Speak up about the National Mall

The National Mall & its Monuments
Originally uploaded by DCVoyager.

Dale McFeatters is an editorial columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service. Usually, his conservative editorials run in the Washington Times. Here he actually makes some points worth reading about planning for the National Mall.

Remember that tomorrow the National Park Service holds a kickoff symposium about their National Mall planning process.

From "Speak up about the National Mall":

The National Park Service is soliciting suggestions from the public about the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and it's worth responding because -- who knows? --even though it's the federal government, they may actually listen.

The Mall, 600 acres in the heart of the capital -- indeed, it is the heart of the capital, is both our national village green and one of the world's greatest public spaces. It stretches east to west from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and from north to south from the White House to the Jefferson Memorial. Roughly in the middle is the Washington Monument.

The Mall is badly in need of renovation, as what wouldn't be with 25 million people walking all over it, often several hundred thousand at a time. What the Mall needs even more badly is a halt in the direction in which it's headed, toward being a cluttered bronze and marble theme park.

You surely have your own ideas, but here are a few of ours:

No more anything on the existing Mall. No monuments, museums, memorials, statues, visitors, no nothing. This needs public support because while there's a consensus that the Mall is overbuilt, Congress weakens under pressure. Three years ago, Congress declared the mall finished, no more, but since then it has approved three large projects, two memorials and another museum.

But aren't these worthwhile projects? Yes, they are but they should be built somewhere else, which leads us to our next recommendation:

Expand the Mall. It should expand south toward the planned new baseball stadium, northeast past Union Station, southeast along the Maine Avenue waterfront and northwest along the Potomac to the Georgetown waterfront. Planning for an Iraq-Afghanistan war memorial would be a good place to start.

Existing businesses should be incorporated into the design because there's a need for restaurants, restrooms and places to sit down. But, the Park Service should keep in mind, just plain grass is good and that brings us to:

Ditch the excessive security. No more jersey barriers and drift fences. No more herding the visitors like cattle. The Capitol is already an unwelcoming fortress. On the Mall, if the security can't be accomplished scenically and unobtrusively, the heck with it. We're a free people. We'll take our chances.

Put your 2 cents in. We may be surprised. They may listen.

Index Keywords: urban-design-placemaking