Introduction

The multi-phase D.C. Small Parks Project was designed to help the National Park Service (NPS) National Capital Area (NCA) develop a consistent approach to evaluating and managing change at small parks throughout Washington, D.C. The project built on previous efforts to develop holistic, coordinated management strategies across the small park network, with the goal to streamline future cultural landscape evaluations and help fulfill the NPS agenda for urban parks in the 21st century.

The project adapted the Cultural Landscape Inventory model to assess NPS-managed small parks as a whole, and six prototype parks in depth. Beginning in 2019, the project also incorporated Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Protocol (REAP) initiatives for the prototype small parks, resulting in four REAP reports that complement the Cultural Landscape Inventories (CLIs) for those small parks. From the inventory of nearly 300 small parks in D.C. that are managed by the NPS, these prototype sites were selected based on their distinct geographies, eras of development, and landscape features:

• Virginia Avenue NW, CLI (2018)

• Bryce Park, CLI (2019)

• Maryland Avenue NE, CLI and REAP (2019)

• Marion Park, CLI and REAP (2020)

• Titanic Memorial Park, CLI and REAP (2020)

• Fort Drive (Fort Slocum to Fort Totten), CLI and REAP (2020)

In the final, culminating phase of the project, our team produced a Cultural Landscape Report, building on the precedents and prototype studies to provide park managers with strategies for identifying and evaluating cultural landscapes associated with the 292 NPS-managed small parks in Washington, D.C.

Using the framework of the Cultural Landscape Inventory as a starting point, this CLR provides:

• an overview of the history of small park development in Washington, D.C.;

• a chronology for D.C.’s small parks as a whole;

• potential periods of significance relevant to individual parks or groups of small parks;

• a list of potential landscape characteristics dating from these periods that may still be present at individual small parks; and

• a framework to guide Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Protocols for additional small parks, based on their context and characteristics

History + Significance Overview

Washington, D.C.’s system of small parks includes National Park reservations ranging from 0.0045 to approximately 7 acres. These reservations are managed and maintained by the three parks in the National Capital Area, and are unique within the National Park Service, not only for their size and location, but also because of their multiplicity of functions. Small parks are sites of national and local commemoration, active and passive recreation, protest and events, social services, and traffic control. They represent the most common park type in Washington, D.C., and are found throughout the city.

This Cultural Landscape Report and its Statement of Significance provide the shared context for the collection of small parks in Washington, D.C., as a resource for future studies of individual parks or groupings of parks. The proposed period of significance for the D.C. small parks is 1791 - 1976. This period encompasses the main eras of park planning in Washington, D.C., which are considered significant under National Register Criterion A, for their importance to both national and local histories of community planning and development, and recreation. The period of significance also includes relevant national and local movements in park design, which are considered significant under National Register Criterion C, in the areas of architecture and landscape design.

Based on the proposed period of significance, the history of D.C.’s small parks can be understood according to several major periods of development:

The L’Enfant Plan (1791-1901): The original plan for the city of Washington, covering an area defined by the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, south of Florida Avenue, was designed by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, and combined elements of Baroque city planning with American influences. L’Enfant overlaid a system of diagonal avenues, radiating from seats of national power, with an orthogonal grid. One of the results (or outgrowths of this design) was a series of small, geometrically-shaped open spaces; thus, the L’Enfant Plan’s collection of pocket parks and green spaces established a precedent for small parks within D.C.’s public park system.

The Office of Public Buildings and Grounds (1867-1901): Though set aside as public space in 1791, most of the green spaces delineated in the L’Enfant Plan were not designed as formal parks until the late 19th century. The Office of Public Buildings and Grounds (OPBG) oversaw small park design, construction, and management beginning in 1867 and continuing through 1901, when the McMillan Plan’s recommendations affected the OPBG-managed reservations. As the population of Washington, D.C., boomed in the years during and after the Civil War, small parks were treated as important “breathing spaces” within the increasingly congested city. Their development was part of an urban parks movement focused on improving access to light and fresh air as part of a larger effort to improve the city’s productive and recreational infrastructure.

The Highway Plan and Suburbanization of D.C. (1893-1932): During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, D.C. planners struggled to respond to rapid suburban development in areas outside the L’Enfant Plan boundaries; the result was a disjointed tangle of streets and unchecked growth. Beginning in 1893, the Highway Plan (and its various modifications) attempted to address new development outside the original federal city—an area six times larger than the area addressed in the original L’Enfant Plan. Initial efforts to extend the L’Enfant design included requirements for the development of open space that matched L’Enfant’s original public squares and circles. Subsequent modifications to the plan were refined to accommodate suburban Washington’s varied topography, changing expectations regarding suburban housing, and the growing popularity of automobiles.

The McMillan Plan (1901-1941): The McMillan Plan for Washington, D.C., is widely regarded as one of the seminal documents in the history of American city planning and has been referred to as the first plan for modern city development. Senator James McMillan of Michigan, convened his commission in 1901, and hired an illustrious committee of advisors, including architect Daniel Burnham, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., architect Charles F. McKim, and sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens. The final plan was released in 1901. Based on tenets of the emerging City Beautiful movement, the McMillan Plan aspired to promote public welfare, civic virtue, social harmony, economic growth and an increased quality of life, through park planning and design. Within the historic core included within the original L’Enfant Plan, the result was a period of park redesign and an attempt to adapt small parks to the needs of users in a city that was increasingly separated into distinct residential and commercial districts.

Modern Small Parks (1941-1976): Cities across the United States experienced dramatic shifts in demographic and development patterns after WWII. When a postwar baby boom and the Second Great Migration of African Americans from the South resulted in a population boom, Washington, D.C., scrambled to redevelop deteriorating neighborhoods within the city center. These efforts at modernization focused on the southwest quadrant of the city, and were among the earliest and largest urban renewal projects in the U.S. In some cases, the National Park Service, who managed changes made to federal park reservations within the District, partnered with nationally-recognized landscape architects to build new small parks, or refurbish older ones. While a number of small parks were lost as a result of redevelopment, some were improved for the first time, as new construction brought visibility to neglected parts of the city.

Treatment Recommendations Overview

The CLR’s framework of recommendations is designed to help NPS managers in several aspects of their work:

1. Reassert the value of these public spaces as cultural resources;

2. Recognize the idiosyncrasies of this collection of 292 public spaces, and the particular historical and urban contexts that give the collection meaning and purpose:

3. Create a flexible framework to address preservation of the spaces’ existing conditions and planning for future opportunities; and

4. Identify, anticipate, and respond to community-facing and community-engaged uses, of these public spaces, in recognition of the contemporary value they possess and the ongoing (and dramatic) community change underway in Washington, D.C.

The treatment recommendations recognize the small parks’ variety of resources, histories, character, function, and challenges. In order to respond to the multiple challenges (physical, functional, managerial) faced across this diverse set of public spaces, we offer a number of general policy and physical treatment recommendations, as well as an adaptable approach to decision-making to be used in particular situations related to specific park spaces.