It was conceived to help enable $750 million worth of long-delayed repairs and upgrades for the nation’s flagship public space.

Photo by cruffo Organizers for the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial announced yesterday plans for a much smaller dedication ceremony on October 16. The rescheduled ceremony, nearly two months after the original planned date was postponed due to the still resonating Hurricane Irene, will take place at 9 a.m. to a small group of dignitaries, while the non-ticketed viewing public will be allowed to gather on the adjacent West Potomac Park. Still slated on…

The 2011 Solar Decathlon — which had been uprooted from its regular National Mall location and heavily rumored to be taking place at National Harbor — won’t have to move too far, after all. According to a letter sent to sponsors of the event by the Department of Energy, the Decathlon will be taking place this fall in West Potomac Park, on the banks of the Potomac River and along the path between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.

Thanks to our friends over at FreeRide, we’ve learned that Sue Palka, Fox 5’s weathercaster, has some fans. More than just fans, though, she has a fansite. Why? According to the site, “She’s smart, she’s sassy, and (we bet) she can drink you under the table. Does she get the weather right? Who cares? It’s always sunny when Sue’s around!” Maybe. But we’ve always been big fans of Michael Gargiulo and Shawn Yancy. Williams Demands…

One of our favorite monuments in this city is the District of Columbia’s World War I Memorial, honoring those from the capital who fought and died in the Great War. This DCist’s late great uncle, who grew up in Foggy Bottom before George Washington University gobbled it all up, was a World War I vet. So we stop by when ever we stroll through West Potomac Park. On our Fourth of July tour of the…

Yes, our Nikon pretty much sucks, but we think some of our photos of the D.C. fireworks worked out quite well. Here you can see three major blurred symbols of American democracy — the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial — framing a spectacular fire burst above West Potomac Park. We encourage you do drop in your photos of the fireworks in DCist Photos. Here’s our quick roundup of the July Fourth…

(Photo of a photog let loose around the Tidal Basin from DCJohn’s Flickr photostream.) We guess they’re the D.C. version of the Gates. Instead of visitors in Central Park looking at saffron fabric, we have visitors in West Potomac Park admiring a blanket of pink flowers … except that unlike Christo’s public art, the cherry blossoms will return next year, assuming a swarm of beavers or northern snakeheads don’t crawl out of the water…