A PUZZLING TRANSFER

THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NO LONGER OVERSEES A SECTION OF THE NATIONAL MALL.

Washington, the truism goes, is a federal government town. But from a public land perspective, a lot depends on what part of the federal government youre talking about.

Take the National Mall. Over the past couple of years, the National Park Service has started to take maintenance seriously at its most - visited site, with a new nonprofit, the Trust for the National Mall, that has committed to raise a good chunk of the $350 million needed to repair the Malls crumbling landscape and infrastructure.

The trust is also leading the park service in some interesting directions, designwise. Before overhauling several important parts of the Mall, its decided to rethink them as well, through a design competition thats drawn landscape architectures buzziest names: Ken Smith, Hood Design, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, and OLIN, to name a few. In mid - December, four finalists were announced for each of three sites: Union Square near the Capitol, Constitution Gardens by the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument grounds at the Sylvan Theater.

Scarcely a week later, the landscape shifted —literally. Congress, in the omnibus spending bill that took all year to get signed, transferred Union Square —which contains a statue of Ulysses S. Grant and a reflecting pool —from the National Park Services jurisdiction over to the Architect of the Capitol.

The move came as a surprise to pretty much everybody, the park service included; Union Square has been its turf since the 1930s. By way of explanation, the Senate sergeant at arms, Terrance Gainer, told the Washington Post that he didnt think "the area has benefited from security enhancements that have gone on" in the rest of the city. Indeed, while the rest of the Capitol complex has been garlanded in bollards, Union Square has remained relatively free of such truck - bomb - stopping obstructions. Moreover, the square will now be patrolled by the no - nonsense Capitol Police, who can be a little more stern when it comes to civil disobedience. Having dealt with hordes of Tea Par - tiers at the Capitol in recent years, Gainer might have been thinking ahead to a massive Occupy Congress protest that was scheduled for January 17.

Civil rights activists cried foul, naturally. But the transfer also isnt good news for the landscape architects who had been sharpening their pencils for designs that will be vetted in the coming months. According to the trusts president, Caroline Cunningham, the nonprofit wont be able to use any of the millions it had planned to raise for the three sites to finance renovations on land the park service no longer controls. And the Architect of the Capitol sure hasnt budgeted for it —the Architects own master plan for the Capitol complex, which hasnt been redone since 1981, has been in progress for several years and is apparentiy still "under review."

"From where I sit, its less money that I have to raise, so not a bad thing," Cunningham shrugs.