New at Reason

November 27, 2006

Radley Balko looks upon what special interests have done to the National Mall, and despairs.

Comments

|11.27.06 @ 11:58AM|#

Dude, you have to understand, the idea of the Mall as a serene place for public celebration and quiet contemplation is an outdated view that has to be adapted for our post-industrial times...

Dan T.|11.27.06 @ 12:00PM|#

I agree with Radley, but imagine the response here if somebody floated the argument that your average suburban strip mall wasteland was a tidy symbol of consumerism's bloat and tackiness?

Justin Raimondo|11.27.06 @ 12:00PM|#

Error in headline:

It's "kitsch," not "kitch"

Glad to be of help ....

|11.27.06 @ 12:22PM|#

When I was growing up in Arlington, Virginia (just across the river), it was simply known as "the Mall" (or maybe "The Mall"), and was so marked on those highway maps that Esso used to hand out back when they had pump jockeys who'd fill up your tank. When did it come to be the "National Mall"? (My guess is that it was some time after "the mall" came generally to apply to the closest enclosed shopping center.)

|11.27.06 @ 1:15PM|#

In the old, old days the Mall was covered by temporary office buildings erected during WWI and not torn down until the Johnson Administration. The FDR memorial is extremely popular with tourists, because there is lots for kids to do. Sadly, kids are just not into quiet contemplation these days.

|11.27.06 @ 1:17PM|#

I liked the Mall best when it was overrun by cheap t-shirt hawkers. Three for five dollars!

|11.27.06 @ 1:43PM|#

Coming soon: Operation Iraqi Freedom, the ride!

Deus ex Machina|11.27.06 @ 2:06PM|#

Two weeks ago, several thousand people gathered on the National Mall for a "virtual groundbreaking" for a proposed Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial.

The latest figures estimate that this memorial will cost $100 million dollars. Not to mention that a memorial already exists in Atlanta. I'm all for honouring worthy individuals, but doesn't anyone think that this money would be better spent on scholarships or charity? What is wrong with a simple statue?

|11.27.06 @ 2:43PM|#

Hombre:

I love the part where you get to fly under the mission accomplished banner, only be suddenly shocked with a plunge into hell. Unfortunately, the ride never seems to come to an end...

|11.27.06 @ 3:22PM|#

The solution is obvious: more land, for more memorials. That, my friends, is what eminent domain is for. The government must seize and raze the blighted homes of poor people and commence work on National Mall II.

|11.27.06 @ 4:43PM|#

"""Coming soon: Operation Iraqi Freedom, the ride!"""

It will be the longest ride in the park. Getting on is fun, getting off is the tricky part. The operator tells you it's ending for hours buy it never stops.

|11.27.06 @ 4:58PM|#

I heard that the new greenspace created from Boston's Big Dig will be completely devoid of monuments for just this reason - you put up one for somebody, you have to put up one for everybody. Is that still true? Do Bostonians have the guts to resist pandering woe-is-us types?

Deus ex Machina|11.27.06 @ 5:10PM|#

Maybe they're saving space for the future memorials of all the people killed by the big dig.