It sinks, it stinks, and it floods. It’s the National Mall, and it’s a national embarrassment. And last week, the House Rules Committee cut $200 million from President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill that would have been dedicated to its restoration.
According to District of Columbia Councilmember Jack Evans (D—Ward 2), one representative remarked, “Why are we paying money to grow grass in Washington?” as he and his colleagues struck the money for the Mall from the legislation.
“Some of the members of Congress are not the brightest candles on the cake,” Evans said wistfully at Monday’s ANC meeting.
The congressman’s question reveals a basic misunderstanding of the Mall’s grave infrastructure problems—the $200 million would go toward far more than seeds and sod—but at the same time, it deserves an answer.
We should grow grass on the Mall because yellowed, patchy, and balding are words that should only ever be ascribed to your jaundiced high school math teacher, not the national icon that, to many, is the face of D.C. and our country. The feds should pay for it (and they have to since it’s federal land) because our fair city just threw their constituents a great, big party.
Even more disconcerting than the sorry state of the Mall is the gradual sinking of the Jefferson Memorial back into the landfill on which it was built. The underwater sidewalks and the scummy reflecting pools—in short, the Mall of reality and not of postcards—that greets visiting families from Boise and Boston should mortify federal lawmakers.
At the ANC meeting, Commissioner Tom Birch noted that Congress is unlikely to include funds for repairing the Mall in the stimulus package because it wouldn’t create many jobs. While the money may not see the same kind of employment return as projects of comparable cost, Dr. Judy Scott Feldman, the president of the National Coalition to Save Our Mall, insists that it’s unfair to characterize a Mall renovation project as a jobless affair.
“There are jobs,” she said. “There’s decaying infrastructure, broken irrigation systems, and sinking tidal basins. It needs the kinds of repairs that can put architects, engineers, the Marine Corps of Engineers, and construction workers to work.”
The funds to restore the Mall belong in the stimulus package, which is all about repairing systems and infrastructure that we’ve neglected as a nation for years. Nothing embodies those broken systems in such a dramatic way as our Mall.
Hit the Mall with Molly at mredden@staff.georgetownvoice.com
