Lamont Park

Lamont Park is right across the street from me, and hosts such great events as the Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market. This little triangular strip of concrete is the chosen venue for many amusing events and individuals.

More notably, this is where I had the pleasure of viewing a very skinny man dressed in Spandex do his break dancing routine using a 1980s boom box as his sound system. It was on a random Tuesday night and even one of the locals who has probably been in the neighborhood for years shook his head and said "Only in Mt. Pleasant."

There's always a crowd at this little triangle of concrete, squeezed between the confluence of 17th Street and Mount Pleasant street...Today there were some men eating chicken on a park bench, joking around with a toothless sort of bum.  I had ten minutes to kill before work, so I sat down with my cup of coffee for people watching.

The toothless bum was cackling and shouting something incomprehensible, holding what I am pretty sure was a lit joint.  The police just don't come around to parks like this...it seems they have ceded them as a sort of no-man's land, which means anything goes.  A small crowd had gathered to watch the bum's antics..."Bom-baba-DOO!" he shouted at me with a laugh.

On my way home from work there have lately been games of football catch in the park, which means it is still a somewhat wholesome community gathering place.  That's what I like about Mount Pleasant.  It is like one big family...and even where there is crime, there seems to be a strong respect for family values.  

4 stars...this is a DC treasure, as far as the crowd goes--strange, boisterous, yet harmless folks...but since there is no grass, minus one star.