Just as the grass on the National Mall begins its rite of summer of being savaged by Congressional
softball games and festivals, House Members are renewing their focus on the park's sad state. And
they're getting help from a few private-sector players taking matters into their own hands.
The words "embarrassing," "disgrace" and "pasture" were alternately used by lawmakers and other
officials at a hearing earlier this week to describe the expanse of federal land between the
Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial.
"The National Mall is one of the nation's best-known and most treasured sites, and it is also
Washington's most neglected and undervalued," D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) testified before
the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands on Tuesday.
"The Mall lacks everything that a majestic natural wonder deserves, from an official identity to
necessary amenities."
The Interior Department's National Park Service, which oversees the Mall, is developing a 50-year
management plan for the land. NPS has received more than 20,000 public comments about the plan since
2006, and the final version is expected by the end of this year.
Among the many problems on the Mall, which has not seen a major renovation since the bicentennial
year of 1976, are decrepit sidewalks, trampled turf and a lack of benches, shade, concessions and
restrooms, officials said.
Funding shortages and a huge maintenance backlog at NPS have spurred a few outside players to get
involved in repairs.
Foremost among them is Chip Akridge, whose real estate firm is one of the biggest in the Washington
area. A Mall enthusiast, Akridge got fed up with its condition and in November launched the nonprofit
Trust for the National Mall, which the NPS recognized as an official fundraising partner.
Akridge has donated $250,000 from his own fortune to the trust and has committed to giving millions,
and a luncheon earlier this month raised another $570,000, according to trust President Caroline
Cunningham.
The trust qualified for Interior Department funding through the Centennial Challenge to repair
parks in preparation for the agency's 100th birthday in 2016, and will receive matching dollars
once it raises $1.1 million in private funds.
unningham said that money will immediately go to replacing outdated signs and maps on the Mall
with new ones that include the Vietnam War, Korean War, World War II and Franklin Delano Roosevelt
memorials.
Norton praised Akridge for "magnificent public service" and for taking on a project that is
"essentially the work of government itself, which the Park Service would do if it had the money."
While the NPS waits for the trust to gain momentum, Norton took an intermediate step last year
with the introduction of the Mall Revitalization and Redesignation Act. It would direct the NPS
to make modest improvements — providing restrooms and shelter — before the full plan to revitalize
the Mall takes effect.
"The 20 million visitors annually to the Mall should not have to wait for the long-term makeover
of the Mall it must have before it becomes more than a mowed but battered lawn bereft of even
restrooms," Norton said. "There is no other great national park that suffers like this."
"The 20 million visitors annually to the Mall should not have to wait for the long-term makeover
of the Mall it must have before it becomes more than a mowed but battered lawn bereft of even
restrooms," Norton said. "There is no other great national park that suffers like this."
The hearing touched on a couple of other challenges on the Mall, including safety. Mall
Superintendent Peggy O'Dell said the NPS has ensured that temporary lighting is in place at spots
where assaults occurred a few years ago.
Norton also panned as "radical" the NPS' proposal to occasionally drain the Capitol Reflecting Pool
and use it as a site for protests. Activist groups have complained that doing so would marginalize
their protests and cast them into a "pit."
But the focus remained on funding and maintenance. Norton said the amount of money that would be
required to make the improvements called for in the Revitalization and Redesignation Act should be
noncontroversial, especially when compared with the many millions it would take to restore the Mall
to its deserved beauty.
"All I'm asking for is pennies," she said.
