From Pretty Prospects To Cleveland Park
In 1790, a general in the Continental Army, Uriah Forrest, and his business partner bought a tract of land consisting of nearly 1000 acres in what today is Northwest Washington, D.C. to be used as an estate. Forrest subsequently renamed his holding Rosedale. With time, the property was subdivided into progressively smaller tracts and sold. In the 19th Century, the area consisted of a number of large estates and homes. In 1885, then President-elect Grover Cleveland purchased an estate known as Red Top. He in turn remodeled and renamed his estate Oak View. The community residents renamed the area surrounding Cleveland's home Cleveland Park. President Cleveland's home has long been demolished, but his name and community remain in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. which centers around its namesake Metro Stop on Connecticut Avenue just steps from Cleveland's former home.
In the early 20th Century to the 1920's, Cleveland Park experienced a construction boom as speculators bought property, subdivided the large lots still further and built homes. During the 1930's, the commercial strip along Connecticut Avenue was developed and many impressive apartment buildings were constructed. Many of the old estates remained standing, creating an unusual pattern of development and residence within the community. This character of the Cleveland Park area still remains.
In this 2003 book, Paul Williams and Kelton Higgins offer a photographic history of Cleveland Park and adjoining areas that once were included in Pretty Prospects from Colonial days to the present. Williams is an architectural historian who has written many books on local Washington, D.C. history for Images of America. The book concentrates more than most of Williams's other books on the early history of the area. In addition, while it covers the entire community and more, the book spends a great deal of space exploring in detail a small number of historical sites.
In the first chapter of the book, Williams and Higgins offer rare old photographs of the earliest estates in Cleveland Park up to the time that President Cleveland bought and then sold Red Top. Much of the chapter is devoted to the old Peirce Mill, a frequently visited mill with a water wheel in what is now Rock Creek Park. The second chapter includes photographs of further estates, focusing on Friendship on Wisconsin Avenue which was once owned by Evalyn McClean, owner of the Hope Diamond and her family. Friendship was demolished during WW II, but another famous estate called Tregaron, built in 1912, remains in modified form today. The third chapter of the book is devoted in its entirety to two institutions just outside Cleveland Park proper: the National Cathedral on Wisconsin and Massachusetts Avenue and the former buildings of the National Bureau of Standards, located north of Cleveland Park on the site of the present-day University of the District of Columbia. Chapter 4 offers photos of the building boom of the 1920s with emphasis on the old Dunbarton (Holy Cross) College, again located outside Cleveland Park proper in Van Ness. Chapter 5 takes an all-too-brief look at commercial development along Connecticut Avenue while the final chapter of the book shows the fine apartment buildings that grace Connecticut Avenue in the heart of Cleveland Park.
For many years, I walked the Connecticut Avenue section of Cleveland Park on an almost daily basis on my way to and from work. I still frequent the area almost weekly. Williams's book offers a good pictorial history of the area and its development, but it is a rather staid account compared to the area I know. I was most interested in learning something new about places familiar to me. For example, I didn't know that the current Howard Law School Building, which I see on my current visits to the area, was once the Dunbarton College. I enjoyed seeing photos of the strip mall built in the 1930s, which is now directly behind the Metro Stop. The mall is a community landmark and has been saved from demolition by the activism of area residents. I liked the photos of the historic Uptown Theater, just one block south of the mall, and of the old fire station and adjoining Chinese restaurant, which now appears to be boarded up. Williams offers a photograph of the large synagogue, Adas Israel, in 1951 just after its construction. I have been to Adas many times. I would have liked a photograph of a wonderful old bookstore, called Calliope, with knowledgeable friendly staff and a rare selection of books. Calliope was located near the metro stop for just a few years in the late 1980s. It was probably the best small bookstore I have known, and I stopped in it frequently as I walked through the area.
This little book brought to mind for me places that I continue to know, and small places that I loved that are no more. Readers interested in the local history of Washington D.C. will enjoy this book.
