Thanks to Todd for sending the latest yesterday (Thursday) afternoon around 2:30pm:
“Water seems maybe clearer? Closure signs appear to be down.”
And so concludes this week’s continuing coverage from Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park.
Stay tuned for coverage from Slurpee Park next week.
John shared some background in 2025:
“I hope this serves as helpful background for anyone who feels that past efforts to honor Carolyn Llorente have been disrespected by an active effort to improve a long-abandoned space, including a great and playful temporary sign designed by a 9-year old neighbor.
I have been working to activate this space for the better part of 3 years. First, determining which agency owned or had oversight of it.
I approached DDOT. Not ours they said after months. Probably NPS.
NPS said “interesting” looked into it and said not ours.
Next DPR said it wasn’t their parcel.
Back to DDOT.
It appears that it is a DDOT property they admitted.
You can imagine the number of emails that entailed.
In the process I discovered that the space was in fact formally designated in 2003 in honor of Carolyn Llorente, a dedicated neighborhood activist, ANC member, founder of Friends of Marie Reed and a longtime resident of the Promenade at 19th/Wyoming/Columbia.
Apparently after Council passage of the designation the effort never found an administrative or agency home.
I asked DDOT and then DPR to produce a formal sign signaling the designation from 20 years ago.
They both refused.
I subsequently met with Barbara Heil, Carolyn’s friend, and fellow resident at the Promenade, then and now.
She was the one who got the resolution before former Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, who presented it to the Council.
We talked through all the difficulties I was confronting in 2025, trying to activate the space and securing a water source to keep plantings alive, the likes of which she knew all too well from her years of laying a long hose across 19th street during the hot summer months.
She and others ultimately became fatigued, understandably, from civic efforts that never met with any city resources.
And the space largely lay fallow for close to 15 years. My interest was piqued when the climbing roses on the arbor began to fail.
And that’s how I found out about Barbara Heil.
She paid for that steel structure with concrete footers in honor of her friend.
My thought as a 16-year resident of California St, who enjoyed the passing by view of those roses for years was that I needed to do something to acknowledge someone else’s past effort and make it possible for someone in the future to feel the same way about what I could contribute to breath new life into the space now.
I have remained in touch with Barbara for months and let her know maybe a month ago about an idea to have a neighborhood kid design an informal and place-holding sign with Slurpee Park branding as a way to draw people’s attention.
She had no problem with it and has been incredibly supportive of our efforts to secure a water source, including sending detailed communications to the management and tenant association of the Promenade.
In addition, I have worked with ANC1C’s Chair Peter Wood to convince Brianne Nadeau’s staff to petition DDOT to transfer control of the parcel to DPR. If you want to express misgivings, direct them to Nadeau and DDOT.
Not a creative 4th-grader and people who are expending time, labor and money to improve an abandoned space.”