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Park Service presents plan to renovate Mall to Commission of Fine Arts

The memorial to Gen. Grant and his dashing soldiers would preside, burnished and restored, over a transformed Union Square at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol.

The dilapidated Sylvan Theater, the 1970s-vintage outdoor venue south of the Washington Monument, would be replaced with a multipurpose performance space that would serve food and souvenirs.

The under-used Constitution Gardens would be upgraded -- its lake reconstructed, its landscape rehabilitated.

There would be lots and lots of restrooms.

The Mall -- the worn out, trampled down, 700 acres of Washington that is visited by as many as 25 million people a year -- would get an end-to-end facelift, according to the draft of a National Park Service plan presented Thursday to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts....
Read entire article at WaPo