Comments on Grassy triangle will become a plaza and Ukrainian memorial - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by adrian

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:22:16 EDT

Sell the lot and build condos with retail at ground level. 50 stories tall.

Comment by Payton

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:22:12 EDT

To make it clear, the U.S. government is not providing anything other than land; the government of Ukraine and private donors are paying for the actual monument. New monuments proposed for the District must go through an extensive, 24-step review process per the Commemorative Works Act; this is intended to keep the number of new memorials to a minimum.

An added irony to the site, besides the numerous lunchtime food trucks, is that the proposed F Street wall will hide a view of two thriving Irish pubs. Kelly's Irish Times even paraphrases "The New Colossus" above its door: "Give me your thirsty, your famished, your befuddled masses."

(Don't take the NIMBY-crank troll bait. Don't take...)

Comment by Daniel Wolkoff

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:47:16 EDT

McMillan Park was a memorial to the Senator who planned gracious green space and parks around DC in an "emerald necklace". The federal govt. sectioned off The Mcmillan Sand Filtration Plant and promenade from the rest of the reservoir system. DC has made a complete mess of this gracious urban space. We need the federal govt. to take this back and recreate the park our previous generations enjoyed. The reservoir is fenced off by DC,, unlike the Central Park Reservoir in NY which is a marvelous jogging walking path, enjoyed by thousands, 365 days a year.
Mcmillan was intended as green space but DC govt. has fenced it off,, wasted the $9 million and spent $250,000 a year since th 1980's on lawn care behind the fence. These are the same govt. officials who want to over urbanise it to raise revenue!! We need parks in central DC, with a pitiful 20% the parkland as upper NW. We need a Glen Echo type historic restoration, art, performance, gardens, orchards, cultural park. We can train our youth and underemployed in useful trades like masonry, carpentry, as they restore the park and create artist in residence like Glen Echo. Fiernds of Mcmillan is struggling to show the DC govt. a sensible and needed park for the whole city and the tourist industry. Miriam Gusevich, the professor of planning at CUA has designed a "world class" site plan that includes sunlighting the underground stream into an urban sand beach, and brilliantly designed a "City Market" in adaptive reuse of multi ACRE underground galleries. The city that has no interest in the value of the past, is sure to get the valueless shlock of the future!

Comment by Tim Krepp

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:02:01 EDT

Yeah, I was a little confused about that.

Whether the Adamses should have a memorial, where it should go, and what it should comprise are all excellent questions, but I don't see why it shouldn't happen because Saint-Gaudens knocked it out of the park with the tomb of his great-granddaughter-in-law.

Comment by AWalkerInTheCity

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:57:24 EDT

wait, someone else had the same idea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_Memorial

though I predict the more controversial views of Henry and Brooks are going to come up

Comment by AWalkerInTheCity

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:55:03 EDT

"There already is one Adams Memorial in Washington, and it is one of the most haunting, moving, and important sculptures in the world.
It's in Rock Creek Cemetery, commissioned by Henry Adams for the grave of his wife, who took her life."

oy. so much for upbeat. But fascinating - the one Adams to actually suicide was one who was NOT genetically an Adams, with the family inclination toward something (maybe bipolar disorder?)

Comment by andrewi31

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:36:08 EDT

I don't understand the Fed/DC land distinction point. A third of the US is federal land, including most of the western United States. Maybe there is some kind of process for private or state leasing and acquisition for energy tycoons, or if you and your Councilmember have great ideas like for a cat park, cupcake outlet store, food truck fueling station, or Marion Barry statue. The planners did use the National Capital Planning Commission for site selection (for whatever that is worth).

Serious concerns or other feedback would also be interesting to Rep. Sandy Levin D-MI. It's mostly privately funded, just so you know. If you are interested about it I highly recommend courageous readers to straight to the relevant chapters in Timothy Snyder's 'Bloodlands'.

Comment by Will

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:05:55 EDT

That blank wall with a vegetated bed will be a perfect place for homeless people to bed down or linger throughout the day while the shelter is closed. With the overhead shade in the summer and morning light in the winter, it will be a welcoming spot conveniently located near the future Gales school shelter.

If the designers don't want their memorial to become a camp spot for the homeless, I'm with David in recommending a redesign of the F street frontage.

