Getting Its Groove Back

In 1936, the federal government bought the first parcel to formally create the park. It was a patchwork; streets bisected the greenery, and some private homes interrupted public access.

As in much of Washington, historic events unfolded there. In 1961, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called on area residents to join him in a sit-in at a downtown lunch counter.

In 1966, Lady Bird Johnson rededicated the park in her "Keep America Beautiful" campaign. "No one more than the residents of this area know what magic has been wrought here at Watts Branch," she told the crowd.

Marvin Gaye, living in East Capitol Dwellings near the east end of the park, would sit beside the stream, write songs and sing. Before too long, he headed to Detroit and fame, but some people hear echoes of Watts Branch in his songs about the environment. (Gaye died April 1, 1984, in Los Angeles, shot to death with a gun he had given to his father, the day before the singer's 45th birthday.)

Watts Branch Park was maintained by the National Park Service "as flawlessly as it maintains Lafayette Park adjacent to the White House," a Washington Post article noted in 1970. Frank Mills, who worked at a gas station across from the park for years, said he never saw any vandalism. "The people around here sleep, eat, play football, have little love affairs, you name it, in that park. They don't destroy it," he said.

When the federal government turned the park over to the city in the early 1970s, the city stopped virtually all maintenance. Parks workers would not remove trash because streets intersected the park, which they said made it the responsibility of the streets department, whose employees said they were not responsible for parkland.

The stream, polluted for years from street runoff and trash dumps, began eroding, sending large volumes of soil into the Anacostia. Landfill from the construction of MCI Center was dumped along the riverbank. Drug users increasingly found the park a convenient place to hang out.

Nine years ago, Washington Parks and People sought out "the worst park in the city, where they needed help most desperately," said Steve Coleman, executive director. The group was pointed to Watts Branch.

Creating a Vision

When Coleman and colleagues took a walk through the park, they saw hope.

"An official from the city government was pointing at every dump pile, saying people around here are animals, and yet there we were, meeting people from the community who cared about the park, who had been baptized in the stream, who walked there every day," Coleman said. "We also met kids who were trying to play in the park, including one boy who called himself Nature Boy, and he introduced us to his version of the park."

Coleman asked anyone he met what the first step should be. Trash cans, the children said. Coleman resisted, saying the children were thinking too small. But the kids insisted that litter was inevitable unless there was a place to toss it. After trash cans were put in place, the renovation took off.

Agencies stepped forward to add fiscal resources and organizational muscle: The city's Health Department and Parks and Recreation Department, the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others have signed on to pay attention over the long term.

The stream is remarkably accessible despite how little-known it is outside of the area. It starts in Maryland and flows into the District at its easternmost point, near Metrorail's Capitol Heights station. The stream and park wind past the well-used city recreation center, basketball courts and athletic fields at 62nd and Banks streets, then dip around the 75-year-old barbershop that John Campbell owns near 57th and Dix streets NE.

Some of the poorest, most densely populated and crime-prone streets in the city intersect the park, and improving visitors' safety is one of the goals of the redevelopment.

Rebecca Stamps, who runs the nonprofit Project Blessings for Hurting Parents in Lincoln Heights, would not go into the park when she arrived in 1985. Now, when she looks at the evolving space from her 50th Street perch, she sees more playgrounds and a place for outdoor Bible classes. Stamps even had a dream about the park a few weeks ago.

"I think it's a good vision," she said. "What this world needs is more people with vision who do what it takes to bring that vision to pass."

Downstream, the park ends at traffic-clogged Minnesota Avenue, although there is interest in extending it to where it empties into the Anacostia at the National Arboretum. Grand plans aside, the most amazing changes to people who live and work nearby are the smallest.

"Do you know what I saw in that creek?" asked Campbell, the barber. "Ducks! I was shocked. Here, in D.C.!"