ksixnine t1_jb3djak wrote on March 6, 2023 at 3:03 AM

Reply to comment by 9throwaway2 in Cleveland park needs a coffee shop by katrusiaa

Retail dies in CP because of the overall history of CP: it was originally planned as a streetcar suburb, hence the strip mall & Piggly Wiggly, and not patterned to become anything remotely close to 1900s Georgetown or Tenleytown, as a result the repeated/ ingrained mindset of the residents (decade in decade out) has been to shop elsewhere.

And cars with or without historical preservation didn’t kill CP: if you look at how the neighborhood thrived in the late 80s through to the mid 00s, you’d understand that cars were a major factor in uplifting the area to turn it into a destination for diners & nightlife ~ whether they were going to the movie or not.

9throwaway2 t1_jb4xj0x wrote on March 6, 2023 at 1:48 PM

according to business record databases, there were more businesses in CP in 1940 than in 1990. Where are you getting your numbers from? I'm pretty suspicious of your data.

ksixnine t1_jb7zpfh wrote on March 7, 2023 at 2:52 AM

1940s, post the Depression/ New Deal growth wasn’t the beginning of Cleveland Park now was it?

The data I’m using is from the late 1800s when the Rock Creek Railway line via the Chevy Chase Land Company built the infrastructure for Connecticut Ave, as well as the failure of the Cleveland Park Company, and the eventual success of the Miller brothers - ultimately, none of these entities were trying to compete with the longtime established villages of Georgetown and Tenallytown (Tenleytown) when they finalized the designs & built out Lower Cleveland Park.

The movie theater, the park & shop, and the automobile literally drove people to the area, and helped redefine the streetcar suburb in the 1940s (and post war 50s) — places to eat/ buy groceries, and be entertained, as well as the ability to get one’s car serviced were the primary draws for that neighborhood, relegating retail shopping to being secondary ~ which it still is to this day.