Since 1999, Bill Adler and Peggy Robin have run the Cleveland Park listserv. With over 11,000 members and hundreds of messages each month, it’s now the largest neighborhood email list in the U.S. In recent years, Bill and Peggy have launched a companion blog, All Life Is Local.
Thanks for joining us, Bill and Peggy. Briefly describe Cleveland Park to someone moving to DC who’s looking for the right neighborhood fit.
Cleveland Park is the neighborhood with something for everyone. It’s best known for the large Victorian houses that line the sidestreets of the Cleveland Park Historic District, mainly occupied by families, but there’s also a tremendous variety of apartment buildings – from highrise to garden apartments, in all sizes and price ranges – along our two major avenues, Connecticut and Wisconsin – and all less than 10 minutes from downtown DC on the Metro.
To achieve such a vibrant online community, clearly you two have done a masterful job moderating the listserv. But the neighborhood must play a role as well. What is it about Cleveland Park that encourages such passion about local affairs?
Cleveland Park has been a cohesive, activist neighborhood at least since the early 60s, when residents came together to fight a plan to put an interstate highway right through the middle of the neighborhood (about where Reno Road is now). In the late 60s and early 70s neighbors fought off a plan to build a “mini-city” of high rise office buildings in place of an older, charming development of garden apartments (McLean Gardens) and in the 80s the Cleveland Park Historical Society was formed and the Cleveland Park Historic District was created to preserve the turn-of-the-century houses and the 1920s Art Deco storefronts on Connecticut Avenue. When we started the Cleveland Park Listserv in 1999, we drew on some of the existing community groups for our initials members, but almost immediately the listserv started growing by word-of-mouth, and by the end of the first year we had about 1,000 members. Now we have over 11,000 members and we’re growing by 30 to 50 new members a week.
One of the hottest debates on your listserv over the years has been whether to modernize the Giant Food at Wisconsin and Newark – and add retail and residential development around it. Your last report said it’s moving forward. What’s the latest?
We learned the latest just the other day that Giant is still searching for a financial partner and that groundbreaking (which was supposed to have started this fall) is now put off until at least the beginning of 2012. We just posted an update on All Life Is Local.
Speaking of local businesses … a couple years ago the Post reported that on Cleveland Park’s main strip 11 of 64 storefronts were vacant. Why have many restaurants and shops struggled in CP? Is the business environment improving?
Yes, most if not all of those vacant storefronts are now occupied, but the underlying problem remains: The Cleveland Park commercial strip is hampered by a zoning cap of 25 percent of street frontage by restaurants. This restriction was put into place in the early 90s when it seemed that there was a danger of loss of variety of stores, and that by capping the number of restaurants, it would force landlords to rent to other types of neighborhood-serving businesses. We think in practice it’s been a big flop. The space just sits empty, which isn’t good for anyone. If a restaurant wants to move in badly enough, they have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a variance from the zoning cap. In most cases, they’ve received it, but it does mean a much longer period of vacancy while the hearings drag on and people wait for agencies to hand down decisions.
Over the years what have been the most noteworthy changes or causes that were sparked by the listserv?
There have been a number of causes that got organized on the listserv but the main one has been the neighborhood group in support of the Giant. It got its start when the Cleveland Park Citizens Association came out unexpectedly in opposition to the new Giant. That controversy is still ongoing and continues to make sparks fly on the listserv. Other issues always good for rousing debate are school expansions, speed bumps, and door-to-door magazine solicitors.
What changes would you like to see in Cleveland Park?
We would very much like to see the 25 percent cap on restaurants taken off the commercial strip on Connecticut Avenue. We can see that it has not worked to increase the variety of businesses in the neighborhood, but has had the opposite effect, of discouraging all kinds of businesses, by giving Cleveland Park a reputation of being a tough place to set up shop. We also would like to see a restoration of the wide sidewalk on the east side of the commercial strip on Connecticut Avenue, which would make the block much more pedestrian-friendly, and allow room for sidewalk cafes. Right now it’s a “service lane” – but mainly a parking strip for short-term shoppers. It’s the only part of Connecticut Avenue with this feature. It’s not needed in other neighborhoods, and we think the block would be so much more walkable without it.
Would the neighborhood need another parking lot if they removed the service lane?
Some of the people who have been looking at the parking question have proposed some creative solutions to get back at least some of the spaces that would be lost, by reconfiguring the spaces that would be left, or making more spaces available in the alley behind the shops, but there is no room for a parking lot. Others have noted that during most times of the day, except for the rush hours and Friday and Saturday nights, parking isn’t difficult at the Park’n’Shop lot, and the metered spaces directly on Connecticut Avenue are usually available. There’s also the argument that the other commercial zones on Connecticut Avenue do well without a service lane; this lane was installed in the 1950s when people were encouraged to drive everywhere. We have a different mindset now, especially when we have the Metro right on the corner.
Please share some of your neighborhood favorites:
Favorite place to get a drink or coffee: Nanny O’Brien’s
Favorite upscale restaurant: Palena
Favorite cheap restaurant or carryout: Vace’s deli
Favorite area to walk around: Peirce Mill in Rock Creek Park
Favorite neighborhood hidden gem: Tregaron (the old estate that now houses the Washington International School at 3100 Macomb Street)
Favorite (other) DC blog: DCist
Thanks Bill and Peggy! See you around on the CP listserv and All Life Is Local.
