Copyright The Washington Post Company
Nov 16, 2006
Goose droppings muck up the reflecting pools on the Mall.
Heaps of orange dirt make a patchwork quilt of the gravel
pathways. Rats run rampant. Thousands of tent stakes pierce
the underground irrigation system and flood the grassy knolls.
The Mall has lost its luster, and the National Park Service
is inviting the public to offer its unvarnished criticisms.
About 100 people showed up yesterday at a symposium on
the Mall held in downtown Washington, part of a massive
makeover for the grassy expanse bounded by the Capitol,
the Lincoln Memorial, the White House and the Jefferson
Memorial. Public officials, a retiree in a velour track
suit, a Disney planner and others answered the call, enumerating
a laundry list of problems and irritations.
A century has passed since the character and design of
the city's public space were last considered, 30 years
since the last touch- up. The Mall is a place where visitors
exercise their First Amendment rights in protest, soak
in the grandeur of monuments to the nation's great leaders,
pay their respects at memorials to fallen soldiers or simply
take a stroll.
If only they could easily find a place to relieve themselves.
"Restrooms," or the lack thereof, is the No.
1 complaint fielded by Diana Mayhew, executive director
of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, after a million
people come to marvel at the pastel blossoms. Apart from
portable toilets sometimes brought out for special events,
fewer than 100 public restrooms are located on the 600
acres of the Mall, which draws 25 million people a year.
And that's just for starters. Fond memories of the trees,
Tidal Basin and monuments are adulterated by equally vivid
images of the inconvenience of it all: It's hard finding
adequate parking, and options are, at best, limited for
transportation or a morsel of food that is "more than a hot dog," Mayhew
said.
But, as it turns out, restrooms can be the most difficult
issue to resolve -- one described as "highly controversial" by
Susan Spain, the Park Service's project executive for the
Mall makeover.
That's because the Mall, often called the nation's front
lawn, is not just any park. Officials have to balance needs
with a sensitivity reserved for hallowed ground.
"If you're going to bring people to a location, you
have to accommodate their human needs," Spain allowed.
There was great debate over a plan to include restrooms
in the Thomas Jefferson Memorial when it opened in 1943,
she added.
Several critics who spoke at the symposium said there are
many other ways in which the Mall falls short.
"I am in tears when I walk up the Mall every day," said
Jo-Ann Neuhaus, 64, who walks on it every day with her dog.
Neuhaus, executive director of the Pennsylvania Quarter Neighborhood
Association and an urban planner, said it's heartbreaking
to compare the Mall with similar parks worldwide that are
so much better maintained.
"To see this Mall represent this country in such bad
shape: tears," she said.
Acknowledging problems is one step in the planning process,
said Sara Cedar Miller, an historian with the Central Park
Conservancy in New York.
"You have to get the facts out to the public," she
told park officials yesterday.
"At lunch today, I learned about the rodent problem," she
continued. When rats ran amok in New York's famed park,
the conservancy took a tough, New York approach: "We put
up signs in Central Park. We tried to scare people every
day."
Softer tactics were suggested by Kym Murphy, the recently
retired senior vice president of corporate environmental
policy at Walt Disney Co.
Murphy urged the Park Service to use "innovative" ideas
on the Mall, citing Disney's policy of hauling garbage not
in trucks that everyone would see but through underground
tunnels.
Mayhew, of the Cherry Blossom Festival, said she prefers
methods so subtle they are imperceptible.
"We have to be the Disney World of D.C.," she said.
Credit: Washington Post Staff Writer |
