National Mall reflects magnificence and neglect

The Capitol, meanwhile, glistens with fresh paint and manicured lawns. There is a mathematical explanation to the disparity: Congress employs 2,000 maintenance workers to tend 300 acres where 535 lawmakers and their staffs come to work. The park service employs 300 workers to care for 700 acres where 25 million visitors come to play. "You keep your lawn better than we keep this," fumes Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's famously outspoken but nonvoting delegate, who for years has pressed for Mall repairs.

Though the 2 million people expected to attend Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration will do more damage than the park service can mitigate, advocates hope the historic ceremony will draw public attention to its little-noticed plight. The fact is, the Mall's magnificence still overshadows its decay. But for how long?

"We would call it a disgrace," said Caroline Cunningham, president of the Trust for the National Mall, a year-old group working with the park service to raise half a billion dollars for a face-lift. There are plans to fix the light posts, upgrade the waterways and shore up the sea wall -- if the money can be raised.

The Mall is probably its own greatest advocate; few who see it are unmoved by its majesty. Some, like Bentley Smith of Philadelphia, a first-time visitor, would even pay higher taxes to restore it, a sentiment seldom heard in Washington.

It has something to do with national pride, like sending the queen out in public in a frayed coat. Nobody wants that.

"This is the face of our country, and we need to make it pretty again," Smith, 49, says, back at the Lincoln Memorial looking out at America's tired front yard.

"Is this the best foot we can put forward?"

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faye.fiore@latimes.com

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latimes.com

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