March 29, 2006
What the National Mall Needs...
With the warmer weather comes the time for the National Mall to be jam-packed with people seeking to soak in all that our nation’s capital has to offer. While the museums and monuments beckon to all, it has been argued for some time now that the Mall, which is run by the National Park Service, needs a little revamping.
Back in October 2002 (we’re not claiming this is breaking news), Joshua Green of the Washington Monthly talked about the notion of privatizing the National Mall in an article entitled "Monumental Failure." His article begins with a hot summer day on the Mall and his sudden pining for a beer. From there, Green goes on to expound on the various recreational and beautification fallacies of the large swaths of grass between the front of the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. And wasn’t it designed to be more? In his article, Green writes:
Pierre Charles L'Enfant, whom George Washington commissioned to design the capital in 1791, envisioned the Mall as a "place of general resort" that would be "attractive to the learned and afford diversion to the idle." L'Enfant had in mind the great places of France: the parks and avenues of Paris, the stately precincts of Versailles. According to the architectural historian Pamela Scott, "The Mall was to be the center of the intellectual and artistic life of Washington."It hasn’t really turned out to be such. Moving history aside and looking at the present, the plethora of little hot dog and sno-cone carts coupled with the touristy kitsch vendors that sell FBI t-shirts do add a certain character to the Mall. But couldn’t it use a little something more? Green thinks so, calling the Mall "a parched and barren expanse presided over by a despotic Park Service bent on stamping out any trace of fun or enjoyment."
There have been some changes in the right direction -- the recent addition of the Circulator buses to, errr, circulate the Mall seem to be bridging the gap of it being somewhat cumbersome for District residents to navigate, but always a joy for those utilizing fanny packs to range over. And there has been a push to bring wireless access to the area. And then there is the National Coalition to Save the Mall. But such efforts are still a far cry from the Mall becoming L'Enfant's "center of intellectual and artistic life" for the District.
As Green alludes to, looking at the National Mall is looking at what it might have been, and what could still very well be. His final paragraph states:
The possibilities are practically limitless: morning espresso in the half light of spring cherry blossoms, lunch under the gaze of the Lincoln Monument, margaritas and nachos along the Reflecting Pool, a beer garden in Constitution Gardens--and why not a moon bounce for the kids? The time has come to liberate the Mall from its elitist death grip. Anything less is simply un-American.As much as the beige gravel walkways have a place in our heart, it'd be nice for things to look a little more like the beautiful parks and promenades of Paris that L’Enfant mirrored the Mall after. We realize that freshly planted dafodiles may be trampled by Ultimate Frisbee and softball players, but, hey, they'd still look better than scraggly patches of grass.
If we could start dolling out parts of the National Mall to privatization, or at least opening it up to a bit more commerce, what would you like to see popping up alongside the museums and sno-cone carts? For starters, wouldn’t another little café, similar to the one run by the National Gallery, be nice?
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The National Mall needs a DC version of the Shake Shack (http://www.shakeshacknyc.com/) or for Galileo Grill to relocate.
Please bring good food and a little somethin' to the Mall besides the cafe at the Museum of the American Indian.
Ah, so ignoring all of the amazing benefits of he entire Smithsonian institution and creating Dinsey World DC, eh? All the quote you have from this guy are about food.... maybe he should just pick up a gourmet picnicing book.
For the record, the concession tent in front of the Washington Monument does sell beer. It's not great beer, but it is beer. I think that any private vendor who wants space on the mall needs to justify its presence. Options could include: putting a real calliope back in the carousel; undercutting the ridiculous museum food prices; chloroforming and removing from the premises anyone in a Big Johnson t-shirt or similarly crass apparel; planting flowers/trees; taking down posters for the DC Festival; wrapping sheets around pre-teens dressed like porn stars and bitch-slapping some sense into their parents; following "biblically correct" tour groups around in monkey costumes and doing so in slightly more erect postures over the course of the afternoon; sprinkling pigeon-feed on the hoods of double-parked H2s; maintaining the grass and shouldering fertilizer and seed costs; cleaning up cigarette butts and drink cups; lobbying Congress to stop acting like a bunch of spoiled children. You know, stuff like that.
