Northwest Neighbors Planning Potluck, Brunch for Cuban Boy and Entourage

                  By Sylvia Moreno and Karen DeYoung
                  Washington Post Staff Writer

                  Elian Gonzalez, his family and friends from Cuba moved to their new
                  temporary home in the Cleveland Park section of Northwest Washington
                  yesterday. In the custom of the upscale neighborhood, they were quickly
                  invited to brunch and to participate in cultural exchanges with local
                  children.

                  "If I were Elian, I sure would like to be here rather than out on the Eastern
                  Shore," said local advisory neighborhood commission member Ann
                  Loikow, who lives around the corner from the Gonzalez's new home. "It's
                  much more interesting to be close to the zoo or the theater, and Latin food.

                  "Let him enjoy the time he has in the United States," Loikow said.

                  Elian and his entourage--his father, stepmother, half brother and cousin, as
                  well as a Cuban kindergarten teacher, four Cuban schoolmates and four of
                  their parents--left the Wye River Conference Center on Maryland's
                  Eastern Shore, where they have lived for the past month, at midafternoon.
                  They arrived just before 8 p.m. at their new dwelling, the 6 1/2-acre
                  Rosedale estate, on Newark Street north of Washington National
                  Cathedral.

                  The estate has been owned since 1978 by Youth for Understanding
                  International Exchange, which is providing it free. The Gonzalez family and
                  friends will stay in the main, 18th-century farmhouse.

                  They expect to remain there until there is a ruling from the 11th U.S.
                  Circuit Court of Appeals. Elian's Miami relatives have asked the court to
                  overturn a federal court ruling that upheld the Immigration and
                  Naturalization Service's refusal to consider political asylum applications
                  filed on behalf of the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor. The appeals court
                  said at a May 11 hearing that it expected to rule "within weeks, not
                  months."

                  Gregory B. Craig, the attorney for Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez,
                  lives nearby with his wife and five children. Craig said the family felt
                  isolated on the Eastern Shore, and he arranged for the move despite the
                  U.S. Marshals Service's unease about the difficulty of providing security at
                  the property.

                  One protester had appeared by early yesterday evening. Ramon Miro, 31,
                  who said he lives on Newark Street and is a Cuban American, held a
                  poster in English and Spanish that said, "Juan, don't turn your boy over to
                  Castro."

                  Yesterday morning, Craig and representatives of the D.C. police
                  department's 2nd District and the Marshals Service met at the estate with
                  neighbors, who were invited to express their concerns and ask questions.

                  According to some of the 15 or so neighbors who attended, police said
                  they did not intend to close any of the surrounding streets to traffic and
                  hoped that congestion would be kept to a minimum. Marshals told them
                  that normal public access to the grounds of the estate would be restricted,
                  but that they were working to make part of the front yard accessible to
                  dog walkers.

                  Some neighbors worried about parking, which already had become a
                  problem with a large crowd of reporters and at least three large white
                  television vans, sprouting tall satellite antennas, in place around the corner
                  on 36th Street NW.

                  For the most part, however, neighbors seemed far more pleased than put
                  out to have the Gonzalez entourage. Local ANC Chairman Ruthanne G.
                  Miller, who requested the session with Craig and law enforcement officials,
                  said it was a "good meeting. People got to air their concerns. Some of us
                  would love for there to be interaction with the family." She suggested
                  meetings between the Cuban children and students at John Eaton
                  Elementary School, a few blocks away.

                  Judith Grummon Nelson, who lives across the street, handed Craig a letter
                  at the meeting inviting the entourage to a weekend brunch with the
                  neighbors or, "alternatively . . . a pot luck informal afternoon reception."

                  "Everybody feels badly for this family," said another neighbor, who said
                  she did not want to give her name because she works for the Justice
                  Department--the defendant in the appeals court case. "They can't even go
                  up the street to Starbucks without being a spectacle. Let's end this
                  travesty, already." Pointing out the nearby Giant, Cactus Cantina, Cafe
                  Deluxe and Cleveland Park bookstore, she said that "they're much better
                  off here than being incarcerated" on the Eastern Shore.

                  The other side of the Gonzalez family was also preparing to move. Lazaro
                  Gonzalez, Elian's great uncle, is leaving the Little Havana house in Miami
                  where Elian stayed during his first five months in the United States.

                  Some Cuban exile organizations hope to turn that house, from which the
                  boy was seized by armed federal agents on April 22, into a museum. A
                  family spokesman said that Lazaro Gonzalez, his wife and their
                  daughter--who have been staying with friends since the raid--don't feel
                  comfortable there anymore. Their new home, according to the Miami
                  Herald, is a 1948, three-bedroom, two-bath house in West Miami.
                  Previously in foreclosure, the house was purchased at auction in February
                  by a real estate investor and family friend for $112,500. Lazaro Gonzalez's
                  brother, Delfin, is expected to buy it and lease it to the family. Without
                  employment for the past several years, Lazaro Gonzalez did not qualify for
                  a mortgage, the Herald said.