If you search “Kensington, Maryland” online, you probably will read the following description: Kensington is a town in Montgomery County, Maryland, United State with roughly 2,098 population.

But why this small town with less than 1 square mile (0.5 square miles to be exact) can have a page on Trip Advisor? I felt compelled to share the other side benefit of Kensington you probably have not realized.

Antique Row

“I have a large inventory and I need the space. Besides, I like the atmosphere over here.” — Sue Jones, president of the Kensington Antique Dealer Association told the Washington Post.

If you live inside the capital beltway (interstate 495) and would like to drive to Kensington for a quick weekend stroll, you will see a giant sign of “Antique Row” at Connecticut Avenue.

What is amazing about this “Antique Row”? According to a 1977 article on Washington Post, 59 years ago, Jim McDonald and Charles Schrider opened an antique store called the Drum Maker across from the train track on Kensington’s East Howard Avenue. After that, about sixty antique shops followed their footstep to fill the renovated building and warehouses in Howard Avenue to the east and west of Connecticut Avenue. Today, you can still see a rundown of tidy, small shops located between a community of old Victorian houses and a railroad track.

Among many antique shops, “Antique Village” is the place you shouldn’t miss. Most of its renovation has been done by a developer Morris Parker. He brought up a cluster of five buildings that were built in the 1920s and transform them into Antique Village.

Idea №1: books you can read before visiting Antique Village

“L’art Qui Guérit” (translated: Art That Heals)

“When we see art, we ‘participate’ in its creation.” — Pierre Lemarquis

“Why this book?” you might ask. According to the author, many scientific studies have proven art of all kinds dynamically acts on our brain. Many of these art activities have “caress” our brain on some level that will help social bonding and boost our oxytocin level.

There are many artistic crafts and antiques flooded inside this “micro village”. One of them, Adah Rose Gallery, is particularly devoting her place to modern art. It promotes the work of contemporary artists with rotating exhibits and artist talks in an intimate gallery setting. While you are missing the artistic talk due to this pandemic, the informal gallery setting would bring you another level of art experience. So, get yourself to familiarize the “healing process from Art” before visiting the gallery.

2. “Counterclockwise”

Ellen J Langur, professor of psychology at Harvard University, once thought if we could put people in a psychologically better setting- one they would associate with a better, younger version of themselves- their bodies might follow along.

If her experiment could continue conducting today, Antique Village could be a perfect setting for Langer’s experiment to recreate the world of 1959 and monitor the progress of “pretending living thirty years earlier.”

What if you cannot get any of these two books? Not a problem, stop by Kensington Row Bookshop to get one you like. It has a two-story storefront with vivid orioles orange color, you won’t miss it.

Idea №2, wear a victorian hat and eat at the sandwich shop

After lingering in the Antique Village, you will see a two-story brick building. Before you rush to another block on Howard Avenue, take a snack break at deliClub. deliClub is a sandwich shop that offers soup, salad, and local produce.

While enjoying their delicious sandwich, take a look at the pink awning and sign cross the street and try to find these three items: wrought iron, Skjald font, and a bench. Then imagine yourself as you were in the early 1900s (with your hat).

Historically wrought iron was used decorative on fences, gates or balconies, etc. Demand for the raw material wrought iron hit its peak in the 1860s, as the popularity of railways spread across the united states.

Skjald was first issued as metal type circa the 1890s by Dickinson Type Foundry in Boston. In the 1960s, it became one of the popular phototypes for the victorian and art Nouveau period.

Finally, this old, almost nostalgic bench is probably designed a half-century ago. This piece is very similar to Canterbury International’s 1890 cast-iron, 19th-century style bench which is still the firm’s bestseller to this day. I wonder if you ever pounder that our expectation for smartphones shifts every year, yet our body still finds the old-style best seller most comfortable.