Just south and slightly off the path stands the bronzed statue of Thomas Jefferson gazing across a churning Tidal Basin. This is one of the city's prettiest spots, where historic cherry trees bloom magnificently every spring. It's where one night in 1974 a stripper known as Fanne Foxe leaped from Arkansas Rep. Wilbur Mills' limo and into the water, ending his career and improving hers.
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National Mall reflects magnificence and neglect
The sad decline of the historic promenade shows in trampled lawns and unfiltered pools. With 2 million visitors expected for the inauguration and 25 million yearly, the park service can't keep up.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, January 11, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 26 words Type of Material: Correction
National Mall map: A map of the National Mall in Thursday's Section A, highlighting areas that need repair or cleanup, labeled 12th Street as 10th Street.
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Today, a deteriorating sea wall around the memorial has sunk 9 inches in 18 months; the water breaches the wall twice a day at high tide. Metal barriers block off sections of a crumbling walkway to keep tourists from falling in.
We head back over to the Mall proper, at 15th Street, to the rocket-shaped Washington Monument, one of the city's most recognizable landmarks. There used to be flower beds near here, commissioned by Lady Bird Johnson. The park service tore them out years ago rather than watch them go to weeds.
The lawn that stretches 14 blocks from here to the Capitol serves as America's playground and cultural echo chamber, the site of fireworks and first-lady book fairs and where Jane Fonda protested an unpopular war. But the stakes from all the festival tents have punctured the underground sprinkler system; maintenance crews now drag out water cannons. At the moment, half of it is cordoned off for reseeding, a futile effort. The grass won't have time to grow back before the inauguration crowds descend.
A man stops to ask Line for directions to the National Gallery of Art. "Right over there," he points. The most popular Smithsonian museums flank this end of the Mall, housing Julia Child's kitchen, Dorothy's ruby slippers and Lindbergh's plane. Orange cones surround a pool on the pathway where an underground pipe sprung a leak several weeks ago and has yet to be fixed.
We cross 4th Street, within shouting distance of the Capitol now. Someone has plastered "End the Fed" signs on every available surface. Their removal is another chore on the park service's to-do list. Crews are busy constructing the inaugural viewing stands on the West Lawn. This is where 1.2 million came to watch as Lyndon B. Johnson promised a still-grieving nation an end to tyranny and misery in 1965.
In another stagnant reflecting pond just below, dozens of ducklings died last summer from avian botulism.
