When water began flowing again from a massive fountain in Washington’s Meridian Hill Park after a seven-year dry spell, some local residents cheered in a display of qualified support of a move by President Donald Trump, who won just 6 percentage points of the city’s vote in 2024.
The fountain renovation at what is locally referred to as Malcolm X Park was part of a swift National Park Service investment of millions of dollars to restore fountains and renovate parks and monuments across Washington, at the president’s direction.
Trump has called for a gleaming capital city ahead of this summer’s celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday, an effort that’s included restarting nine derelict fountains and significant changes to some of the city’s most prominent landmarks, such as the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where the agency hired a pool company to apply a blue commercial swimming pool liner to address persistent leaks.
But even as the investment is plugging a rare bit of dollars into Washington park infrastructure — in part paid for from a fund supported by entrance fees from national parks across the country — advocates say they don’t see the spending surge addressing key root causes of deterioration. In particular, they assert chronic staffing and funding shortages at the NPS contributed to neglect in Washington, as well as in parks across the country.
