www.clevelandparkhistoricalsociety.org

Both Peppermint and Necco House

Created by Board Member Robert Jenkens

Winter Wonderland. Created by architect

Cynthia Hamilton of Hamilton Snowber Architects

Gingerbread HouseCelebration!Sunday, December 193 to 7pmThe Cleveland Park ClubJoin friends and neighbors from CPC andCPCA to celebrate the season and contin-ue the Gingerbread Celebration at theCleveland Park Club (3433 33rd Place)

All are welcome! No charge!

From 3 to 5pm

View the gorgeous gingerbread houses(pictured) that CPRS will be auctioning,get those last minute wishes into Santa(who promises to swing by) and contrib-ute to the CPCA Winter Clothing Drive.Bring your unwrapped donations ofgloves, hats, scarves or thermal under-wear (adult sizes only please).

From 5 to 6pm

Sing carols with the Cleveland Park Club

From 6 to 7pm

Enjoy a glass of wine and bid on one ofthe beautiful gingerbread houses featuredat left as we close the CPRS silent auc-tion.

For information on CPCA activities(Santa and clothing drive) contact SusieTaylor at tayfish@ao1.com.

For information on CPC activities(caroling) contact Gwen Wright atbooladc79@yahoo.com.

For information on the CPRS activities(Gingerbread House Auction) emailstaff@clevelandparkhistoricalsociety.orgor call CPRS at (202) 237-2538.

Vol. 24 No.3 Fall/ Winter 2010/2011

PRESIDENT'S LETTERBy Lois Orr and Dick Jorgensen

We are honored to have been electedas co-presidents of the Cleveland ParkHistorical Society, which has been akey player in maintaining and enhanc-ing Cleveland Park as a great place tolive for more than 25 years. It's morethan 25 years.

We look forward to serving as co-presidents this program year and work-ing with all of our talented Board mem-bers to achieve a number of commongoals. And we want to thank our criti-cal Architectural Review Committeefor its substantial work in helping tomaintain the architectural integrity ofthe historic district over these manyyears. The ARC was formed in 1987.

In this 2010 - 11 program year,CPHS has two significant 25th anniver-saries to celebrate: first, the establish-ment ofCPHS in 1985; and second, thedesignation of Cleveland Park as anhistoric district in 1986. (ClevelandPark is one of more than 25 historicdistricts in DC.) The Board is consid-ering several possible events includinga dinner party, block party, special lec-ture series, Labor Day picnic, and ajoint celebration with John EatonSchool (celebrating its ioo" anniver-sary this year). Please let us know yourpreferences and any additional sugges-tions.

Among the CPHS goals for this yearare the following:

eDevelop and strengthen collabora-tive relationships with other communi-ty groups and neighborhood merchants.We have a CPHS liaison person to stayin touch with the Cleveland Park

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CPHSBoard 2010-2011

Dick Jorgensen, Co-President

Newark Street

Lois Orr, Co-President

34'h Street

Secretary, Anne Clark

Macomb Street

Dannylnce, Treasurer

Highland Place

Chris Goldthwait, Vice President

Porter Street

Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford,

Vice President

Lowell Street

Sherry Floyd Drew Maloney

Porter Street Macomb Street

Melanie Gibbons Sarah Mathias

Macomb Street Highland Place

Christine Colby Tina Mead

Giraudo 34th Place

34th StreetMarylyn Paige

Mike Goldstein Lowell Street

Lowell StreetSusan and James

Wendy Gray Parkinson

Newark Street (co-directorship)

Newark StreetJoan Habib

Woodley Road Christine Rose

Rodman StreetThor Halvorson

Lowell Street Anne Hatfield Weir

Garfield StRhona Hartman

The Broadmoor Margot Wilson

Macomb StreetSheldon Holen

Macomb Street Michael Winer

Quebec StreetRobert Jenkens

Newark Street Gwen Wright

34th Street

Lou Ann May, Administrative Director

P.O. Box 4862

Washington, DC 20008

www.develandparkhistoricalsociety.org

staff@clevelandparkhistoricalsociety.org

202/237-2538

VOICES

Rhona C. Hartman, Editor

Kitty Forest and Melanie Gibbons, Editorial Staff

Page 2

Ashley-30th Street Step RenovationBy Rhona C Hartman

The Ashley-So" StreetSteps repair and landscapewere completed in August2010, to the relief of manyCleveland Park residents.Community activists, civicleaders, and the DC Depart-ment of Transportation(DDOn worked together forthe last several years to bringabout these results.

The Ashley-So" StreetSteps are used by manyCleveland Park residents as ashort cut to and from the Metro into the heart of Cleveland Park. This pathway haslong been a public right of way. In recent years, however, drainage problems causedsevere erosion leaving the pathway and steps dangerous for pedestrians, Numerouscalls for repair of the drainage problems to city officials went unheeded.