Comment by andy2

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:48:44 EDT

This is great use of the space. The world turned their backs on Ukraine as Stalin murdered millions of Ukrainians to cement his power and further his empire.
I suggest on the backside a brass reliefe depicting the victims of the Holodmor - people being foribly expelled to Central Asia, Farms being burned, etc.
I remember seeing a very moving memorial in Ukraine that was a simple sculpture of a woman and child fleeing from the famine.
As for why we have memorials to non-us tragedies (beyond the fact that we are a nation of immigrants)- perhaps so we can understand them and can respond to prevent future and current attrocities - Syria anyone?

Comment by charlie

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 08:21:10 EDT

While I normally think the complaints about the feds here are just whiney, Scoot's comment is spot on. It is very easy to buy off some interest group with a small corner for a statue, and it would be far better if those small corners be turned over to the District.

Comment by Daniel Wolkoff

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:33:05 EDT

[This comment has been deleted for violating the comment policy.]

Comment by Daniel Wolkoff

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:31:02 EDT

This whole insipid, excessive "monuments everywhere" thing is completely out of control. The Eisenhower family objects to the memorial design,, wasting $125 million. The entire Lincoln Memorial was $3 million. The WWII Memorial, $250 million, while our vets are homeless and denied medical care! Martin Luther King,,,his own neice said "this is too much, MLK was a simple man". Roosevelt Memorial is just ridiculous. The memorial for the 9 dead in the Metro crash is going to spend $1 million while we have a beautiful grove of trees at the Brookland metro stop,, a perfect place for a "living memorial". NO, NO,NO,, TOO SENSIBLE!! But the DC govt. and WMATA want to waste the money and are getting ready to cut down and build over the trees at Brookland -CUA with thousands of new housing units and total urbanization surrounding the metro station which is already flooding during storm. Can't leave a stick of natural mature trees and any open space with real soil,,pathetic! "Smart Growth", what misuse of the word. Where has the judgement of our leaders gone?

Comment by Mike S.

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 02:19:55 EDT

There already is one Adams Memorial in Washington, and it is one of the most haunting, moving, and important sculptures in the world.

It's in Rock Creek Cemetery, commissioned by Henry Adams for the grave of his wife, who took her life.

The Augustus Saint-Gaudens statue, commonly called "Grief," is well worth a visit, and it's a safe bet that no Adams Family memorial will compare to its beauty or significance.

Comment by Scoots

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:56:44 EDT

Though its also would be nice to have SOME monuments that are more upbeat. I guess we have exhausted the civil war generals?

In DC, memorials are our form of public art. Other cities have sculptures, fountains, murals, etc, but we have monuments and memorials.

The problem is that most parkland in DC is federally-owned, which means that it's difficult for the city to control its public spaces so that they work for the people who actually live and work here. Instead, the public spaces are controlled by Congress, many of whom have never stepped foot in front of some of the memorials they have voted to commission. Instead, they view our city as a blank slate for their experiments in diplomacy.

Comment by anonanomie

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:12:05 EDT

grumpy: Assuming for the moment that the ideal human solution to the homeless problem is to let them die in the gutter...

Rather than allowing your hatred of the homeless population to extinguish all desire for any public amenities (parks, libraries, stairwells...) , why not "drown out the homeless" by building more benches than they can possibly use?

It's possible to hate the homeless and still build a city we'd like to live in. We can do this. Who's with me?

Comment by Turnip

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:40:33 EDT

Re the "blank wall" for F Street -- isn't a Bikeshare rack thereabouts? It could tolerate a blank wall.

Comment by AWalkerInTheCity

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:17:16 EDT

@geoffrey

I liked Anjelica Huston's depiction of Henry Adams, myself.

Seriously, we need a memorial to John and John Quincy (is there one in Adams Morgan?) Maybe not Charles Francis or Henry.

Comment by AWalkerInTheCity

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:13:49 EDT

andrew, I am not saying there should be no memorial to the ukrainian famine, just expressing my visceral reaction to eating there. I have been to holocaust memorials, and seen no eating there. The cafeteria at the USHolocaustMuseum is in a seperate building on the side.

Thank you for letting me know about the NYC memorial. I was unaware people ate lunch there. People are human, and I do not consider that a reason to not build memorials. Though its also would be nice to have SOME monuments that are more upbeat. I guess we have exhausted the civil war generals?

Comment by Geoffrey Hatchard

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 20:30:42 EDT

So which version of the Addams Family will be memorialized? I prefer Anjelica Huston's depiction of Morticia.

