National Mall and Memorial Parks (also known as National Capital Parks-Central) is an administrative unit of the National Park Service encompassing many national memorials and other areas in Washington, D.C. They include:
- African American Civil War Memorial
- Constitution Gardens
- East Potomac Park
- Ford's Theatre National Historic Site
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
- George Mason Memorial
- Hains Point
- John Ericsson National Memorial
- Korean War Veterans Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
- National Mall
- National World War II Memorial
- Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site
- Old Post Office Tower
- Thomas Jefferson Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- Washington Monument
- West Potomac Park
Federally owned and administered parks in the capital area date back to 1790, some of the oldest in the United States. In 1933 they were transferred to the control of the National Park Service. These parks were known as the National Capital Parks from their inception until 1965. The NPS now operates multiple park groupings in the D.C. area, including: National Capital Parks-East, Rock Creek Park, President's Park, and George Washington Memorial Parkway. National Mall and Memorial Parks also provides technical assistance for the United States Navy Memorial.
Famous quotes containing the words national, mall, memorial and/or parks:
“America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)
“Finishing schools in the fifties were a good place to store girls for a few years before marrying them off, a satisfactory rest stop between college weekends spent husband hunting. It was a haven for those of us adept at styling each other’s hair, playing canasta, and chain smoking Pall Mall extra-long cigarettes.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“When I received this [coronation] ring I solemnly bound myself in marriage to the realm; and it will be quite sufficient for the memorial of my name and for my glory, if, when I die, an inscription be engraved on a marble tomb, saying, “Here lieth Elizabeth, which reigned a virgin, and died a virgin.””
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)