In 2008 Leila Afzal was elected an ANC Commissioner. She was immediatelycontacted by a constituent, Ana Evans who shared the community's concern aboutthe safety, drainage, and disintegrated condition of the steps, pathway, and AshleyTerrace. In addition there was a fire in that area years before, which was difficult toextinguish because the fire hydrant did not work properly. Ms. Afzal , working withimmediate neighbors contacted DDOT to address the drainage issues and repair thecontinually crumbling steps and pathway. In 2009 DDOT agreed to repair the stepsand pathway, and request funds for the other repairs.

By September 2009 the pathway was totally repaired, and the Ashley/Su" StreetSteps became useful again. But they looked pitifully bare! Again, neighbors ralliedto raise funds for landscaping, which had never been done before. The ClevelandPark Historical Society, Advisory Neighborhood Commission (through their grantprocess), The Cereal Bowl, and individual residents donated funds. In August 2010,European Garden Design was hired to plant greens and flowers, and the result is asource of civic pride. A band of volunteers waters daily, and will do so until theroots become established. Steve Rabinowitz, whose property backs onto the path-way, offers his sprinkler system and hose for this effort. Both John Chelan on so"Street and Ms. Evans have been instrumental, working with Ms. Afzal, in the trans-formation ofthe pathway to its present glory.

Neighborhood Kids Give BackThanks to the efforts offive younger residents of Cleveland Park, ROMP is the re-cipient of$140! Ten kids between the ages of three and twelve got together andsold used toys at a weekend yard sale. The much needed funds will go to providingsupplies for the center as well as treats for Halloween.

A special "thank you" for kindness and generosity goes to:

Will & Connor McCormickJamie & Henry Large

Reese & Brock Alpher Sofia & Lily Zook

Luke and Sam MottThe kids and their families are hoping to make this an annual event.If you know of any residents, young or old, who have gone above and beyond inhelping to maintain our neighborhood, please let us know. At CPHS, we believeno good deed should go unpublished!

Ginger-breadHouse

BuildingDecember 2010

~./7.i/~'/?1~-

The holidays were in full swing as residents both young and old decorated homemadegingerbread houses at the CPHS Annual Gingerbread Party. After selecting one of theover 60 houses (baked by Board Members Robert Jenkens and Danny Ince) guests hadaccess to a wide range oftreats to customize their creations. Thank you to BoardMember Robert Jenkens who was assisted by CPHS VP Programming, Carol LynnWard Bamford for coordinating the effort. See our website for additional photos.

Geologyof CP

ExploredOctober 2010

Over thirty people spent a gorgeous fall morning walking through the neighborhoodand learning why Cleveland Park is a geological showplace thanks to professionalgeologist and Cleveland Park native Tony Fleming. Tony is the author ofthe moderngeological map of the District and provided the group with many little-known andsurprising facts about DC geology. Special thanks to former CPRS President JohnPoole for coordinating this fascinating effort.

I

Beautiful notecardsfeaturing photographsof the Cleveland ParkCallboxes availablefor purchase!Commemorating some of thebeautifully transformed CallBoxes seen throughout Cleve-land Park, these beautifulfour-color notecards are per-fect for housewarming, host-ess and holiday gifts. Boxedsets of 10 cards are availableto members for $12. To pur-chase your notecards, contactthe CPHS office at 202/237-2538 orsta:ff@clevelandparkhistorical·society.org.

The Klingle ValleyBridgeby Mark N Ozer (Guest Columnist)

The Klingle Valley Bridge played acrucial role in the history of ClevelandPark. When first built in 1891, it broughtthe Connecticut Avenue trolley intoCleveland Park from the south, on itsway to Chevy Chase. Recently renovat-ed, the 1931 replacement ofthe originalbridge was created by Paul Philippe Cretto complement the adjoining classic artdeco Kennedy-Warren Apartments.

French-born, Cret settled in Philadelphiawhere he taught at the University ofPennsylvania. He designed many memo-rials to those who fought in WW I. He isparticularly noted for his design of thecampus of the University of Texas andits signature central tower. In his latercareer, he was noted for his adaptationof classicism to art deco modernism.This is evident in the Folger Shake-speare Library on Capitol Hill that re-calls classicism by its repetitive pilastersalong the East Capitol Street front, butuses aluminum art deco motifs and the

Puck Fountain on its west side. His otheralso noteworthy buildings in the Districtof Columbia are the classically purelines of the 1937 Federal Reserve Bankon Constitution Avenue and zo" Street,and the much earlier 1910 House oftheAmericas of the Organization of Ameri-can States Building at 17thand Constitu-tion Avenue.

Mark Ozer is the author of Washington,DC: Politics and Place and Massachu-setts Avenue: Palaces and Privilege.Both books are available at Politics andProse Bookstore.

