SUNDAY, AUGUST 1, 2010


KLMNO


S


C3 Goal of soccer team is chance to start over by Rick Rojas JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON


In its early days, the District grew into the ‘City of Trees’


R


ecently I came upon an old article that said Washington is (or was)


known as “the City of Trees.” I’m wondering if it still is or if that moniker is long gone? —Monica Servaites, Washington


Indeed it was. And if some


dedicated tree-lovers have their way, so it shall be again. Answer Man could not find the precise instant Washington went from being a city of trees to being the City of Trees. Suffice to say that the notion, if not the Chamber of Commerce-esque sobriquet, has deep roots. (Get it?) “George Washington was a passionate tree lover,” said Melanie Choukas-Bradley, a local author who literally wrote the book on the subject: “City of Trees: The Complete Field Guide to the Trees of Washington, D.C.” As Answer Man and Melanie recently emerged from Union Station and caught sight of the gleaming Capitol dome seemingly floating atop clouds of trees, she said: “The first thing you see is this beautiful green welcoming tree canopy. It’s been part of our heritage since Day One.”


Thomas Jefferson was responsible for the first recorded installation of street trees in Washington. He ordered Lombardy poplars planted along Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol. Not what Answer Man might have planted, perhaps (the tall, narrow trees must have looked like overgrown rosemary sprigs), but Tom’s heart was in the right place.


At times, he may have felt like he was the only one who cared about trees. As development in the fledging capital lurched forward, Jefferson watched with despair as trees were felled to make way for development or to be used as firewood. He wrote: “I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifices to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. . . . The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder; it pains me to an unspeakable degree.” The early part of the 19th


century was not a good time for


Washington’s trees, but, as we’ll see, trees seem to rise and fall in people’s favor. If any single person can be said to have created a Washington known for its trees, it was Alexander Shepherd, the city leader forever known as “Boss.” In the 1870s, Boss Shepherd planted 60,000 trees. He also oversaw improvements in things such as sewage and roads that made life a bit easier for D.C.’s trees. As with so many of Shepherd’s projects, the city couldn’t really afford it. He was fired in 1874, but he left a green legacy. By 1913, The Post was reporting: “Washington is a city of trees. No other city of twice the size can boast one-half so many.” How many? About 100,000,


and that was just street trees, not those in parks. There were so many that “from the heights of the suburbs on either side of the river the town for the most part has the appearance of a forest rather than of a thickly populated modern city.” There were oaks, poplars, lindens, gingkos. American elms were especially impressive, their arching branches turning thoroughfares such as East Capitol Street into green tunnels. And because the city was home to so many Foreign Service veterans and peripatetic forestry officials, it was common to bump into species more at home in China, California or the Himalayas. For much of the early 20th


century, this urban forest was overseen by Clifford Lanham, superintendent of trees and parking. Street trees were propagated at a nursery at Fort Dupont. When that proved insufficient, a second was opened near Bolling Field.


Life is not easy for a city tree, and in his 1924 annual report, Lanham complained that the increasing number of automobiles on the streets was causing the destruction of many trees. Thousands of cubic feet of gas were being discharged daily, Lanham wrote. “Consider this and then do not ask why a tree is apparently failing, but why it lives at all.” Next week: Bad days for trees, but green shoots of hope are sprouting.


Have a question about the Washington area? Write answerman@washpost.com.


THE DISTRICT


Fatal accident in Southeast


A driver was killed early Satur-


day after he lost control of his ve- hicle while on Interstate 295 south near Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast. The vehicle hit a guardrail, flipped over and erupted in flames. The driver had not yet been


identified, authorities said. No one else was injured.


VIRGINIA


Pr. William probes water park damage Officials at a Northern Virginia


COURTESY OF CASEY TREES


Trees shade a Washington street early in the 20th century, a time when the capital earned the nickname “City of Trees.”


LOTTERIES July 31


DISTRICT Mid-Day Lucky Numbers:


Mid-Day D.C. 4: Mid-Day DC 5:


Lucky Numbers (Fri.): Lucky Numbers (Sat.): D.C. 4 (Fri.): D.C. 4 (Sat.): DC-5 (Fri.): DC-5 (Sat.): Daily 6 (Fri.): Daily 6 (Sat.):


MARYLAND Mid-Day Pick 3:


Mid-Day Pick 4:


Night/Pick 3 (Fri.): Pick 3 (Sat.): Pick 4 (Fri.): Pick 4 (Sat.): Match 5 (Fri.): Match 5 (Sat.):


8-2-4 9-1-0-6


1-4-2-3-9 2-2-8 2-9-0


6-4-5-0 2-3-3-2


4-0-3-6-6 0-9-1-8-9


5-13-17-27-38-39 *33 1-7-14-32-35-38 *37


7-7-3


8-5-4-4 1-3-7 1-6-1


9-8-7-8 6-8-2-9


10-11-25-27-34 *37 3-6-9-20-21 *26


VIRGINIA Day/Pick-3:


Pick-4: Cash-5:


Night/Pick-3 (Fri.): Pick-3 (Sat.): Pick-4 (Fri.): Pick-4 (Sat.): Cash-5 (Fri.): Cash-5 (Sat.): Win for Life:


MULTI-STATE GAMES Powerball:


Power Play:


Mega Millions: Hot Lotto:


2-1-8 7-6-5-7


6-13-25-30-34 6-7-5 N/A


5-5-8-1 N/A


10-13-16-23-27 N/A N/A


N/A N/A


11-30-40-48-52 **42 N/A


*Bonus Ball **Mega Ball ***Powerball †Hot Ball ‡Free Ball All winning lottery numbers are official only when validated at a lottery ticket location or a lottery claims office. Because of late drawings, some results do not appear in early editions. For late lottery results, check www.washingtonpost.com/lottery.


water park are cleaning up after vandals tossed food and furniture into the main pool. Dianne Cabot, spokeswoman for the Prince William County Park Authority, said the vandal- ism at WaterWorks Waterpark oc- curred between 10 p.m. Friday, when the last lifeguard left, and 8 a.m. Saturday. Park officials say hamburger


patties, french fries and pretzels were thrown into the pool, as well as tables, chairs, lifeguard stands and cigarette butts. Cabot said mozzarella cheese was streaked on a slide. The park was closed so workers could drain, sanitize and refill the pool. The park authority is offering a


reward for tips leading to an ar- rest in the case.


— Associated Press MARYLAND


Lieutenant governor to lead association


Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown has been elected chairman of the Na- tional Lieutenant Governors As- sociation. Brown’s fellow lieutenant gov- ernors elected him to the post Fri- day during the group’s summer meeting in Biloxi, Miss. Brown is the highest-ranking


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A vuvuzela blares over the an- nouncer, and players use their feet to navigate around defend- ers.


But the soccer in the District this weekend felt different from most matches. The field is blue and the size of a basketball court in the middle of downtown. And the goal isn’t so much about trouncing the opponent. These games are about starting


over. The men and women, all home- less, represent 19 cities across the country.


Some players managed the ball with a nimble grace; others played a rougher game that was slightly more football than futbol. The seals on each player’s uni- form held these words: Character. Respect. Strength. Hope. Juan Fuentes, a tailor who came to the United States in 1974 from El Salvador, is perhaps the oldest member of the D.C. team. He turns 65 next week and lives in transitional housing at Neighbors Consejo, a program in Columbia Heights for individuals with sub- stance abuse and mental-health issues. He made the transition to sobriety, he said, because of soc- cer.


He learned the game as a boy on a farm in his country and said he eventually became a profes- sional player there. Returning to the game decades later, he said, was what allowed him to over- come his abuse of alcohol. “It helped me very good,” Fuen-


tes said after taking on the for- ward position, where he kept up with teammates a third his age. “I stopped drinking and started playing again.” Neighbors Consejo has given him a job that allows him to use his skills as a tailor. And, he says, he’s weeks away from living on his own again. Craig Holley Jr. was one of


Street Soccer’s first success sto- ries. The program started in 2005 in


Charlotte, where Holley was re- cruited by Lawrence Cann, found- er of Street Soccer USA, the tour- nament sponsor. Holley said he was “angry at the world” after leaving his group home and a tu- multuous childhood. He had nev- er played soccer. Now, he’s some- what of a star. He was featured in the docu-


mentary “Kicking It,” filmed when he played in the Homeless World Cup in 2006 in Cape Town, South Africa. “I basically got my head above the water,” said Holley, 23, who


PHOTOS BY XIAOMEI CHEN/THE WASHINGTON POST Jock Banks of Fort Worth is disappointed over his team’s loss to Chicago by one penalty kick.


“They didn’t share the same background. . . . Then, they became impactful


human beings who blossomed


before us.” — Omar Abdul-Baki, a real estate developer from Alexandria who coaches the D.C. team


Lisa Wrightsman of Sacramento, front, intercepts the ball while playing against the Minneapolis team.


still lives in Charlotte but is no longer homeless. Soccer gave him an outlet. Hol-


ley said he plays soccer the way Michael Jordan played basket- ball: It’s all mental. “Toughest thing for me ever,” he


LOCAL DIGEST


elected official in the nation to have served a tour of duty in Iraq. The Prince George’s County Democrat, who serves under Gov. Martin O’Malley, succeeds Vir- ginia’s lieutenant governor, Bill Bolling (R), as chairman of the or- ganization.


Brown and O’Malley are run- ning for reelection this year. — Associated Press


said of the game, “and I loved it.” Omar Abdul-Baki, a real estate


developer from Alexandria and a coach for the D.C. team, said his players came to the game with a history of drugs, alcohol and pris- on time — people who were “men-


tally, just broken in a lot of ways,” he said. “They didn’t share the same language, the same background, the same circumstances,” Abdul- Baki said. “Then, they became im- pactful human beings who blos- somed before us.” On Saturday, they were fast and owned the field. One player let an- other make the shot in a penalty kick, and the team slowed down when they had a clear advantage over their opponents, the wom- en’s team from Charlotte. The game ended with a 6-0 vic-


tory for D.C. Afterward, players from both teams posed for a group photo and chatted about a victory that had nothing to do with the score. rojasr@washpost.com


ANIMAL WATCH


A dramatic exit outside the Warner Theatre


13TH STREET NW, July 20. Two


pigeons were trapped inside an exterior light fixture at the Warn- er Theatre.


Animal-control officers, with the help of the theater’s mainte- nance staff, freed the birds.


Warner staff members were working to prevent other birds from becoming trapped in the lights.


Among cases handled by the Washington Humane Society.


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