Cleveland Park is a residential neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is located at 38°56′11″N 77°3′58″W and bounded approximately by Rock Creek Park to the east, Wisconsin and Idaho Avenues to the west, Klingle and Woodley Roads to the south, and Rodman and Tilden Streets to the north. Its main commercial corridor lies along Connecticut Avenue NW, where the eponymous Cleveland Park station of the Washington Metro's Red Line can be found; another commercial corridor lies along Wisconsin Avenue. The neighborhood is known for its many late 19th century homes and the historic Art Deco Uptown Theater. It is also home to the William L. Slayton House and the Park and Shop, built in 1930 and one of the earliest strip malls.

A strip mall, strip center, strip plaza or simply plaza is a type of shopping center common in North America and Australia where the stores are arranged in a row, with a footpath in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front. Many of them face major traffic arterials and tend to be self-contained with few pedestrian connections to surrounding neighborhoods. Smaller strip malls may be called mini-malls, while larger ones may be called power centers or big box centers. In 2013, The New York Times reported that the United States had 65,840 strip malls. In 2020, The Wall Street Journal wrote that in the United States, despite the continuing retail apocalypse starting around 2010, investments and visitor numbers were increasing to strip malls.