Adding ‘national’ to Rock Creek Park

OPINION:

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton wants to change the name of America’s third-oldest national park, Rock Creek Park, to Rock Creek National Park.

Where’s Rock Creek Park, you might ask? What’s the point, you might wonder?

For starters, Rock Creek Park is in Washington, D.C., and its home to the giant pandas, as you probably know, and several other gems, including an 18-hole golf course, a planetarium, an equine trail, performing arts venue and tennis courts.

Unlike Arizona’s Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Virginia’s gorgeous Shenandoah, the word “national” is not part of Rock Creek Park’s official name.

Sure, like those other national parks, Rock Creek is under the auspices of the Interior Department’s National Park Service, which means it receives federal oversight and public dollars like the others.

Rock Creek National Park, though, could serve public masses and look far sweeter with a new name.

One of the key reasons why is because the designation would likely encourage private donors to open their wallets.

David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-executive chairman of the D.C.-based global private-equity investment firm Carlyle Group, donated $18.5 million in 2016 to restore the Lincoln Memorial and guess what? Some repairs began earlier this year, and the work is scheduled to wrap in September.

Alpha Phi Alpha, the nation’s oldest black fraternity, donated and raised money to helped finance the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016.

There are no guarantees at this juncture whether the cachet of adding the word “national” will, by osmosis, lead to oodles of private money, especially since philanthropists like to hitch their donations to their personal wagons.

However, if the Smithsonian Institution, which is courtesy of Britain’s James Smithson, has figured out to survive and thrive since the original donation from Smithson’s estate (he died in 1829), surely even latter-day politics can step aside.

Established by Congress in 1890 for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of the United States, the 2.7-square-mile Rock Creek Park is America’s third national park behind Yellowstone (1872) and Sequoia (1890). As Ms. Norton has said, “Rock Creek Park was designed to preserve animals, timber, forestry and other interests in the park, and to ensure that its natural state is maintained as much as possible, for all American people, not just for D.C. residents.”

The name-change should include caveats, however. One of the most obvious, of course, is that Rock Creek National Park remains a free public park.

And let’s keep costs reasonable at the park’s Carter Barron Amphitheater. Patrons at the small amphitheater expected to pay for concerts at the quaint facility, and they are truly disappointed the theater has been closed since summer 2017 for needed repairs. But a name-change shouldn’t be an excuse to jack up prices.

Also, donors must not be permitted to cherry-pick who’s allowed in Rock Creek National Park and who’s not.

Come to think of it, Ms. Norton, a former law professor at Georgetown University who cut her teeth on civil rights law, knows better anyway.

• Deborah Simmons can be contacted at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.