Marion Park

A designed open space on L’Enfant’s plan in 1791, this park has wide open spaces, plenty of seating and a nice playground.

This park is named after Francis “The Swamp Fox” Marion, a famous guerrilla fighter in the Revolutionary War from South Carolina. After a series of some of the worst defeats experienced by the patriot cause, it was starting to look like the South might be lost. Then came Marion, and while the Brit’s held the populated areas they found hanging onto the wild country exceedingly difficult due to Marion and many of his ilk. The Brits still bear him no love, one of their more famous historians commenting that Marion was exceedingly unpleasant and could be described as a terrorist.

In 2008, the NPS attempted to put up a statue but it was rebuffed by residents of the neighborhood as Marion has a history of fighting native americans and was a slave owner. Conversely, the park is sometimes called turtle park, for the stone turtle in...

This is a really great park. The people around here call it turtle park, which is misleading because there’s no turtles. My wife says there’s a large concrete turtle, so it’s okay to call it that. I don’t agree. I expected at least one real turtle. As a matter of fact, there’s a guy with a real turtle over on North Carolina Ave SE, so I call his yard turtle park and feel it’s more accurate. Once I invited people to turtle park and we went to different places. My wife now says the guy on North Carolina has a tortoise, so we are both wrong.

Anyway, it’s a pretty good park but keep your turtle expectations low. The picture below is what I personally expected to see but did not. Where this photo was taken should be called turtle park.

Oh, wait, this park is actually called Marion...

What to do in that park? Take your dogs Watch the other dogs playing Play with your dogs Play with the other dogs Talk with the community of neighbors, there’s great people there! Play with your dogs Play with the other dogs Remember that 6. and 7. look very similar to 3. and 4. Meet some new dogs Meet some new neighbors (generally related to new dogs, see 9.) Plan to come back the day after. Come back the day after. Repeat every two days. Come to say hello! I’m right there! (if you come at the...