July 2017 - Parks & Recreation - 30

FUTURE LEADERS

Construction on the site of what would
become the 13th and C Street Community
Park and Garden, formerly an abandoned,
fenced-off paking lot.

When Leadership Is 'Green'
Young professionals sometimes learn to lead by doing
By Richard Lukas

H

aving studied history and political science at Gettysburg College, when I
arrived in Washington, D.C., in 2000, the city's extensive Civil War legacy - emblazoned in bronze and stone - was not lost on me. I enjoyed
walking the historic streets of Capitol Hill, which Abraham Lincoln and
Frederick Douglass had traversed well over a century before. And, I wondered if any
park benches or shade trees had similarly provided them with a moment's respite from
the raging war that divided the nation.
Thanks to its late 18th-century designer, Pierre L'Enfant, Washington
does not lack for green spaces. The city
comes in fourth for its park system on
The Trust for Public Land's ParkScore
index, which ranks the 100 most populous U.S. cities based on park access,
acreage and funding.
However, when I moved to southeast
Capitol Hill in my mid-20s, I seemed to
have found one of the city's few patches
of undesired concrete lots: a vestige of
the car-centric and failed urban renewal

28

Parks & Recreation

program that scars many cities to this
day. This abandoned, fenced-off parking
lot, adjoining a public housing complex,
was not only an eyesore, but also a public
health and safety hazard that attracted
hordes of mosquitoes after summer rains
and frequent ne'er-do-wells trafficking in
illegal behavior when the sun set.
Plant the Right Seeds
At the urging of my neighbor, a small
group of 20- and 30-year-olds gathered
one evening in his parlor to consider

| J U LY 2 0 1 7 | W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G

how that lot could better serve the community. Why not a park, we wondered,
inspired by images of picnic tables,
playsets and a verdant lawn, all replacing the existing black top? But, how
could this idea become a reality? None
of us knew anything about creating a
park: Who owned the land? How much
would it cost to build? Where would the
funding come from? What did the community really want?
Find Your Champions
As fate would have it, weeks later,
during a neighborhood safety walk with
the DC Housing Authority executive
director and a local councilmember, I
approached the officials and shared our
group's idea for a park. Both men embraced the concept and committed to
transforming the space, but only if our



July 2017 - Parks & Recreation

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July 2017 - Parks & Recreation - 1
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