By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
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."
Norton was living the adage that all politics are local -- down to examining trash cans and the paint on park benches.
Still, she has good reason to worry about the parks. The Park Service said national parks across the country need $6 billion in deferred maintenance, a figure that has more than doubled in eight years. The deterioration on the Mall has prompted Congress, the White House and private entrepreneurs to work on finding money for repairs.
O.B. Goodman, one of the National Park Service's local maintenance chiefs, bumped into Norton at Meridian Hill Park. "You'll never find a park that tells you they have enough money or enough people," he said.
Still, he said, Meridian is getting a face-lift. The benches have all been repaired or replaced in the past three years, new sod is being laid and bathrooms are under construction.
"We're trying to bring it back," he said.
The biggest problems appeared at a tiny park at Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. avenues in Southeast. The park is jammed on a grass-and-dirt strip between a gas station and a liquor store in a poor neighborhood.
But the park's problem isn't crime or graffiti. It is suffering from too much love.
The park, once a drug-dealing haven, was reclaimed in recent years by residents working with the National Park Service and the D.C. government. It now is a favorite gathering place for neighbors, many of them members of the D.C. Horseshoe Pitchers Association, who play in newly constructed pits.
Trouble is, there aren't nearly enough benches for the crowds, so people make do. Yesterday, people in the park squatted on plastic milk crates, an office chair on wheels, a plastic lawn chair and a wicker seat.
A group of men playing cards at a picnic table told Norton how they kept the park clean and free of people drinking alcohol.
"What does it need?" she said.
The answers came in a rush: "Some grass!" "Lights!" "A barbecue!"
Norton pledged to write to the National Park Service seeking more help for the tiny park and others in the District.
Terry Adams, a spokesman for the National Park Service in the Washington area, said it works diligently to address any concerns from the public.
"We welcome the congresswoman at any and all times," he said.
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