Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Refilled as D.C. Historic Fountains Reopen

National Park Service crews turned on the spigot Thursday to begin filling the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. , which was finished in time for America’s 250th anniversary. The initiative reopened nine historic fountains across the city.

Water is flowing again at Columbus Plaza outside Union Station after 19 years. The grand formal cascade with 13 basins at Meridian Hill Park is flowing again for the first time in seven years. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool will reflect again for the first time since 2012.

In that year President Barack Obama spent $34 million refurbishing the pool. Algae ruined the refurbishment in a matter of weeks and the pool had to be drained again. President Donald Trump has refurbished the pool for less than half the cost of the 2012 project.

D.C. resident posted on social media that the water “is so blue” and “bouncing off the white marble,” adding that the marble had never looked so clean. DC resident Florence Navarro told local news the changes were not motivated by affection for city residents but by a desire to show off, yet she added that the place now feels peaceful in the shade with the sound of the water.

FIFA told 11 cities hosting World Cup games that they must abide by the organization’s “clean zones” rule requiring two-mile-wide safe and clean areas around stadiums. In 1962 then-Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote that the architecture of the nation’s capital must provide visual testimony to the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the American Government.