laughter,
A town of fear,
If you aren’t like us
We don’t want you here,
We just don’t want to share
And it’s time you’re aware
It’s a small town after all…of the regulations we have created to prevent new people like you from being able to move here!”
NIMBYLand focuses on fun for the whole family but will also educate visitors about the past in the YesterdayLand wing of the park. A YesterdayLand Monorail tour will guide guests through the park’s historic district, which features several closed businesses that residents forced to reopen, including Video Americain, that bead store, and Park Pharmacy. After passing several Victorian and Craftsman homes, the tour then makes a detour to visit that new modern house on Carroll Avenue for riders to throw rocks at.
“Our goal isn’t to build some profit-driven, corporate theme park that will bring more tax revenue to the city,” said YesterdayLand architect and historian Pierce Lawrence. “We designed NIMBYLand to teach our children to stop complaining about being unable to afford a house in a nice neighborhood, and instead, pay just $300 for an entire day pretending to live in one…until the park closes at midnight, that is.”
Stay tuned as this exclusive two-part series on the construction of NIMBYLand will continue on Friday.