Comment by tour guide

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:13:00 EDT

Yet another "drive by" memorial.

Comment by andrewi31

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:10:06 EDT

It is important to separately understand and recognize the Ukrainian famine. This has to do with the victims themselves, you know, those who are memorialized, not an ideology. In reality, the Victims of Communism Memorial has ended up being primarily for Baltic people. It was rejected by most other victims, Russian, Chinese, etc. This will memorialize millions of Ukrainian murder victims and it is a very good thing to build.

And for goodness sakes, nobody cares what a few people think is "ironic".

Comment by Realist

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:20:29 EDT

[This comment has been deleted for violating the comment policy.]

Comment by Arl Fan

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:16:45 EDT

One block northwest on Mass. Ave. from this location is the Victims of Communism Memorial, which seemingly duplicates the subject matter (assuming one attributes Stalin's genocidal infliction of the famine on Ukraine to his Communist vision), albeit at a higher level of abstraction.

Assuming the robust food truck carnival on this block continues, it will make a nice capitalist/caloric counterpoint to the two memorials!

Comment by andrewi31

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:15:57 EDT

NYC has a memorial to the victims of the Irish potatoe famine - does anyone eat their lunch there?

Yes they do, and there's nothing creepy about it. Can you please explain why it is creepy? That's not even an issue. Some people are against Holocaust memorials too. The Holimidor ultimately was a vast crime of violence against millions of people that most Americans have never even heard of. But go ahead and get pissy about a memorial because of something about food trucks and homeless people or something. Like there isn't enough public space in DC for this.

Comment by Vadranor

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:07:47 EDT

This will be DC's second Ukrainian monument. There is a statue of Ukraine's most important poet, Taras Shevchenko, on P Street, NW between 22nd and 23rd.

Comment by kk

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:53:39 EDT

Why is there a Ukranian memorial in DC in the first place ?
If we are doing memorials for other countries I nominate one for the Indian Ocean Tsunami and the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Comment by grumpy

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:34:31 EDT

I'm torn b/c I think we need places to sit in the area of this pocket park (I work across the street) but the reality is that the homeless people in the area would likely take over any seating area and render it just as unusable as this moument does. As it is, this memorial does offer some places to perch and despite the irony it will be the setting of the consumption of many overpriced food truck lunches.

Comment by AWalkerInTheCity

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:03:06 EDT

theres still something creepy about eating lunch at a memorial to victims of a famine.

NYC has a memorial to the victims of the Irish potatoe famine - does anyone eat their lunch there?

Comment by charlie

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:01:59 EDT

and why do have a memorial for this?

Comment by Steve S.

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:01:07 EDT

Are there monuments to American tragedies in Kiev?

Comment by Alex B.

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:55:32 EDT

LOL why would we want to have any public space in DC be enjoyable for actual people to use it when we can turn it into a monument?

Right on.

Memorials that make for nice and versatile public spaces (like Dupont Circle, for example) are no more - now all must be a quasi-mausoleum or some other sacred ground.

I would argue that all of these parks-as-memorials have a dual mandate - first, to be public parks, and second, to memorialize their subject matter. If the second part interferes with the first, then we have a problem.

Comment by MLD

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:46:35 EDT

@andrew
Anything being done to accommodate the fact that this area is now bustling with food trucks at lunchtime? Some seating and better groundcovering would be nice...

LOL why would we want to have any public space in DC be enjoyable for actual people to use it when we can turn it into a monument?

Comment by Neil Flanagan

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:37:31 EDT

It's an improvement, but it's a little unfortunate it doesn't have any content on the back side.

Comment by andrew

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:26:36 EDT

Anything being done to accommodate the fact that this area is now bustling with food trucks at lunchtime? Some seating and better groundcovering would be nice...

Comment by Steven Yates

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:13:05 EDT

Congress has authorized an Adams Memorial to the two presidents and the rest of the Adams Family. NCPC, preservation boards, and residents can work to ensure that that memorial not only avoids being creepy, kooky, mysterious or spooky

I see what you did there

Comment by UrbnGrdnr

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:08:47 EDT

I agree that the focus on only side (Mass Ave)limits the potential of this memorial. I was actually intrigued by the alternative, the "Shooting Hands", because it uses a more open design. A combination of a central pillar and the original bas-relief I think could make a wonderful compromise.

Thanks for the detailed reporting!