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By Melanie Gibbons

Cleveland Park Listserv Milestone

This fall the membership of theCleveland Park Listserv has reached amilestone 10,000 members! When youpost a plea for help finding your lostdog, that number represents a lot of eyesyou're appealing to, thanks to husbandand wife team, Bill Adler and PeggyRobin, who founded our neighborhoodListserv in 1999.

Both professional writers and pub-lished authors, they began with the sim-ple idea that creating a YahooGroupwould allow neighbors to talk more of-ten. And Bill acknowledges that start-ing it was really very easy, with a fewclicks of the mouse supported by old-fashioned flyers posted in local shops.In small numbers people joined in andwhat began more as a public safety ser-vice (police activity on Porter), quicklyevolved into broad and varied discus-sions relating to the neighborhood.

"One of the best things about ourListserv," says Bill, "is that the commu-nity has always determined what thecontent would be. And in the early daysour only rule was that you had to signyour name to your post."

Then a little boy from Cuba soughttemporary refuge in Cleveland Park andthe Cleveland Park Listserv changedfrom a sleepy forum into a firestorm ofdiscussion that made it clear to Bill andPeggy that rules and boundaries wereneeded.

When Elian Gonzalez was brought toCleveland Park in the Spring of2000 tolive at the Youth for Understandingcampus (now Rosedale), the neighbor-

hood erupted with opinions. "We hadraging posts in all caps, a totally openbut heated dialogue and people fromMiami posting as well, appealing toneighbors for help," remembers Peggy."Some ofthe posts were unproductiveand even abusive."

So the owners of our Listserv beganto institute many ofthe rules that arenow in place. "We wanted to make it asafe place to post, with good mannersand good grammar, in which the postsare relevant to the neighborhood." Peg-gy estimates that at least 50% of allposts submitted for review are not ac-cepted and she tries to get back to eachperson to explain why the post wasturned down.

Today, the Cleveland Park Listserv isWashington's most vibrant electroniccommunity and the largest neighbor-hood emaillist in the country. It wasrated the #1 Listserv by City Paper in2009. "We think of it as a daily, editedpublication, clearly written and easy toread," says Bill. "It's a labor of loveand almost, for us both, a second full-time job." In addition to ClevelandPark, the Listserv covers six surround-ing neighborhoods and is growing at arate of about 30 to 60 new membersevery week.

It's had a significant impact on ourcommunity. "It brings us closer togeth-er, helps us understand each other'sviews," says Bill. "In addition-to publicsafety, we believe it has sharpened dis-cussions and helped people focus onissues and not take viewpoints too per-sonally."

What is the Cleveland Park Listserv?

The Cleveland Park Listserv is an emaillist for people who live in ClevelandPark and surrounding neighborhoods.It's a great way to exchange news andfind out what's going on in the area.

How do I Join?

You can join by sending an email to:cleveland-park -subscribe@yahoogroups.com or goingto www.cleveland-park.com and click-ing on the "Join This Group!" button.It's easy. By selecting the "Daily Di-gest" you will receive a daily emailwith the titles of all the posts for thatday - allowing you to read only whatyou care about.

This year, the Listserv started accept-ing advertising, which really appeals tolocal merchants. Ads are only $50 andcan be online the same day an ad is re-quested. So if a merchant needs tomove some inventory or fill a few ta-bles, this is a great resource. And acompanion website, called All Life IsLocal, www.AIILifeIsLocal.com. in-cludes regular columns, graphics andphotos and is open to Listserv nonsub-scribers.

But with all the new developments,Bill and Peggy still feel that the bestbenefit of the Listserv is the reason theylaunched it over ten years ago - to putneighbors in touch with each other forwhatever help they might need. "Welove it when we see someone find aplumber on Thanksgiving morning orreunite with a lost dog."

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zen's Association to represent our inter-ests, keep us informed, and propose op-portunities to work together.

• Enhance the livability of ClevelandPark. We are considering several pro-jects. This past year, for example, theAshley Terrace Steps were replaced andthe surrounding area landscaped withour help. Again, please get back to uswith your suggestions.

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• Continue a program of relevant activi-ties that support our mission, which is toencourage the architectural, cultural, andhistoric preservation of Cleveland Park.Events this fall included a geology tourand the recent Gingerbread HouseEvent.

• Encourage new membership in CPHS,especially through personal outreach toresidents who have moved to ClevelandPark within the last couple of years. Thisfall CPHS will prepare an information

packet about CPHS and the communityto share with new residents in our out-reach efforts. Additionally, of course,we look forward to current membersrenewing their membership and previousmembers doing the same.

You can reach either of us by leaving amessage at 237-2538 or email tostaff(@clevelandparkhistoricalsociety.orgWe are in communication daily withLou Ann May, our competent and help-ful CPHS Administrative Director.