Cleveland Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cleveland Park is an affluent residential neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, DC. It is located at and bounded approximately by Rock Creek Park to the east, Wisconsin and Idaho Avenues to the west, Klingle and Woodley Roads to the south, and Rodman and Tilden Streets to the north. Its main commercial corridor lies along Connecticut Avenue, NW, where the eponymous Cleveland Park station of the Washington Metro's Red Line can be found. The neighborhood is known for its many late 19th century homes, the Washington National Cathedral (heart of the sub-neighborhhood of Cathedral Heights), and the historic Art Deco Uptown Theater. It is also home to the Park and Shop, built in 1930 and one of the earliest strip malls.
[edit] History
The first American settler was General Uriah Forrest, an aide-de-camp of George Washington who built an estate called Rosedale (now at 3501 Newark Street) in 1793, when he began serving as a Congressman from Maryland. Later, it housed Youth For Understanding, an international student exchange organization. In 2002, the Rosedale grounds were placed in a public conservancy, and the farmhouse, said to be the oldest house in Washington, returned to residential use. Other estates followed. Gardiner Greene Hubbard, first president of the National Geographic Society, built the colonial Georgian revival Twin Oaks on 50 acres (200,000 m²) in 1888. It was used as a summer home by the Hubbard family, including Alexander Graham Bell and is today home of the diplomatic mission of the Republic of China on Taiwan. Tregaron, present-day home of the Washington International School, is a Georgian house built in 1912.
The neighborhood acquired its name in 1886, when President Grover Cleveland purchased a stone farmhouse directly opposite Rosedale and remodeled it into a Queen Anne style summer estate called Oak View or Oak Hill (by other accounts, Red Top). When Cleveland lost his bid for re-election, the property was sold in 1888, and construction in the neighborhood shifted away from summer estates.
After electric streetcars connected Cleveland Park to downtown Washington in the early 1890s, the neighborhood's second phase of development as a "streetcar suburb" began. The Cleveland Park Company oversaw construction on numerous plots starting in 1894. Most houses were designed by individual architects and builders, including Waddy B. Wood, resulting in an eclectic mix of the popular architectural styles of the time, notably the Queen Anne style (including the Shingle style), Georgian revival, and the Mission Revival. In later years, simpler schools such as the Prairie style and Tudor revival came to dominate.
In the 20th century, Winthrop Faulkner and I. M. Pei designed houses in the neighborhood as well.
[edit] Cleveland Park Citizens Association
The Cleveland Park Citizens Association (CPCA) was established in 1911 by residents of the Cleveland Park area of Washington, DC. The Association was incorporated in 1964 as the "Connecticut Avenue Citizens Association." The name was changed in 1966 to the current name, Cleveland Park Citizens Association. Over the years, it raised money for the construction of the local library branch, the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library.[[1]]
It is a member of the Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia.
[edit] External links
- ClevelandPark.com
- Cleveland Park Citizens Association
- Cleveland Park Historical Society
- National Register of Historic Places: Cleveland Park Historic District
- Cleveland Park Email List
- StationMasters Online: Cleveland Park Neighborhood Map
