A New Face in College Park.
In order to understand MilkBoy ArtHouse, one must first understand College Park. Home to the University of Maryland, the city of College Park is constantly changing to better accommodate its student residents. The “downtown” strip offers a variety of hotspots like Cornerstone and R.J. Bentley’s, and new additions like the already-popular Sardi’s Chicken. Bars, restaurants, and UMD apparel stores reign supreme. You can’t walk 10 feet without passing one of College Park’s seven pizza shops (Blaze, Slices, Domino’s, Pizza Kingdom, Pizza Mart, Papa John’s, and Jumbo Slice). Yet, for all its luxuries, College Park doesn’t have a music venue. The population of over 30,000 has to get on the metro to DC or drive to Baltimore to see a concert. In absence of a traditional venue, the community has carved out room for music to happen wherever it can. There’s the student radio station WMUC, and a handful of DIY show spaces across town that host house shows for national touring acts. But the city hasn’t had a legitimate space for performance in years. In this way, MilkBoy ArtHouse hopes to bring change and improvement to College Park.A Bold, Beautiful New Space For Food, Drinks, and Music
The Philadelphia franchise MilkBoy ArtHouse recently opened a new location on Baltimore Ave. The ArtHouse begins with a ground-floor level with a well-stocked bar, open to the street and letting in sunlight through its large entryway. MilkBoy also features two performance rooms. One has a capacity of 200, and the other is a full-sized 400-cap room. In addition to the one-two college combo of music and drinks, MilkBoy boasts a full restaurant. They serve locally-sourced fare from burgers to the adventurous fried brussels sprouts. These make for some interesting alternative to bar food standards and pizza. [caption id="attachment_2188" align="aligncenter" width="621"]
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In anticipation of their upcoming fall schedule, MilkBoy announced a partnership with The Clarice, the University's performing arts school. According to the Clarice:
MilkBoy ArtHouse will be a local crossroads for dynamic entertainment, social gathering and creative dining. The only campus-community arts venue of its kind, MilkBoy is where Emerging Art and Pop Culture collide. It's where campus and community come together to celebrate!"The Clarice also notes that graduate students from UMD's own School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies also assisted in designing the venue's colors, furnishings and lighting.
Another way MilkBoy plans to help cultivate the College Park music scene is by working together with other art organizations and music groups. The venue is already in talks with Student Entertainment Events (SEE), which is the organization that helps curate campus happenings. They’re also planning to work with the student radio station, WMUC-FM 88.1, who have a strong presence on campus. MilkBoy is also reported to be working on hosting events with VoidLife Records, a mysterious College Park collective that throws underground house shows.
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Though it hasn't been around very long, visitors have already shown a positive response to MilkBoy. Some students have described the bar as a capsule of DC. The upscale feel allows one to forget for a moment that they're in College Park - and that's nice.
Will you be chilling at MilkBoy ArtHouse? Let us know in the comments below!
