November 16, 2006
Dear Coalition Friends:
Yesterday, several of us from the Coalition attended the National Park Service's (NPS) all-day Future of the Mall Symposium held in Washington to kick off development of its Comprehensive Mall Management Plan. The Coalition welcomes this much-needed planning project and will submit ideas for improvement we've been developing over the past three years. See the Washington Post story below.
We can now clarify some of the questions we had about the scope of the NPS's plan.
The press materials, banners, and NPS statements called this the "National Mall Plan" and stated that Congress gave jurisdiction over the Mall to NPS in 1993. Anyone not familiar with the Mall's divided management and oversight (six different government agencies; eight Congressional committees) understandably would be led to believe that this was to be a all-inclusive, comprehensive plan for the National Mall on par with the 100-year planning vision of the McMillan Plan of 1901-1902 that gave us the majestic Mall we know today. However, it is now clear that:
The plan is a NPS-jurisdiction plan only. It will not include areas under jurisdiction of the Smithsonian, Architect of Capitol, National Gallery of Art, and other agencies.
The basis of NPS's statements that it has administrative authority over the Mall appears to be its own narrow definition of the "Mall" as the strip of grass between the Capitol and Washington Monument (land that is under its jurisdiction) and not the area from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial that most people think of as the Mall (and which includes areas outside its jurisdiction) See the NPS Glossary of terms here .
This is intended to be a 50-year Management Plan aimed at improving maintenance of turf grass, trees, and physical infrastructure, not a 100-year McMillan-type plan dealing with new memorials, expansion, environmental issues, American heritage, and the Mall's iconic status in the nation's civic and political life.
NPS's plan is important but is only a small part of the larger plan needed for the National Mall.
That much larger, national planning process requires an independent commission and active participation by DC Government, Congress, and the American public at large to determine how this majestic symbol of American democracy and grand civic stage can continue to thrive in the 21st century.
We encourage our readers to send comments to the NPS at their new website.
THE WASHINGTON POST
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 16, 2006; B01
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.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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