ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 19, 1995 TAG: 9512190066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: CAROL ROSENBERG KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
SURVEY RESPONDENTS had lots of notions about what to do with the two blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.
One child imagined the first family's front yard as a mini-golf course. An urban design firm proposed building a 300-foot-long ``National Sofa'' outside the White House.
A Florida architect drafted a three-story subterranean visitors center, and several people suggested setting up cyberspace booths so passers-by could chat with President Clinton by computer.
When the government asked the public to dream up designs for two blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue, America answered with everything from crude coloring-book renderings to sophisticated blueprints.
And the replies and ideas - from 600 people across the country - were as diverse as America itself.
Call it ``We The People Plaza,'' and set up kiosks with Internet access, suggested Stacy Wussow of Milwaukee.
Jeff Evans of Deer Creek Middle School in Littleton, Colo., sketched out trees, a Ferris wheel, walkways, fences and a bike rack. It should not be commercial, he cautioned, ``but there can be a hotdog stand or two.''
Secret Service agents citing security reasons slammed shut the 1,410-foot stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue opposite the White House in May, banning ordinary traffic from driving past the Executive Mansion.
Skaters and joggers immediately leapt in to make sport of the vehicle-free paved surface. In October, the National Park Service mailed out surveys inviting professionals and patriots alike to offer suggestions beyond its bland plans for more foliage and benches along the promenade.
The vast majority of the 400 surveys tabulated - 78.8 percent - said that whatever becomes of the area stretching from the White House gate through Lafayette Park, the design should encourage ``stopping, talking and viewing.''
Yet, in reply to another question, 78.2 percent said it should be ``a quiet area.''
Some 90.7 percent of the respondents said the area should have ``a noncommercial atmosphere'' although the public was divided on whether the new park should be of a stately design (45 percent), a simple design (36.6 percent) or a grand design (10.1 percent).
Lafayette Park has long drawn a colorful collection of tourists and protesters, undercover Secret Service agents, and civil servants from nearby government buildings.
Friday, for example, was a springlike day, so the blocked-off section of the street looked much as it has since the Secret Service erected barricades, causing traffic snarls around the White House and diverting tour buses from their traditional snapshot route.
Two dozen health-care workers walked in a circle, chanting ``What do we want for Christmas? Medicaid!'' while homeless men using corrugated boxes for blankets lolled on nearby benches.
Japanese tourists snapped pictures while government workers jogged past on their lunch hour. A man costumed as George Washington handed out coupons for free ``I visited Washington'' buttons, and a woman sat at a curbside with a signboard saying, ``Trust in God; Disarm everywhere.''
``I think it's the peoples' walk. People should be able to come here and speak their minds,'' said William J. Freeman, executive director of the National Association of People With AIDS, a participant in the Medicaid protest.
James Allegro and Doug Michels of a Washington urban design firm had a most innovative concept: ``The National Sofa.''
They proposed erecting a huge 300-foot-long gracefully curved marble park bench opposite the White House with a 125-foot wide television screen in between where, the design plan said, people could ``sit a spell in front of the president's place, sip some iced tea and have a heart to heart with the leaders of the free world.''
Live cameras throughout the White House would beam pictures to the screen. Microphones would provide two-way communication.
Kids came up with some of the most creative, if not necessarily utilitarian, concepts, said Susan Spain, leader of the National Park Service's Pennsylvania Avenue design team.
A secret trapdoor?
One security-conscious youngster suggested encasing the White House in Plexiglas, Spain said. Another wanted to invent a secret trapdoor with special sensors that would open and capture enemy vehicles.
And everyone, from the woman who proposed a garden of presidential statues to the man who wanted a fitness center and snack bar, seemed to believe that the White House was not just the Clintons' but theirs to share in, too.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB