Though it does not have the majesty of Yellowstone, the emotional impact of the Statue of
Liberty or the name recognition of Gettysburg, the National Mall is nevertheless a jewel of the
National Park Service. Almost 25 million people a year visit the site that connects and contains
many of the institutions and the most powerful symbols of this nation's democratic government.
Time and millions of visitors, though, are taking an awful toll on the mall in the heart of the
nation's capital.
The mall should be familiar to all Americans, either from personal experience or vicariously
through remembered television or photographic images. It is the place where the nation publicly
celebrates holidays, gathers to protest or recalls momentous events.
From the Capitol's grounds to the Lincoln Monument and from Constitution Avenue to the
Jefferson Memorial, the National Mall is bordered by the museums of the Smithsonian Institution
and the memorials to those who served in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the
Vietnam War. The mall is hallowed ground where the nation's great leaders and its rich history
are justly commemorated in a setting that includes sites both iconic -- Japanese cherry trees
and the Reflecting Pool -- and mundane, the public ballfields that dot the space.
As such, the National Mall is a special place for Americans. It deserves better treatment than it
has received of late. Its infrastructure is in disrepair or dangerous. Visitors must cope with
disintegrating sidewalks, benches about to collapse and lawns, pools and ponds hardly worthy
of their names. Some of the monuments -- the Jefferson Memorial, for example -- are in bad
shape. They urgently need repair, as well.
The National Park Service, hamstrung by years of funding shortfalls, has been unable to provide
proper day-to-day care or long-term maintenance of infrastructure at the mall or other
properties. Experts put the cost for deferred maintenance at park service sites across the
country in the billions; it will take at least $350 million, officials say, to restore the mall. In current
political and economic circumstances, finding that sum is an all but impossible dream.
There is, thankfully, a promise of help on the way.
The Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit organization that partners with the NPS in
restoration, preservation and education programs, is undertaking a public-private campaign to
underwrite renewal and preservation of the mall. The call for $350 million is an ambitious
endeavor that should coax additional funding from the Congressional Centennial Challenge
program. It should leverage generous support and money from other government entities and
from the private sector, as well.
The trust-park service project, announced last week, is still in the planning stages, but it has an
admirable and inspiring goal -- nothing less than the long-term restoration of what is lovingly and
truthfully called America's front yard. That's a goal worthy of broad support.
