Few communities in the Washington metropolitan area have undergone as radical a transformation over the past 30 years as Germantown, Md. Once a sleepy country hamlet considered too far removed from the city to even garner suburb status, the Montgomery County community has ballooned to an area that some 100,000 people call home.

Amid surefire signs of standard suburban development including strip malls, big box stores, chain restaurants and consistent traffic, sit cultural and communal institutions that give Germantown a unique identity.