Coming Soon: A Heritage Trail Near You

Congratulations to the Tenleytown Historical Society which has successfully completed a Heritage trail celebrating the life and times of this historic community.

According to the Express:

The Washington D.C. Neighborhood Heritage Trails Advisory Committee on Tuesday OK'd a plan to create the trail. Jane Waldmann, a member of the heritage trail working group and board member at the Tenleytown Historical Society, said it should be completed in about a year.

McLean Bible Church to the Uptown: Update

Jacqueline Salmon provides an update in the Washington Post to the issue of a large, suburban church's desire to use the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park for Sunday morning services.

The comments in the follow-up to the article, as well as on the Cleveland Park
Listserv are pretty divergent and amazing.

Beautiful Day in AU Park

The afore mentioned Barbeque sponsored by Councilmember Mary Cheh and the DCFD was a great way to spend a stunning autumn day in the District. The Councilmember was joined by scores of residents from around the Ward and city to celebrate the beginning of fall as children explored the DCFD appartatus present, played on the Moonbouce, enjoyed Screetch (the Nationals mascot), and the ice cream, popcorn, sno-cones and cotton candy.

The event was attended by hundreds of city residents, who sampled some fine BBQ, great music and an overall festive day.

Hopefully this will become an annual event to bring residents of the Ward together.

Uptown Theater Expands Business

ANC 3C Commissioner Bruce Beckner posted posted potentially shattering news to the Cleveland Park Listserv:

It appears that our neighborhood theater will soon be no more. I just received a call from a City Paper reporter asking what I knew about the sale of the Uptown to the McLean Bible Church (nothing until he called). Here's a link to the church's website with information about their planned use: http://www.mcleanbible.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=18091

Off the top of my head, I don't see much of a "regulatory hook" for this, other than the fact that the church will have to get Historic Preservation Review Board approval for any changes to the exterior. I believe the commercial zoning that applies to this area probably permits this use, whether it's considered "religious" or not.

Assuming this is true, it means that Cleveland Parkers will no longer have the pleasure of having a movie theater within walking distance.

My personal recollection of the first time I was at the Uptown was in 1963, when I saw "How the West was Won" there in "Cinerama" - a 3-projector system that used a semicircular movie screen. I think the Uptown was the only theater in the DC metro area that had that at the time. I also saw the Stanley Kubrick "2001 - A Space Odyssey" there in 1967, also in "Cinerama."

I'll keep folks posted of any further developments that I learn.

Bruce Beckner
Commissioner ANC3C05


According to the Church's website:

MBC Uptown is a Community Campus of McLean Bible Church. It will impact the District of Columbia and nearby communities in both Maryland and Northern Virginia.

Ministries at MBC Uptown will include:

Videocast messages by Lon Solomon and the MBC Teaching Team
Worship led by the MBC Worship Leaders and Bands
Localized ministry teams and outreach events
Opportunities to connect in biblical community with others who live in the DC metro area

Weekly services will start in January 2008.


In fact, the Uptown has not been sold. As featured on the DCDL website, an official response from the Church:

Keith,
I am writing to clarify our, McLean Bible Church's, intended use for the Uptown Theater. We are not purchasing the theater. We are simply renting it on Sunday mornings. As such, our use will not limit public use of the theater. We realize the place that the Uptown holds in the heart of the community and are committed to developing services and ministries that are
fitting for the Uptown and for Cleveland Park.

Mike Hurt
McLean Bible Church
Director of Community Campus Development

UPDATE: Here is Washington Post coverage.

Palisades Parade turns 41

The Washington Post July 4th insert has a nice review of this DC and Ward 3 staple.

National Zoo Announces its Future Plans

The National Zoo is currently undergoing a comprehensive planning process to identify facilities and infrastructure needs, as well as implementation strategies at its two campuses: the National Zoo located in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., and the Conservation and Research Center located in Front Royal, Virginia.

While the National Zoo has a long tradition and history in internationally renowned research and training programs, many of the facilities have become outdated and no longer meet the needs of the visitors, staff, animal exhibit and research collections, and research programs.

The Facilities Master Plan will guide the facilities renewal at the National Zoo. This renewal is part of the National Zoo’s ten-year strategic plan to be the world’s finest zoo by 2016. The facilities renewal will also help the National Zoo achieve its mission: to provide leadership in animal care, science, education, and sustainability.

The Washington Post Covered this story.

