Columbia Heights Fountain Plaza
15 10 2009Well now that the work is complete on the new Columbia Heights plaza at Kenyon and 14th Streets, we must say it looks darn good. Every time we pass by we see the plaza completely filled with people enjoying the space, and those solar paneled “trees” don’t look nearly as garish as we thought they would from the original designs.
What do you think of the finished product?
[Photo: Mr T in DC]
I think the solor light thingys are ugly, but the rest of the plaza looks nice enough, they should have some type of weekend antique/craft market there.
will reach full poptential next summer after all the construction and cement trucks are gone and the streets around teh plaza are finished.
if you were here before the metro opened (less than 10 years ago), what a transformation!
great job by the city on this part of town. keep it coming.
What’s wrong with real trees?
I would like to have seen real trees installed in the plaza. It’s going to get real hot in summer with all of that cement.
There are real trees that have been planted. And more look to be on the way. It’s still quite unfinished, as much progress as tehy have made so far.
There’s a bit too much hardscape. It’ll be interesting to see how dated this design will be in a few years.
It kind of looks like a UFO launch-pad! I would’ve preferred more greenspace and more of a buffer between the plaza and the often-chaotic automobile traffic just yards away.
There are trees planted. They are very young and kind of blend in with the grass in the photo above. If you look at the ‘proposal’ link, you’ll see how the trees and obstructions have been pulled back from the intersection. As a 5-way intersection, it is really important that visibility be maintained. More trees would have made it difficult to watch for turning traffic or pedestrians or cyclists. And there is less hardscape than there was before.
Don’t judge it by a single photo. Go and sit in the plaza for an hour or two and then decide. I think it is a nice improvement and will be even better in a year or so when the rest of the streetscape improvements are finished and it has had time to settle and grow.
One thing I hate is that the jumping squirting fountains of water only jump about three feet!!! At Chicago’s Navy Pier and The National Harbour they have spectacular jumping fountians of water controlled by a computer that randomises the squirts. The cool thing is the shoots really high!
Maybe they couldn’t do that with small size of the park and number of people around, but then maybe they shouldn’t have done it in the first place.
That all being said - it’s a great improvement for the community!
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