LOCAL

Neighbors unsure about gay center at Stead Park
Menasco says lease at Dupont park is sure thing

ADRIAN BRUNE
Friday, July 23, 2004

The unassuming plot of land measures approximately 350 by 200 feet and lies in the heart of Northwest D.C. On any given day, pedestrians stream by on their way to the bustling commercial district of Dupont Circle, but usually give it little thought unless they have a pick-up game scheduled there.

Some local community activists, however, recognize the large green parcel as Stead Park, a governmentally protected recreational space for area residents, especially children. Some local gay activists see the space as the future home of a four-story, multi-million dollar, permanent center in which they can congregate.

For now, Stead Park endures as a symbol of a growing dispute among the neighbors of Dupont Circle.

Last week, as those behind a plan to convert Stead Park into the city’s gay community center announced the D.C. government’s agreement to lease the land to the Center, opponents disputed the contract, calling it an unfamiliar and nearly impossible proposal.

The Dupont Circle groups contend that Wanda Alston, Mayor Anthony Williams’ special assistant for gay & lesbian affairs, and Patrick Menasco, the Center’s chief proponent, not only presupposed their endorsement, but also neglected other obstacles in converting the space to a specialized center.

“I may not be a supporter of the Center, though at this time I am not totally opposed to it, but there are many who are opposed to it being in a public park,” said Peter Rosenstein, a longtime Williams adviser who has long argued against the idea of a gay community center.

“The Advisory Neighborhood Commission fights every possible use of public space, so while Patrick [Menasco] may have good intentions, he has misrepresented who already approves of this,” Rosenstein said.

At issue between the two sides are two heavily used basketball courts, the neighborhood’s only public children’s playground and a two-story Carriage House built around 1868, which houses dozens of learning programs for area children.

Those features of the current space present myriad problems for the proposed $15 million Gay & Lesbian Community Center, which would add a four-story office building and a large parking garage with 540 spaces to the site.

Dispute over historic designation
Though the D.C. government has had control of federally owned park space since the 1970s through the home rule charter, according to various activists, federal nondiscrimination policies prevent public land from usage by one group. They argue that the city cannot legally lease out the space for a gay and lesbian center at the exclusion of all the other people who now utilize it.

Another problem concerns the Carriage House. A small group of Dupont neighborhood preservationists recently launched a plan to place the original home of park benefactors Robert and Mary Force Stead on the National Register of Historic Places, blocking center plans to tear down the edifice.

Finally, city officials have pointed out a potential legal problem in the city’s lease of the Stead Park. The childless Stead couple donated their residence to the city with the proviso in their trust that the park be used “for the betterment of the District’s children,” according to Michele Molotsky, an assistant to Councilmember Jack Evans.

Molotsky currently helps oversee an interim board, known as Friends of Stead Park, which has taken up the task of its redevelopment to comply with the original Stead directive. Friends of Stead Park, whose president is former D.C. parks director Neil Albert, has plans to raise $240,000 to repair the outdoor athletic facilities and the playground equipment. The Stead trust and the city will provide two-thirds of that amount.

“The city receives money from their estate, and I have considered getting an opinion on the legality of the lease,” Molotsky said. Albert told NPR’s Kojo Nnamdi that the city was not planning to sign a lease on Stead Park in the near future, and especially not without the input of the neighborhood groups.

Menasco still asserts that a gay and lesbian center on or near Stead Park is a fait accompli. Center supporters said their announcement of the Stead Park plan consisted of a dual lease process — an initial lease allowing the commencement of building construction followed by the addition of appendages for the building’s specific usage after groups began meeting there. Because of the local uproar, Menasco and the Center’s advocates have altered their approach.

“There is no way a lease will be signed by the end of the month,” said Menasco. “But the only question was whether the lease should be signed and then conditioned upon approval, or whether we should we await final buy-in from the community groups before the lease is signed.

“The latter course is now the course that is being taken.”

Menasco said legal precedent can answer the problems the neighborhood groups have put forth, and that a special meeting with the ANC Board in the fall will highlight that precedent in addition to the Center’s benefits to the general public.

Local ANC Commissioner Mark Bjorge said he knew nothing of the meeting, but felt sure the ANC would take the matter under advisement, possibly by September.

The federal government has already used its eminent domain powers to take full control of Stead Park from the Stead Trust, eliminating need for the trust’s approval, Menasco said. The 34-year-old attorney added that the government has consistently defined recreational uses for park space very broadly, and that the Center’s projects and facilities fall within those parameters.

The Dupont Circle Citizens Association poses the only foreseeable threat to the Center’s Stead Park location, Menasco said. Though he said his architects proved the Carriage House was modified beyond its original construction, and therefore not eligible for historic designation, it lies in a historic zone influenced by the DCCA’s preservation efforts.

While the Center may not yet have the complete backing of certain Dupont associations or the ANC, Menasco said he has the support of the majority of D.C.’s gay citizens and interest groups. At one point in the Center’s three-year search for a home, Menasco hired an independent research group to conduct a study that found that more than 90 percent of 1,000 gay residents said they would financially support it.

“There are people who have questioned the need for a community center because the community is well-developed — we have all these great organizations doing great work,” Menasco said. “But everyone’s serving these individual constituencies and it’s like individual patches in a patchwork quilt — you have great pieces to the quilt but no one’s putting them together.”

Adrian Brune can be reached at abrune@washblade.com.

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