January 4, 2011, on “More Room On the Outside,” Tony Norman, a veteran activist, member of the McMillan Park Committee and newly-elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, discussed the history of McMillan Park and the threat it now faces. McMillan Park is historic, Norman said, “because it’s the first area to supply the water to Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Capitol and it was part of the Emerald Necklace which surrounded the city with green space… It was landscaped by Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr. The Olmstead firm… also did the landscaping for New York’s Central Park and they did the landscaping for the U.S. Capitol and the Old Soldiers’ Home. So it was always a very important site in the history of Washington, D.C. It was named after Senator [James] McMillan who was in charge of the beautification of Washington, D.C. and it was declared a national park by… President [William] Taft. The history of the site has really been underestimated.”
Historic McMillan Park
“It’s been placed on the National Capital Planning Commission’s site of historic monuments,” Norman said. “There are a lot of groups that would like to put a national monument on the site. That’ll bring more tourists and more people to that area of Washington, D.C., [instead of just] on the [National] Mall. It’s a great historic site [and] it’s been recommended to go on the National Registry of historic places.”
“I think the city needs to respect it more,” Norman said. “Now presently they’re trying to move fast on development, but the development team requires a great deal of public money, anywhere from $60-$100 million. This is not an appropriate amount of money to spend at this time. Particularly since there was not really any competetive bidding on this site, where you could have other developers that are interested and may not need public money and can do a lot of creative things.”
January 2, 2011 at the Convention Center, along with Norman being sworn in as a commissioner, Kwame Brown was sworn in as D.C. Council chairman and Vincent Gray was sworn in as mayor. Norman said, “I think I’m optimistic with the new Gray administration and with Chairman Kwame Brown. [I’m hopeful] that they’re going to re-analyze this and not… rush it, [but instead] see what’s in the best interest of the city.”
“They have an opportunity to do something great here for the city and for the nation,” said Norman. “We always talk about statehood and [how] we want the federal government to respect us, but here is something that really is indicative of the history of Washington, D.C. and we want to treat it like it’s a surplus parking lot. Other states preserve lands that represent their history and their heritage and now here D.C. has something that it needs to preserve to represent its history and we want to cut it up into small pieces and sell it… We’re not respecting our culture and our history by treating this site so disrespectfully.”