Main Street updates: Van Ness’s busy calendar, Cleveland Park’s night market, Chevy Chase’s First Fridays, Tenleytown’s music festival

Local Main Street organizations exist to recruit new businesses and provide day-to-day support for existing ones. This can look like alerting them to grants for storefront upgrades and remodeling, or helping them apply for the typical permits required to operate a business here. It can mean assisting them with promotional tools such as social media. And it can include lobbying for streetscape improvements that make neighborhoods a more attractive place to walk and shop.

There’s also the work that is more visible to the general public, and which also serves an important function: Giving us more opportunities to get out, socialize with neighbors, and draw attention to the businesses that contribute so much to the community fabric. A lot of what you’ll see below is about this kind of Main Street effort.

Van Ness Main Street’s 2023 year in review looks like all of the above. Here are some of the stats and updates the organization will present at its May 9th annual meeting. Head to Park Van Ness (4455 Connecticut Avenue) at 9 a.m. for a light breakfast served by Calvert Woodley, to learn who will receive the second annual Reginald M. Felton Spirit of VNMS Award, and to see a special presentation by Friends of Peirce Mill executive director Angela Kramer.

(Forest Hills Connection is an editorially independent program of Van Ness Main Street.)

Carpe Librum, a pop-up used bookshop, at 4340 Connecticut Avenue (Van Ness Main Street photo)

New to Van Ness Main Street in 2024 are its Second Saturdays pop-up markets at 4340 Connecticut, and Celebrate VNMS in September. (More on that below.) The pop-ups are held, of course, on the second Saturdays of each month, and that will continue through November. Carpe Librum sells used books and music outside, and eight vendors sell a variety of locally created wares inside.

Movie Night in the Park – a partnership with the University of the District of Columbia – will return to the UDC amphitheater on June 26th (The Barbie Movie) and July 31st (Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom). This is an absolutely perfect place to watch a movie under the stars.

A 2021 movie night at the UDC amphitheater. (Van Ness Main Street photo)

Celebrate VNMS, on September 14th, will combine that month’s Second Saturday market, the season’s final Movie Night in the Park (Spy Kids), and more.

Friends of Forest Hills Playground joined VNMS as a special program, and will co-host the annual Halloween Spooktacular on October 27th. Finally, Van Ness Main Street’s annual Holiday Pop-Up market will be on December 14th.

Happenings at neighboring Main Streets

Cleveland Park Main Street is launching a night market on the last Thursday of the next three months: May 30th, June 27th, and July 24th. And Cleveland Park Day (which features a Grover Cleveland lookalike contest) is June 2nd.

Tenleytown Main Street will host a music and arts festival on Saturday, June 1st. Its March newsletter hinted at a porchfest.

A giant chess board at a recent CCMS First Friday event (Chevy Chase Main Street photo)

Chevy Chase Main Street has First Fridays, which from March through September highlight local shopping, dining and entertainment options. One recent First Fridays event included a free screening of Dead Poets Society in the PNC Bank parking lot, giant chess outside Child’s Play, and sidewalk vendors.