The most significant reason that the Mall is not what L'Enfant or others would want is that, unlike Central Park or the Public Gardens, it's not near to where people live. Even when you're close it always seems to take forever to get there. No one is going to get breakfast by the Lincoln Memorial because it's not on the way to anything, except to the memorial itself. The mall isn't a pleasant diversion, it's only a destination, and then mostly just for tourists.
And more importantly, in the middle of the summer, it's a good damn dutch oven.
All that said, I think a nice addition would be nightime handsome cab rides around the mall. It'd be touristy, sure, but not a bad way to spend a half hour or so.
The Mall needs new grass. Am I the only one that feels the ground is not maintined enough? I know tons of people use it but if you compare the Mall to Central Park its really bad. For being the most well known green area of DC, the Mall isn't taken care of the way it should be.
while the grass could be in better shape, there's something absolutely wonderful about standing in the center and looking over to the capitol and to the washington monument without being bombarded with billboards and signs and Disney-fied commerce.
i'm also surprised no one has mentioned how neccessary the bareness of the mall is for protests and marches - some of my best memories.
You know, my fiance and I were watching The Wedding Crashers one night and we saw how lush and green the grass was in the film. We had never seen the Mall look so nice and green. CGI does wonders...
I agree that there should be better maintence of the grass. It would also be nice to have handsome cabs. Perhaps less of those damn FBI shirt vendors.
E,
I agree. I love the Mall for that reason as well. The most wonderful thing in DC, but I would like the grass to be a grade higher. That is all.
Oh and since we are at it. Let us not add anything else to it (i.e., buildings, momuments, or whatnot). The bareness is wonderful, not only for protesting, but to look at from end to end.
That's why I like the WWII memorial so much - they sunk it so it doesn't obscure the sightlines. What's the feasibility of a sunken plaza? I'm not talking a dim, fluorescent mini-mall under the reflecting pool, but perhaps a small commercial plaza that's open-air enough to be pleasant but deep enough to be out of sight? I get crazy hungry when I'm down there at museums all day, and sometimes I have this wonderful hallucination: Ben's Chili Bowl South.
Also, I would like to point out one more thing. In terms of overcrowding the Mall, this issue was addressed over 100 years ago. A commission was created that actually removed a number of things that were built on the Mall during the nation's first 100 years. If I am not mistaken one was a train station. Anyhow, my point is I see a time coming when people look back at the build up of monuments and actually try to move them to other locations so the intended purpose of the Mall would be restored.
One word (or maybe it's two): paintball.
Gabriel,
The museums do have food service areas inside them. Also, there are food stations located on the outer parts of the Mall.
Let me second ms: NO MORE DAMN MONUMENTS!
I agree: keep the Mall as bare as possible. Privatizing the National Mall would be to turn it into a Pombo-esque zoo. Why not develop Roosevelt Island while you're at it?
The Mall has many events on a weekly basis from Screen on the Green to the Folklife Festival. As such, the grass gets trampled quite a bit. But you know what? The Park Service does a pretty decent job roping off the grass from time to time to let it grow back. So stop bashing them.
If you're really thirsting for more sidewalk cafes, privatizing is *not* the answer. Next thing you know the Smithsonian will start to charge admissions...
Edward,
I am not trying to bash anyone (and I have seen parts of the Mall roped off like last weekend). Really what I am wondering is why isn't the grass as well kept as it is in NY City's Central Park. I would guess the large areas in CP have as many people walking on it during the day as the Mall. So why does the Mall's grass look worse? I just dont' get it. Someone please explain. Maybe its the climate or something. I don't know but am willing to learn.
Let's be realistic, any commercial areas would devolve into a Post Office Pavillion style food court. We wouldn't get Parisian style cafes; we'd get Sbarros and Auntie Annies.
Before the Mall could ever get back to how it was (was it ever really that way?), we'd have to get Pennsylvania Ave. back to how it was, namely a place where Washingtonians hung out. The Federal Trangle and the FBI building may be insurmountable obstacles, but adding more street-level restaurants with outdoor seating could help.
Designers have to remember how people actually move around. They always seems to come up with these grand schemes of public areas that totally disregard how people actually move around (hint: they don't like walking across large open spaces), and as a result we get huge empty failed public areas like L'enfant Plaza. I think the project to "tie in" the Kennedy Center with the Mall was well on its way to being another example of ignoring how people actually move about a city (who's going to walk all the way from the mall to the Kennedy center, presumably in clothes appropriate for the theater, in the middle of the summer?). Right now it seems to be on hold.
