An unexpected walk

Clear blue sky, brilliant sunlight, leaf color at its height, and 70 degree weather cannot be properly experienced by sitting on a balcony eight flights above pulsing traffic, so John and I took to the streets for a good dose of urban hiking.  From our place in Arlington, we took the blue line metro to the Capital Hill Eastern Market stop.  For those not familiar with DC, the Capital Hill district is the heart of DC situated above and behind the Capitol, Supreme Court, and Congressional Library buildings.  Streets with sidewalks, cracked with roots of large trees, crisscross a maze of blocks filled with renovated and not so renovated connected and standalone houses, reflecting more that 150 years of architecture, along with small shops, eateries and businesses. 

On the weekend, vendor tents and  stalls surround the market building that holds a core set of meat, fish, sweets and specialty shops, a structure rebuilt to its original red brick Victorian design after being ravaged by fire some years ago.  The weekend vendors offer fresh flowers, local (and not so local) farm grown vegetables, hand crafted jewelry, collectible, junk and antique furniture and home goods, assorted artwork, African masks, rugs, and brick-o-brac of all kinds. It is a shopping experience that should not be missed.

As we emerged from the metro stop and headed north on 7th street to the market, an invasion of "gentrification" construction sidelined and shocked us.  The block where the African masks, rugs, and collectible furniture and home goods spread out was now an excavated hole cutting deep into the ground, cranes looming overhead like vultures looking for prey, protected by chain link fence, and posted with signs describing "coming" improvements to Eastern Market.  Is nothing sacred?

During the week, Eastern Market operates at a leisurely pace with only the shops inside the market building open, so instead of spending several hours shopping and window shopping, we were able to quicly buy a package of dried figs and a bag of fresh beans for dinner, then finished off afgogatos from the espresso/gelato shop before we turned the corner onto Independence Avenue, heading out for the long walk down the Hill.

Instead  of keeping to the street, we walked the gardens, a magical experience in the heart of the city.  Although on a smaller scale, it was, as if, we were back in London's Regent or Hyde Park gardens or in Paris' Luxembourg or Tuillieres gardens.  We were away from the traffic with few tourists and only a scatter of staffers scurrying from one federal building to another with smart phones in their ears.  

As we made our way down the hill, leaving the Capitol Hill neighborhood behind, we came upon the south side grounds of the Library of Congress and Capitol Hill that provide winding paths, planted with trees and shrubs from around the world.  Cars can't get onto the grounds, but people can.  

Next came the outdoor National Botanical Gardens.  Opposite the main "hot house" building, across Independence Avenue, is a small garden containing the Bartholdi Fountain, surrounded by almost a wild garden.  Next to the "hot house" is a formal rose garden, complete with a mailbox full of annotated instructions on the raising and caring of eight different categories of roses.  Despite the closeness to the busy traffic on Independence Avenue, in both gardens, we sat on shaded benches, in a cocoon of quietness, filled with the fresh smells of fall flowers.  It transported us to those other worlds of Paris and London, I mentioned earlier.  

We had no inkling they were there as we  exited the rose garden, but we walked into a herd a tweens and teens being rounded up and guided by energetic, but harried adults in red shirts with whistles who could have used some lassos to keep the kiddos moving down the sidewalk in some semblance of order, determined to reach the Air and Space Museum. 

We escaped the stampede by heading directly onto the Mall, which everyone knows is more of a park than a garden.  Although a portion of the Mall grounds is being rebuilt, we were surprised at the quietness, people sitting on benches facing the mall, people running and bicycling the wide red cinder paths, people watching children ride the carousel, or people patiently buying a bottle of water or snack at the formal refreshment stands along the Mall.  We heard many languages, but the tone was always soft, no one was scurrying or hurrying or yelling.  

One of our favorite gardens is at the Hirshhorn, filled with many fine sculptures of Moore, Rodin, David Smith and others acquired by the Hirshhorn family and later the museum itself.  Of the traditional pieces, my personal favorite is "The Burgers of Calais" by Auguste Rodin. The main garden, where we were, is below ground level, isolating us from the business of the street and Mall aboce.  We wished to linger longer by the reflecting pool, but with the day fading, there was a favorite garden we wanted to see before heading home.

But before we reached that garden, we discovered a hidden garden, the Mary Livingston Ripley Garden, sandwiched between the Hirshhorn and the Smithsonian Arts & Sciences building.  Keeping in line with the Victorian architecture of the original Smithsonian buildings, this garden, built in 1988, is the most beautiful of the day's walk.  It was stuffed with fragrant flowering plants, spurting a rich, royal purple color into the garden.  Again, we were overtaken with quietness, calmness and soothing beauty.  Those few who had discovered it with us, spoke is quiet tones. One young couple after having another tourist take their picture, ducked around a corner in the garden to embrace.

As the sun began to drop to the tree tops, scattering sunlight in all directions, we entered the last garden, the Enid A. Haupt Garden, framed by the Smithsonian Castle, the Arts & Sciences building, and the Sackler Art Museum.  Completed in 1987, it's actually three distinct gardens, the Moongate Garden next to the Sackler (Chinese style), the Victorian parterre (English style) and the Fountain Garden (Moorish style).  Like all the other gardens we visited, every plant was identified allowing those of us who are not botanists, insight into the nature and origin of the plants with every space appropriately trimmed.  For example, the Victorian parterre spaces were outlined with burnished, bent branches of caste iron creating a scalloped edge.  What a delight!

We headed home as the sun set, walking to the L'Enfant Plaza metro stop.  The brutish nature of the federal buildings surrounding the gardens slapped us back into reality.  What a disaster has been done to the Washington DC landscape when these beastly mammoths were designed in the mid-1950's under the federal Redevelopment Land Act, memorials to a cold war mentality.   By the mid-1970's, when the buildings opened, nothing was more indicative of a culture that lost had its empathy and sanity to pure, inhumane power, culminating in a war that cost our country over 68,000 men and women and damaged so many that survived.  

Is there hope that all of this may change?  Some - some of gardens were built in the 1980's and there is a master plan to redevelop these buildings, but can only happen if Congress agrees that this infrastructure be destroyed and replaced.