View of the Washington Monument from the Constitution Gardens. Photo above by Riona Sheikh.
Ducks wade through rippling ponds.
Willow trees rustle in verdant meadows.
Leaves gently sway in the breeze.
This isn’t a rural countryside–it’s a scene right from the heart of the nation’s capital.
Washington, D.C. has a reputation for being a cutthroat city home to perpetually busy politicians, so the greenery comes as a pleasant surprise to visitors and sightseers in National Mall.
A view of a pond from the Constitution Gardens. Photo (left) by Riona Sheikh.
“It’s really nice to get a big push on nature and green in D.C.," said Jacob Skolnick of Erie, Pennsylvania. "I wasn’t expecting it in this big metropolitan area.”
Tucked within tree-lined streets sprawling across the coast of the Potomac River, the National Mall is one of D.C.'s most famous and vital attractions. First devised by Pierre L’Enfant in 1791, it was initially intended to be an enormous outdoor open space to honor the young country and its hard-fought existence.
The city’s population ballooned to 270,000 during the 19th century, and in the early 20th century, Senator James McMillan breathed new life into the Mall by drafting out a plan for expanding and preserving its rare navigability and beloved green spaces.
Now, over a hundred years later, the National Mall stands as a nationally–and internationally–recognized marker of America’s beauty and history. The Mall is, by far, the country’s busiest and most popular national park with over 25 million annual visitors drawn to its eight miles of biking trails and 26 miles of pedestrian sidewalks.
People walking near the Reflecting Pool. Photo by Xamara Carrillo.
The green spaces in D.C. serve as an escape from the hustle and bustle of city life, offering a place of refuge where people can take a step back and relax.
Skolnick was visiting D.C. for the first time and noted how the green environment minimized his stress.
D.C.’s gardens allow locals to have a breather away from their teeming city life. This peaceful environment attracts tourists like Victoria Caraman of Asheville, North Carolina and Angela Li of New York City. Both tourists emphasized the scarcity and value of green spaces.
Tourists sitting in the National Park's green areas. Photo (left) by Cayla Kwok.
However, not everyone views these green spaces as sustainable forms of nature.
Joseph Moore, a Boy Scout from Tulsa, Oklahoma, raised concerns about the Mall’s use of pesticides required to maintain the 50 acres of grass fields.
Similarly, fellow Boy Scout Joshua Cox explained how the gardens are built with a conscious and sustainable mindset, but may not be a panacea to climate issues.
However, according to the Trust for the National Mall, the Constitution Gardens Site Plan is currently working to establish “state-of-the-art environmental, functional and operational sustainability,” reinforcing the Mall’s value of green spaces.
But despite the costs of maintaining such an enormous and frequented park system–and the wilderness and marshes that had to be disrupted for the Mall to be constructed–most visitors appreciate the National Mall for what it is: a scenic, historical, and uniquely American escape from the stressors of the city.
“I think having the greenery so deliberately preserved really shows that there's a value piece on it,” said tourist Maggie Roth from New York City. “It’s important, especially in the nation's capital [where] there are all these buildings. It shows what the city and what the country values.”
A duck swims in the Constitutional Gardens Pond. Photo by Riona Sheikh.