Look it doesn't necessarily have to become Disney world (isn't it already that. A tourist trap. Isolated from actual residents with nothing more than tired Smithsonian exhibits and over priced food?) What it needs is more than to be ringed by monuments and museums. Jane Jacobs herself warned that the city beautiful movement (from which the McMillan commission got its ideas) was doing nothing to create lively street-level activities, but was creating elitist monumental "parks" that wouldn't engage civic life. Just think how much more interesting Dupont Circle is: for people watching, closeness to commerce and transit and where people live. The Mall is a colossal failure. Central Park (or Golden Gate Park in SF or Lincoln Park in Chicago) have zoos, playgrounds, horseback riding, arenas, polo grounds, etc. And museums IN the park and not outside of it.
The mall is just not all that interesting. And is certainly lacks an idea of what the central park in the city should be.
That all being said. L'Enfant had also hoped that the city would grow up more around the capitol and the park, with East Cap street being the center of the downtown out to a port. Bad development and environmental practices filed the Anacostia river with silt and prevented a port from being anywhere other than Georgetown.
I should add that the success of 7th street has brought residents closer to the mall. I'm blown away any time I go there nowadays on a Saturday. It's packed with people, and I'd say the vast majority are not tourists. Five years ago, that place would be a ghost town on the weekends. Now it's packed with people, and not just those going to or coming from the MCI Center. It may yet serve as a bulkhead for the reclamation of the city core by residents.
I'm sorry, but I get ravenous whenever I take visitors down on the mall. While it's true that many of the museums have food services, they are rather over-priced (at least the ones I have sampled). Plus they don't serve the real need: places to get something to eat/drink while still taking advantage of the outdoors/people/Mall itself. I don't think anyone is advocating they throw a Sbarro smack dab in the middle of everything. But couldn't they put something in on the sides of the mall? You know, the sides that aren't really visible when you're taking that postcard shot from the Lincoln to the Washington? Of course, I don't know how you could legislate that all establishments in this zone be quaint, quasi-Paris, outdoor cafes instead of Starbucks... But even more places to just sit, relax, and eat your half-smoke would be awesome.
That's "beachhead" not "bulkhead", which has a totally opposite meaning.
MS, I know there is food in the museums. However, the fact that you feel the need to point that out in this discussion suggests that A: you've never ACTUALLY eaten at one, or B: you get your kicks from paying three times the reasonable rate for half the quality. The Native American museum has taken steps to improve on the "cardboard pizza" standard set by the Air'n'Space, but a $15 sandwich is still not quite my idea of a decent lunch. Maybe if the food concessions on the mall were able to shake the "we've got you by the short ones so pay up" mentality, I wouldn't consider the place to be in such dire straits, gastronomically speaking. I don't think chains are the solution, the Natural History Blimpie doesn't quite figure in my fantasy, but some other options would be pleasant, no?
I'd like to see a large public space with outdoor seating surrounded by low-elevation restaurants and stores, but I don't think the appropriate place for that would be the National Mall - perhaps just south of the Mall in SW. I agree with E and ms - the Mall is the one place for large-scale national political speech and should be protected for that. Perhaps its being put to much use (if mainly by tourists) is why the grass is not so green - that, or the lack of rain...
Another risk of putting up fashionable shops or restaurants along the Mall could be seen in the destruction caused by renegade protesters in the streets of Paris. It already happened at the Citibank near McPherson Square during the Inauguration (or reelection?) protests last year. I imagine it's not so easy to damage the side of the Natural History Museum.
Another risk of putting up fashionable shops or restaurants along the Mall could be seen in the destruction caused by renegade protesters in the streets of Paris. It already happened at the Citibank near McPherson Square during the Inauguration (or reelection?) protests last year. I imagine it's not so easy to damage the side of the American Museum of Natural History.
Gabriel,
I do know the food is overpriced, but don't you think that any place that would be built in that area would overprice their food as well? Anyhow, I know when I go to the Mall I know to bring food or eat before or after going there. When family visits I warn them when they go to the Mall. Most people, when visiting new places, do research and know what to except. Spending 3 or 4 hours in that area then going to a place with decent and cheap food isnt' the end of the world.
