Much of Malcolm X Park is closed at least until the end of spring for grass restoration and repairs to the historic fountain, impacting picnic plans, yoga classes, and the legendary drum circle for months to come.
The closure of the park — also known as Meridian Hill — for rehabilitation work is part of President Trump’s executive order to make “the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful,” the National Park Service told The 51st. They added that the upper-level grassy areas will be closed so crews can “prune trees, remove invasive plants, repair site features, and restore turf areas.”
The news came as a surprise to residents and local leaders since the National Park Service previously said funding would not be available until “at least” the 2027 fiscal year, and there was little public outreach about the closure. With many residents still confused about what's going on, and how long the beloved green space will be off limits, we’ve collected everything we know about the park’s closure, and what happens next.
How long is the park closed for?
Originally, the park was slated to close from March 23 to Sept. 4 — peak months for soccer, dog walking, and reading on a park bench.
But after a public outcry, Washington Parks and People, a nonprofit that advocates for the revitalization of D.C. parks, says it will now only be closed until mid-June.
The National Park Service didn’t confirm this timeline, saying only that “the restored grass panels will remain fenced into the summer to allow the new turf to establish. Closure areas will be limited to the upper-level lawn panels.”
While a shorter timeline would be a win for parkgoers, there’s still a lot of unanswered questions.
“Many of the specifics are not clear. We're not sure what to expect this week in the rollout, exactly when it'll happen, and what the scope of the closure will be,” said Miguel Trindade Deramo, the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for the park.
Which parts of the park are closing and when?
As Steve Coleman, executive director for Washington Parks and People, understands it, the upper level of the park will be completely closed for the next two to three weeks. After that, he says the walkways will open, but the two large grass areas in the upper plaza will remain closed until mid-June. The lower level is currently closed, but Coleman says there are also plans to reopen it in mid-June.
“Our understanding is that they're hoping to have the work on both the fountain, all the lower plaza stuff, and the lawn, the upper plaza work, done by sometime in June,” said Trindade Deramo.
But so far, this timeline hasn’t been publicly communicated from NPS — rather, it’s been relayed to community leaders like Coleman and Trindade Deramo. (NPS didn't answer The 51st’s questions about the specifics of the timeline.)
Why is this closure happening now? Was this always the plan?
The sudden closure of the park took local officials and community members by surprise. Trindade Deramo said he first heard that the lower level of the park would later be closed for work on the fountain (which has been dry for years) last December.
This came as a shock. “There was no realistic prospect of work on the fountain, certainly in the next couple of years, under National Park Service's normal budgetary process,” he said.
In February, NPS issued a notice that they also planned to close the upper level, for “the effective restoration of the large grass panels."
Miguel Trindade Deramo speaking at the Saturday, March 21 rally held by the Keep Malcolm X Open Coalition. (Sam Delgado)
“That was doubly surprising that they decided to go ahead and work on the lawn,” said Trindade Deramo.
NPS did not respond to questions about timing the work during the park’s peak seasons. In their online notice, NPS said: “The temporary closure of this park area is necessary to protect the public from any health and safety hazards associated with this fountain rehabilitation project and to protect park resources in the restored grass panel areas.”
Where is the Trump administration in all this?
Since the beginning of his second term, President Trump has made his fixation on D.C. public spaces clear. Last August, as the National Guard took to the streets, he called the grass in D.C.’s parks “old, tired, exhausted" and added that they would be “redoing the grass with the finest grasses.”
In January, the Washington Post reported that the National Park Service planned to spend at least $54 million repairing D.C. fountains, including $10 million on the one in Malcolm X Park, ahead of the planned celebrations for the country’s 250th anniversary this July.
“The people of D.C. know that you don’t make our city safe and beautiful by keeping the community out,” said Coleman. “This park is our village green, and there is no village green without the village.”
Trindade Deramo commented that he wants to see “a lasting budgetary commitment by Interior/NPS to upkeep, beyond a one-time injection of cash.”
Coleman also pointed out the park has been a longtime site of resistance and protest, and felt it wasn’t coincidental the park would be closed during the time when such civic actions take place most often.
How did residents respond?
Many neighbors only became aware of the plans for the park closure in the last week. “We were pretty devastated, and we immediately started to think of ways we could do something about it,” Kendall Schrohe said at a rally at the park on Saturday that hundreds of residents attended.
Schrohe and other neighbors started the Keep Malcolm X Open Coalition, as well as a petition that garnered over 3,000 signatures. The petition included a list of demands to NPS and Rock Creek Park Superintendent Brian Joyner, including switching to a phased closure plan, a timeline that doesn’t overlap entirely with peak usage, and a community meeting.
Mike Gross has been visiting Malcolm X Park since the 1970s. (Sam Delgado)
Mike Gross, a resident who has been coming to the park since the 1970s for the drum circle, only found out that the park was closing the day before the Saturday rally.
“I was shocked. This is like an institution in D.C. It's known all around the city,” said Gross.
“It’s a good thing they’re gonna to bring it back to its original self,” said Gross. “But they need to do it in a way that is friendly for the community, so we can still be able to utilize the park during that process.”
Brian Joyner, the Rock Creek Superintendent, has committed to holding a town hall with residents about the park closure, said Trindade Deramo at Saturday's rally.
“We think that it’s just a sign of the power of community organizing and when people come together and express their concerns. So it's really inspiring to us,” said Jesse Bogdan, one of the organizers of the Keep Malcolm X Open Coalition.
But Bogdan added that the work doesn’t stop there. “We recognize that [there’s] still very little transparency, no community buy-in.” Schrohe added that most people wouldn’t know about the park closure or the updates if they didn’t attend the Saturday rally.
“That's the number one problem. As much as we're happy that the closure time has shortened, we still don't feel like we're a part of that process,” she said. “That's really the key thing we want, which I think is a pretty reasonable ask.”
Sam Delgado is a freelance multimedia journalist living in D.C. She was previously a Future Perfect fellow at Vox.com and a production manager at More Perfect Union.
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