Metro rips out Phantom Planter’s flowers at Dupont
Circle station
It turns out I underestimated Metro bureaucrats’ capacity
for folly.
By Robert McCartney of the
Washington Post
Two weeks ago, I wrote that the transit system would look silly if it let perish 1,000 flowers planted
secretly at the Dupont Circle station by local garden artist Henry Docter, the
self-described Phantom Planter.
(Ricky Carioti/The Washington Posy)
- Docter, known as “The Phantom Planter” had taken it upon himself to plant
Morning Glories, Cardinal Flowers, and Cypress Vines on Metro property at the
Dupont Metro North Station. He was told that he would be arrested if he watered
or tended
After 34 years of secret plantings
without a problem, D.C. gardener runs afoul of transit system.
I feared that Metro would merely
neglect the flowers. Instead, last Sunday, it sent workmen to yank them out.
The transit system regularly pleads
poverty, yet employees devoted supposedly valuable time to remove more than
1,000 morning glories, cardinal flowers and cypress vines that Docter donated
to the city — albeit without permission. The plants would have bloomed from
August to October in a patriotic display of red, white and blue.
Instead of greenery today and colors
to come, the 176 flower boxes along the top stretch of the escalators at the
station’s north entrance now feature dirt, a few straggling stems and the
occasional discarded soda can.
“It never occurred to me that Metro
would think it was more efficient to rip out the plants than to let someone
water them,” Docter said.
Metro tore out the foliage without
waiting to solicit the neighborhood’s opinion, as it said it had planned to do.
“We want to meet with the community
and see what the community would like. We will move forward with their wishes,
as long as they are reasonable, sustainable and safe,” Michael McBride, manager
of Metro’s Art in Transit Program, said June 21.
No meetings have taken place since
then. Local leaders were aghast that Metro ignored their wishes for a
compromise to keep the flowers in place.
“They paid people to tear out plants
that everyone loves? Well, this is cause for insurrection. Talk about fixing
something that’s not broken,” said Robin Diener, a member of the Dupont
Circle Citizens Association board of
directors.
“The guy was trying to be a really
good guy, and Metro got really uptight,” said Dail Doucette, president of the Historic Dupont Circle
Main Streets board of directors. “They [at
Metro] don’t want to be involved. They don’t care about our neighborhood.”
(McBride met June 12 with an intern
from Doucette’s group, but there was no follow-up.)
Docter, 52, has engaged in stealth
gardening in public places for more than three decades. He describes his work
as performance art.
He went public about it
for the first time last month after Metro formally threatened him with
imprisonment if he watered, weeded or otherwise cared for the flowers he’d
planted.
Metro said it was concerned that
Docter could not safely negotiate the steep, cobblestoned inclines in which the
Dupont Circle flower boxes are set. A Web petition defending
him has attracted more than 3,600 signatures.
According to the official
explanation Friday, Metro removed the flowers because it needs to repair the
paver blocks on the embankment.
Spokeswoman Caroline Lukas said that
work had been “scheduled prior to the unauthorized planting of flowers.” When
it’s complete, she said, Metro will plan “a low-maintenance ground cover.”
I’m skeptical. Such a need for
repairs wasn’t mentioned in my extended June interview with McBride and Metro
spokesman Dan Stessel.
I asked Lukas why we were suddenly
hearing about the repair plan now. She said she assumed McBride and Stessel
were coming at the issue from the perspective of McBride’s art outreach efforts,
whereas the maintenance office was handling the repair and replanting project.
At best, that sounds like one part
of the bureaucracy doesn’t know what another part is up to.
Lukas also said the flowers were
removed after they had wilted. Docter said that was impossible to believe,
given our recent weather.
“Rain would make them not wilt, and
all we’ve had is rain,” he said.
More than two inches of rain were
recorded at Reagan National Airport in the 48 hours preceding last Sunday, the
day Metro said it removed the flowers. Total rainfall this June was more than
double the monthly average.
Despite what he called Metro’s
double talk, the Phantom Planter was philosophical about his setback.
“The fact is, not all performance
pieces end in comedy,” Docter said. “The flowers have been uprooted, but the
memory of the gift remains in our brain, and that’s something that no
bureaucrat . . . can ever take away.”
Poster's comments:
I
use to live there.
Metro
is the D.C. subway system.
Maybe
this is how civilization ends?
Here's
one comment to the post:
Oh, THAT"S why the elevators, escalators, lights,
turnstiles, subway cars, ceiling tiles, farecard machines, intercom systems
don't work. Not management incompetence. THANKS for the clarification.
And we are paying for all this, or so I think.
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