The only thing that the Mall needs is a large plastic Triceratops in front of the Natural History museum for kids (and me) to climb on.
I miss you Mr. Beazley.:(
I think the Mall needs more faded, orange snow fencing.
monkeys. what the mall needs is monkeys.
"monkeys. what the mall needs is monkeys."
That was among Gabe's suggestions. I agree, both monkeys and people in monkey suits.
Comparing NY Central park (or golden gate for that matter) to the mall is comparing apples and oranges. Central park is much much much bigger than the Mall, and so it's easier to fit more stuff in there without being cramped. The vast majority of things that you can have in central park just wouldn't work on the Mall due to limited space.
Plus at the end of the day, it's going to take a act of congress to get stuff built on there. (there is no way in hell that it's going to go private with all of the smithsonian's on there) Esp. since congress passed a law back in 94' banning all building on the axis of the mall after the contruction of the WWII memorial and NMAI
Good point cal. I forgot about that. Still, not to belabor the point, I would like to know about the grass. Can't we spend some extra bucks to replace it every few years (like NY City has done in Central Park) or make super grass that doesn't turn brown?
Here's the problem: the NPS manages national parks, not city parks, and the Mall is essentially a city park.
Were the Mall managed by D.C., you could call up your city councilman to complain about how crappy the grass looks or about the faded snow fencing that's been up for three years, and he'd yell at the park manager and something would come of it.
Better yet, were the Mall managed by public-space whiz kids such as the ones who run Bryant Park in NYC, you'd see real care put into making the Mall a better place with more activities than marble-gazing.
Instead, we're stuck with an unresponsive bureaucracy, accountable only to a Congress whose prime interest is in cutting its budget.
Yeah, but bear with me here for a second: "Ben's... Chili... Bowl... SOUTH." Seriously. If I were grass, and I were growing next to such an institution, I would stand up tall and proud, no question. It could be considered a monument to DC cuisine which, as we decided earlier, is more-than-adequately represented by the half-smoke. With chili, mustard and onions. And a milkshake. One of those nice malty ones. Oh gosh.
I definetely agree that the grass needs help. Some places it is too long (I've walked through almost knee high near the reflecting pool) and other places it is dry and dead. Just not very appealing. They also need to clean out the reflecting pool by the Lincoln Memorial and fill it with nice water... That pool is nasty. On the DVD for the movie National Treasure they show how they use computer graphics to make the pool and grass look nice as opposed to its normal nasty look.
The only reason I would ever go to the mall other than if I'm going to a museum is to bike through it, or if I was playing some sport in the grass. It does need more food choices too... those little stands with the unpleasant workers have horrid food. During the summer it feels like you are in a desert down there and there is no hope of finding any drink or food to save you.
I like the idea of monkeys. :) There should be a little petting zoo (non-monkey) or something outside that makes it fun. Everybody likes to pet bunnies.
"were the Mall managed by public-space whiz kids such as the ones who run Bryant Park in NYC"
Great use of the word "were." People so often use the incorrect "if the mall was managed". Fewer still (me included) think to ditch the bland "if" and start off gracefully with the word "were." I gotta remember that...
Anyway, I want to point out that a lot of "central park"-style fields are located just south of the reflecting pool (which I don't think is itself technically considered part of the National Mall). On any given summer afternoon or weekend, they're packed with residents playing games of various sorts. It'd be better if there were a metro stop within some reasonable distance from those fields, but nonetheless, they serve as the "central park" that the Mall isn't.
Oh wait: we're a metro stop nearby...
The front yard of the Smithsonian castle used to be the zoo. They had bison. Probably monkeys too. So there is a monkey precedent. There is also, it should be noted, an opening here for a "smirking chimp" joke, wide enough to drive a truck through.
I'm stupid. We're not a metro stop. Were a metro stop...
Maybe I should just stick to "if".
Losers!
Guess I'm coming to this discussion late after a busy week-- still can't resist a chance to speak my piece, even on a possibly dead thread! Why haven't those uncivilized gravel paths ever been paved? I think one should visit museums wearing grown-up shoes and clothing, but those dusty, uneven paths give the tourists wearing hiking/lawn-mowing attire some sensible clothing credibility (grudging admission) and threaten to spoil pretty heels and hemlines. I'll give the joggers an unpaved strip if they insist, but let's walk on pavement in our urban space!