Norton Gives Parks Passing Grades but Vows Improvements
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Friday, August 22, 2008
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has launched high-profile crusades to fix up the Mall and such icons as the World War I memorial.
But what about the hundreds of other parks scattered around Washington, most of them also under federal control but off the tourist trail?
Norton (D-D.C.) had seen the complaints on local blogs: Rats. Trash. Broken fountains.
"I'm just going to have to go on patrol," she declared yesterday. And so she began a seven-hour, eight-park swing through all the city's wards, reporters in tow.
What she found was surprising.
"The park looks relatively clean," she commented at Dupont Circle.
"You'd expect to see a lot of debris. And I really don't," she said at Meridian Hill Park in Northwest Washington.
"Fabulous!" was her reaction to Glover Park in Northwest, where community gardeners had produced a riot of zinnias, marigolds, plump tomatoes and basil.
"I'm not sure I see a particular problem," she confessed at Fort Dupont Park in Southeast.
Not that everything was flawless. The men's room at Fort Dupont was deemed "putrid" by a Norton aide. A fallen tree blocked a hiking path at Fort Bunker Hill Park in Northeast, and poison ivy appeared to be thriving nearby.
Outdoor lighting was lacking at Fort Stevens Park in Northeast. And Norton turned a stern eye on the historic fountain in Dupont Circle.
"I need to know why the water flows very differently from one side to the other," she said. "It may not have been cleaned up there."
