New Carrollton: History, Art and Community Day

New Carrollton offers travelers several different points of interest: its annual Community Day, two outdoor fitness courts, local history and public art. If you’re planning a hotel stay here, you can first consider whether an event date or the historical and artistic themes are more likely to shape your stay. The details below will help you distinguish the different highlights by interest and timing.

Community Day and Outdoor Fitness Courts

The New Carrollton Community Day takes place annually at Beckett Field. You can plan your hotel stay around a specific event date. The 2025 event featured more than 60 food and arts and crafts vendors. This makes Community Day a time-specific occasion with two clearly defined offerings: food and arts and crafts.

New Carrollton has two outdoor fitness courts: one is at Beckett Field on Legation Rd, and the other is directly behind the New Carrollton Municipal Center at 6016 Princess Garden Parkway. Beckett Field is therefore named both as the site of the annual Community Day and as the location of a fitness court. The second court is identified by its proximity to the Municipal Center and its Parkway address. If outdoor exercise is one of your travel interests, you can consider these two locations in your plans; they are at different named landmarks.

Traces of Local History

The area’s history goes back further than its present-day name. During the colonial era, the area now known as New Carrollton was called Terrapin Thicket, after the many turtles in the marshy land. Another clearly dated period concerns the Old Lanham Raceway in New Carrollton, where midget and stock car races were held from 1939 to 1954. On May 2, 1966, voters approved the name change to New Carrollton in a referendum. The area’s former name, a period of racing, and the later decision to change its name each represent a distinct chapter in its history.

Public Art

On the plaza at the Metro Building at New Carrollton is Dawn and Dusk Resurgent, a mosaic created in 2022 from handcrafted and industrially manufactured glass and stone. The work was made from large sections of panels from the former mosaic in the parking garage at New Carrollton Station. It is the first artwork in the Art in Transit collection to have been created by redesigning an existing artwork. Its materials and the reuse of sections from the earlier mosaic give the work a specific history of its creation.

Another public artwork at the New Carrollton Branch Library features translucent screens that allow for numerous combinations of color and light. The artworks offer different points of interest: Dawn and Dusk Resurgent focuses on glass, stone and the reuse of sections from the earlier mosaic; the work at the Branch Library can be appreciated through its use of color and light. If public art is one of your interests, this comparison offers a concrete starting point for considering which aspects of New Carrollton are of particular interest to you during your trip.

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For the broader travel guide: Prince George's.