Over the weekend, DCist noticed this lawn sign reading “KERRY” on Potomac Avenue NW near Arizona Avenue in the Palisades. While such a landscape political statement isn’t necessarily anything new (Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee had “BUSH” sculpted into a hedge outside his Northwest Washington home), the landscaping supporting Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s presidential bid has two distinctive characteristics.
First, it appears that the landscapers intended the sign to be seen from planes flying into National Airport. Although it cannot be seen in this DCist photo, directly on the other side of the grassy embankment is an identical Kerry lawn sign, looking out over the bluff high above the C&O Canal and Potomac River.
Second, DCist thinks this political statement is on public property, not private. But we could be wrong. To our knowledge, homeowners on the north side of Potomac Avenue cut the grass and landscape the greenbelt between the street and National Park Service-owned Capital Crescent bike trail out of fears that the District government would simply let the strip grow out of control.
On an interesting sidenote, this grassy strip along Potomac Avenue is part of the original Battery Martin Scott earthworks that guarded the heights above the Chain Bridge during the Civil War.
