Surprise Fence Makes Angry Neighbors

Capitol Hill Residents Take Unexpected Changes in Lincoln Park Personally

For more than six months, the dog walkers, bench sitters and stroller-pushing parents of Lincoln Park asked the following questions: What is going on? Why is it happening? When will it end?

This is the story of an urban park and what went down when a fence unexpectedly went up.

Lincoln Park is part playground, part dog run, part amateur athletic field. For many residents of Capitol Hill's rowhouses, the park in Northeast is their back yard and fundamental to their quality of life.

Just how deeply do residents care about the park? Ask Kerith Grandelli. Five years ago, Grandelli, 40, was walking her dog there. She struck up a conversation with a nice gentleman whose son happened to live directly across the park from her.

"We met, got married and had a baby," Grandelli said. "It was because of the park all of this happened."

The couple chose to give their second child the middle name Lincoln.

Ten-week-old Huckle Lincoln Shea's parents considered making his middle name Lincoln Park. Dad had doubts, however, finding it a little too long and, in the words of mom, a little "too weird."

"Now I have to always explain it," she said.

When a chain-link fence was erected at the park in the fall, residents near the peaceful rectangle of green a mile east of the Capitol were disturbed. They demanded an explanation.

"Especially initially, people were very concerned about it, if not upset," said D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6).

Todd Farrington, 49, walks through the park every morning and evening to and from work and then usually visits again with his three Shar-Peis. "It took too long a time, and there was no consistent visible effort being made," he said of the project.

The National Park Service, which maintains the park, had deemed the walkway at the west entrance on 11th Street hazardous because of cracks and unevenness. Work to re-pour the concrete path began Oct. 22. Chain-link fencing, a section of which was strung with barbed wire at the top, was put up around the work area because of safety concerns.