Clevleland Park: The Movie

"I Am Cleveland Park," the Cleveland Park Historical Society's new half-hour DVD narrated by neighbor Jim Lehrer, premiered at the John Eaton School last night to a capacity crowd. The DVD documents Cleveland Park's history, from the 1740s to the present, and shows how community action since the 1960s has preserved our urban village from destruction by freeways and massive development. You can order a copy by sending a check for $20 (mailing included) to:

The Cleveland Park Historical Society
3305 Woodley Rd. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008-3337

Yenching Palace transformation to Walgreens

Margaret Foster reports from the National Trust for Historic Preservation Magazine

Yenching Palace, where Henry Kissinger met with Chinese diplomats in the 1970s, will close this summer to make way for Walgreens. (NTHP)

The Washington, D.C., restaurant that was the site of 1962's Cuban Missile Crisis negotiations will become a Walgreens.

Yesterday the city's historic preservation review board approved a developer's revised proposal to build an addition onto the Chinese restaurant and alter its facade. At the board's request, Rust, Orling and Neale, Architects, will return the restaurant to its 1945 appearance, retaining features like its diamond windows and Carrara glass panels.

"We've really addressed every single concern [the board] had," says principal Mark Orling, based in Alexandria, Va. The firm's researchers found one photo of the former restaurant and based their design on that image, Orling says. "We're working off of a postcard."

The drugstore, located about a block from a CVS, will be the first Walgreens in Washington, D.C. (Another Walgreens is under construction in the city.)

"[Walgreens] saw it as an opportunity to create something that will make a statement and be very visible and also be part of a community," says Randall Clarke, development manager for Mid-Atlantic Commercial Properties, a division of Fort Lauderdale-based Morgan Property Group, which is redeveloping the property for Walgreens. "We've also agreed to put up something on the building describing the history of the property."

Walgreens was "pretty accommodating," says Joan Habib, president of Cleveland Park Historical Society, which recommended that the board approve the revised plans. "We tried to persuade them to maintain as much of the current look as possible because the neighborhood thinks of it as an important place, which, historically, it is."

Yenching Palace opened in 1955, serving Henry Kissinger, Mick Jagger, George Balanchine, Ann Landers, Art Garfunkel, I.M. Pei, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein, according to its guest book. Now a city landmark, the restaurant is actually two buildings, one constructed in 1925 and the other in 1928, which merged in 1945 to form the Seafare Restaurant.

Yenching Palace's longtime owners, the Lung family, plans to close the business this summer and lease the building to Walgreens, which will gut the interior, strip the neon sign and replace it with its own logo.

The building's most famous featuresits neon sign, its wood booths, one of which may have FBI bugsmay end up in a museum.

"We have spoken to a couple of museums; one has expressed an interest in one of the booths and someone else has expressed in the sign," Clarke says. "We're more than open to talking to people [about salvage]," he says.

After yesterday's approval, the city will issue a permit for the changes to the building, and construction will begin this summer.

Neighbors like Habib aren't particularly surprised that the D.C. institution is closing. "They rose to great fame at some point, with Henry Kissinger changing the world in the restaurant," she says. "The front of the place got crummier and crummier, the food got worse, the business was failing, and they sold. That's kind of the arc that lots of buildings follow."

Tortilla Soup at Cactus Cantina at the City Paper

Interesting review of a standard from the neighborhood!

More on the Chevy Chase Historic District

In a recent posting, I mentioned the proposal to create a historic district in several portions of Chevy Chase, DC, one of the original streetcar neighborhoods in Ward 3.

There have been a few posts on the Chevy Chase Listserv regarding the creation of the district ranging from incredulaity of judging what is historic to dismay that the creation of the historic zone is a forgone conclusion without a neighborhood vote or apparent consensus. There are of course, many posts supporting the proposal, or otherwise encouraging residents to attend the event on December 5th.

One of the tacts I take in evaluating this proposal is taken from presentations which have become standard both in the historic preservation and smart growth communities which make some of the following observations:

-If we are to expect citizens to use their cars less, and use their feet more, then the physical environment within which they live, work, shop and play needs to have a pedestrian rather than vehicular orientation.

-The diversity of housing sites, qualities, styles and characteristics of historic neighborhoods stands in sharp contrast to the monolithic character of current subdivisions. The diversity of housing options means a diversity of human beings who can live in historic neighborhoods.

-historic preservation is the one form of economic development that is simultaneously community development.

-The diversity of housing sites, qualities, styles and characteristics of historic neighborhoods stands in sharp contrast to the monolithic character of current subdivisions.

-Historic Preservation IS Smart Growth...a Smart Growth approach that does not include historic preservation high on the agenda is not only missing a valuable strategy, but, like the historic buildings themselves, an irreplaceable one.

Indeed, a speech in 2002 by Ward 3 resident and National Trust for Historic Preservation Presdident Richard Moe noted:

Smart growth advocates density and diversity of use. Most older communities were designed and built with these factors in mind. Saving them is smart growth...