Forest Hills Park has a 90-year history of parent advocacy, DIYs, and many do-overs

Forest Hills Park and Playground have taken many forms over the years. And it exists today because of the efforts of neighborhood parents and grandparents going back almost 90 years.

Acquiring the property at 32nd and Chesapeake Streets took a federal lobbying effort. Leslie Boudinot Flenner Wright, a neighborhood activist and mother of four, had succeeded in lobbying the District’s Congressional overseers for the money to build the Murch, Deal and Wilson (now Jackson-Reed) schools. In 1935, she turned her attention to the neighborhood’s lack of a dedicated playspace. In 1942, she got her wish, but it would be another 14 years before the park got the funding for construction.

Every decade since has brought changes and renovations.

In 1968, there were new basketball hoops, a jungle gym, and fencing along the alley. The Forest Hills Citizens Association donated two cherry trees. In 1975, the playground had a small grouping of metal playground equipment consisting of seven swings, one sandbox, and three climbing structures. A baseball diamond and basketball court were installed. The same year, the neighborhood citizens association proposed “an air-conditioned field house, a softball diamond with bleachers, a basketball court, a handball court, a shuffleboard court and two tennis courts.”

What Forest Hills Park got, in an early 1980s renovation, were the tennis courts, a tot lot and a seating area for seniors. It was dedicated on July 4th, 1982 by then-Mayor Marion Barry.

This sculpture, Le Rideau de Fer (the Iron Curtain) by Vincent Bathbedat, was donated and installed during the 1982 renovation.

Neighborhood parents still thought the playground equipment was inadequate, so in 1990, they raised money for new equipment and installed it themselves.

In 1999, without warning, DC condemned and removed the playground equipment, saying it was unsafe. Again, parents organized. Friends of Forest Hills Playground was formed in 2000 to work with the District on a new playground.

The big slide and climbing structure at Forest Hills Playground in 2014, before its removal for the park’s renovation later that year.

In 2012, the District decided it was time for another renovation. With design guidance from Friends of Forest Hills Playground and the community, construction began in summer 2014. Mayor Vincent Gray dedicated the new park in October 2014 during the playground’s annual Halloween Spooktacular.

Friends of Forest Hills Playground continued on, organizing twice-a-year cleanups, the annual Halloween Spooktacular, and starting in 2015, summer concerts at the amphitheater added in the 2014 renovation.

The blues-rock band Downwire drew a crowd at the August 2015 concert.

In 2020, after trying unsuccessfully to pass the torch to families with kids who had not outgrown the playground, and with Covid-19 limiting activities, the group suspended operations. In 2022, Friends of Forest Hills Playground became a program of Van Ness Main Street, which revived the Spooktacular later that year.

Given the park’s history, it seems inevitable that within a few years, someone will decide the playground and park in its current form needs to go, and neighbors will again be called upon to help design the next version. What would you like to see?