Meridian Hill Park Cascades

Author's Comments

There is something strange and wonderful about stumbling onto formal Italian architecture in the middle of a Columbia Heights afternoon. The cascades at Meridian Hill do not announce themselves. You come up through the park from the street and suddenly the geometry is there, water moving in steps down a long hillside, the basins catching whatever light is available and holding it briefly before letting it fall. I have been here in May when the trees were just full and the upper terrace felt enclosed and green, and I have been here in October when the light goes long and the stone takes on a warmth it does not have in summer. Both are worth the visit. Evening is the time either way. The upper tiers catch the last directional light of the day and the water goes from silver to something closer to gold, and for about twenty minutes the whole cascade reads as a single continuous thing rather than a series of separate basins. From the upper terrace you get the full length of it. All thirteen basins. A longer exposure smooths the water and lets the architecture do the work, which is where the real interest is anyway. The stone, the symmetry, the way European formality landed in this particular neighborhood and stayed. Come down to the lower basins for something tighter and more abstract. The detail is there if you look for it. This is not a destination you build a day around. It is a place you arrive at with an hour of light left and leave slightly surprised by what you found.

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