Delightfully Different: Sundays at Meridian Hill Park
Click on the collage for more photos: Sunday in Meridian Hill Park. (Luis Gomez Photos)
From Luis Gomez. Catch his photos on Picplz (think Twitter for pics) or at One Photograph A Day.
Were you here? See the photos on Flickr.
On Sundays, the regularity of workday life takes a backseat and Meridian Hill Park turns into a wonderful community park that is full of life. Filled with people and activities, a Sunday afternoon stroll on the large common area will liven up your senses and connect you with creativity. The normal takes a rest and the offbeat thrives.
Sundays are a totally different experience from weekdays, or even Saturdays. Guitar players strum away, groups of people practice yoga and jugglers do their routines. Other people simply sit and read the newspaper, listen to music or eat a picnic lunch. Many people simply rest.
At the south end of the main common near the Jeanne d’Arc statue, the drumming circle has become a Sunday evening regular event. Dozens of people bring their own drums while hundreds more listen and dance to choreographed rhythms that will make even the fittest sweat.
The park has a life of its own, gathering people of all ages and backgrounds. It shows how the skin of the city has changed. On Sundays you can walk around and see that the neighborhoods surrounding the park are increasingly multiracial, multiethnic and multinational.
The beat of the drums are all around as families enjoy picnics, play frisbee or simply sit on the benches to watch the people go by. It is a gathering place where we all become community.
About Meridan Hill Park
Meridian Hill Park is bounded by 16th, Euclid, 15th and W Streets NW. It is 12 acres (4.85 hectares) and sits on “an almost perfect north-south axis,” according to the National Park Service (NPS). It is part of the NPS, not the D.C. Parks.
From the NPS website: “Construction of the park was begun in 1914, but it was not until 1936 that Meridian Hill reached the full status of a formal park. In 1933 the grounds were transferred to the National Park Service. Meridian Hill Park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994. as ‘an outstanding accomplishment of early 20th-century Neoclassicist park design in the United States.’ “
