The Southwest Duck Pond

The Southwest Duck Pond, also known as Town Center West Park

For this lunchtime bike ride, I rode to D.C.’s Southwest neighborhood to go to the Southwest Duck Pond, also known more formally as Town Center West Park. Located at the corner of Sixth and I Streets (MAP) and just a couple short blocks from D.C.’s Southwest Waterfront, the park functions as a green counterpoint to its urban surroundings by filling up a square block with greenery and a pond meant to attract wildlife.

The park was originally designed by William Roberts of Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd for the National Park Service as part of the early 1970’s urban renewal projects in the Southwest Washington Redevelopment Area. Completed in 1972, the park served as an urban retreat, providing a quiet spot among the city’s hustle and bustle for local residents, office workers, and students of an adjacent school for exceptional children, and was part of a larger effort to enhance and increase recreational space in the neighborhood.

For the next few decades the park was generally well-maintained by the National Park Service in conjunction with the National Mall and Potomac Park. Then, in 2007, after ownership and responsibility for the park was transferred to the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, the park began to fall into disrepair. Eventually, overgrown landscaping caused the grounds to appear unkept, the brick retaining walls showed significant deterioration, and even the water circulation pumps and the fountains in the pond stopped working. The park was in such bad shape that a case of West Nile Virus was thought to be caused by the stagnant water in the park, which because of the lack of circulation in the pond caused mosquitoes to breed in the area and spread disease.

After efforts by the city and private developers failed to result in improvement, some local residents formed an organization called Neighbors of Town Center West Park to care for the park and serve as an advocacy group. The group of volunteers began by picking up trash and doing other maintenance at the park. Over time, the group was designated by the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission as the official community representative for the park. With this designation, the group now participates in the city’s Park Partners program.

Today, the condition of the park stands in stark contrast to its recent history as it has been returned to it’s earlier days’ prominence. The pond’s water circulation and four fountains have been replaced. The pond’s naturalistic shoreline, broken by three promontories edged with river rocks, is surrounded with native riparian plants. The interior of the park is planted with large shade trees, and lined by repaired or replaced low brick retaining walls which give it a sense of enclosure. And a circulating walkway connects each of these areas. New park benches line the paths, along with new sidewalks, streetlights, and even some bike racks.

Additionally, the Neighbors of Town Center West Park group, which recently changed its name to Neighbors of Southwest Duck Pond, hosts activities in the park, including The Little Farm Stand farmers market, community open houses, ice cream socials, holiday parties, and neighborhood happy hours. The park is now more than a place just for nearby neighbors, it has become a destination location for everyone.

         

East Potomac Park and Hains Point

East Potomac Park and Hains Point

East Potomac Park is a section of Potomac Park located south of the Jefferson Memorial and the 14th Street Bridge, and sits on a peninsula that drives a grassy wedge between the Washington Channel and the Potomac River on the south side of the Tidal Basin (MAP). The 328-acre finger of land is bordered on the east by the Washington Channel, on the west by the Potomac River, Hains Point at the southern end, and is separated from West Potomac Park by the iconic Jefferson Memorial.

The peninsula on which the park is located was created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  After a disastrous flood in 1881, the Corps of Engineers dredged a deep channel in the Potomac and used the material to create the current banks of the river and raise much of the land near The White House and along Pennsylvania Avenue.  Much of the dredged material was also utilized to build up existing mudflats in the Potomac River as well as sandbars which had been created by resultant silting, including the peninsula which led to the creation of Potomac Park on March 3, 1897.

In addition to providing terrific views of the city, East Potomac Park also features many of Washington’s famous Kanzan cherry trees.  These double-blossoming cherry trees line Ohio Drive and bloom about two weeks after the single-blossoming Toshino variety that attracts throngs of tourists to the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin during the National Cherry Blossom Festival each spring.

Ohio Drive, which is a six-mile loop that runs the perimeter of East Potomac Park, is a popular route with bicyclists, runners and walkers, and inline skaters.  And a scenic riverfront sidewalk, which winds around the park’s shoreline, remains a popular place for fishing, despite falling apart and literally sinking into the river in places.  The park is also home to one 18-hole and two 9-hole public courses at the East Potomac Park Golf Course, a driving range and a miniature golf course, a public swimming pool (the East Potomac Park Aquatic Center), tennis courts, picnic facilities, a playground, and a recreation center.

The southern end of the park at the end of the peninsula is known as Hains Point.  This location offers stunning views of the river, as well as Fort McNair and the National War College in D.C. to the east. To the west, visitors can watch planes take off and land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, located across the Potomac River in Virginia.  Hains Point was also formerly the home of a popular public artwork entitled “The Awakening,” a 70-foot sculpture depicting the arousing of a bearded giant who is embedded in the earth.  However, the sculpture was sold in 2008, and the new owner moved it to its current location at National Harbor in Prince Georges County, Maryland.

It is rare for anything in D.C. to lack controversy or intrigue, and East Potomac Park is no exception.  In 2004, an area of four acres adjacent to the National Park Service offices at Ohio and Buckeye drives was enclosed by a 10-foot high security fence and large beige metal buildings were constructed. The action, initiated by the U.S. Navy, bypassed normal multi-agency review procedures usually required for the use or taking of Federal parkland.  The Navy, which operates the site, calls the work a “utility assessment and upgrade” and will not say if the project is classified or whether it has a name.  Nor will the Navy say how much it cost, how many people were on the job or why it was needed.

When questioned about activity at the site, D.C.’s non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes Norton, advised that she “is aware of what’s going on but cannot comment.”  Similarly, Frederick J. Lindstrom, acting secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, advised that he had been advised that it would be illegal for him to discuss the matter.  Lindstrom went on to state, “Let’s just say when they’re finished, you’ll be glad they’ve done what they’ve done.”

Athough the Navy originally advised that work at the complex would last approximately four years, a decade later the ongoing activity and construction that goes on inside the security fence, involving regular arrival and departure of dump trucks, remains a mystery.  Amid the secrecy, theories about the four-acre complex and hangar-like structures abound.  In a city which contains radiation tracking instruments atop the Federal Reserve building, biowarfare sensors analyzing the air on the National Mall in front of the Smithsonian Institution castle, and antiaircraft systems on a rooftop next to the White House, the Navy’s secretive activity on East Potomac Park is presumed by many to be related to national security.

Although we may never know the details of the Navy’s activity there, that should not prevent visitors from enjoying the remaining 324 acres of this active yet pastoral park.