I learned recently that the city is moving forward with yet another plan to develop McMillan Park and fearing once again that I will forget to photograph it before the developers move in and wreck it I snapped these photos with my handy cell phone camera as I walked by last Sunday. There's just something about these strangely shaped towers, the vista with the manhole covers, the cobbled brick ramp and how we just don't recognize this sand filtration water cleaning technology anymore. That it was once powered by donkeys is also interesting. We hardly remember the number of lives that were saved by the clean water it produced. Of course, this new plan might be another plan that doesn't happen as there have been charges that the development office didn't follow procedures and once again the DC taxpayers are being bamboozled. See
this blog for the most recent challenge to the bureaucrats. I've lived nearby this site for over 25 years and remember when it was sold by the US government to DC in 1987. There's been years of talk and proposals and political grandstanding and everyone seems to forget that it was paid for by us taxpayers and we should have some say in what happens to it and it should be developed with open and transparent processes. After all, WE bought the site from the federal government in 1987 with $9.3 million of OUR money.
Here's the history of McMillan Park taken from the
BloomingdaleDC history site. The site is bounded by North Capitol Street, Channing Street, First
Street and Michigan Avenue, NW. The historic McMillan Park sand filtration site and McMillan
Reservoir are part of a chain of public green spaces established in Senator
James McMillan's 1901 plan for beautifying Washington. Following the death of
Senator McMillan in 1902, the grounds of the site were renamed McMillan Park.
In 1905 the sand filtration plant to purify the city's drinking water was
built. The grounds of the site were designed by landscape architect Frederick
Law Olmsted, Jr. The site was designated a historic landmark by the DC Historic
Preservation Review Board in 1991.
I learned recently that the city is moving forward with yet another plan to develop McMillan Park and fearing once again that I will forget to photograph it before the developers move in and wreck it I snapped these photos with my handy cell phone camera as I walked by last Sunday. There's just something about these strangely shaped towers, the vista with the manhole covers, the cobbled brick ramp and how we just don't recognize this sand filtration water cleaning technology anymore. That it was once powered by donkeys is also interesting. We hardly remember the number of lives that were saved by the clean water it produced. Of course, this new plan might be another plan that doesn't happen as there have been charges that the development office didn't follow procedures and once again the DC taxpayers are being bamboozled. See this blog for the most recent challenge to the bureaucrats. I've lived nearby this site for over 25 years and remember when it was sold by the US government to DC in 1987. There's been years of talk and proposals and political grandstanding and everyone seems to forget that it was paid for by us taxpayers and we should have some say in what happens to it and it should be developed with open and transparent processes. After all, WE bought the site from the federal government in 1987 with $9.3 million of OUR money. 
