August 28, 2008
Dear Friends,
On September 4, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) will review for final approval the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and Visitor Facility (bookstore/visitor contact station/restrooms)
The Coalition strongly supports the Memorial to Dr. King. And we understand the need for restrooms on the Mall, especially in the vast open space, not just at the memorials.
We have questioned the National Park Service's (NPS) decision that the MLK Memorial needs a "Visitor Facility" to interpret the Memorial. And that it needs a bookstore. The proposed substantial structure located across West Basin Drive from the Memorial will compete with the Memorial itself and destroy yet another portion of the National Mall's open space. See the story in The Washington Examiner in our July 31 UPDATE.
Solution? Instead of multiple visitor centers at each new (and existing?) memorial, we need a Mall Visitor Center in an existing building (Arts & Industries, for example), a one-stop place for the Mall as a whole--all the Mall's memorials, museums, open space activities.
Congress passed a moratorium in 2003 on new memorials and visitor centers but grandfathered the MLK Memorial whose site on the Tidal Basin was approved in 1999. But by what legal authority did the NPS in 2005 add the bookstore element? We have asked NPS, NCPC, and Congressional oversight committees that question.
The NPS has responded, in a recent letter, that the new facility is not a visitor center: "services that are typically found in a 'Visitor Center'...include...a lobby, information desk, exhibit area, public restrooms, theater, interpretation offices, and support spaces." The MLK Memorial structure "includes only restrooms, mechanical space to support the Memorial, a ranger contact station, and a bookstore to serve the interpretive needs of the public...but not an exhibit area, theater, or interpretive offices." Therefore, according to NPS, it is not a visitor center and so is not covered by the Congressional moratorium.
Did Congress make such subtle distinctions when, in frustration over continued pressures for locating new memorials and visitor centers on the Mall's dwindling open space, it legislated a moratorium? Will we be seeing additional proposals for "Visitor Facilities" at existing memorials on the National Mall?
We have raised these and other questions in our written comments to NCPC in advance of their September 4 meeting.
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