''D.C.'s High Line" Could Transform the Banks of the Anacostia

The project started as a crazy idea just over two years ago. The 11th Street bridge connecting D.C.'s Navy Yard to Anacostia was (and is) being rebuilt. The old piers for the outdated span remain in the water.

What if, then-planning director Harriet Tregoning asked Scott Kratz, then an employee of the National Building Museum, over breakfast, what if we reused the old pillars to create a new park?

The park would cross the Anacostia adjacent to the new, car-and-bike-and-pedestrian-transporting span. It would link booming Navy Yard with historic Anacostia, perhaps bringing some of the amenities found west of the river to the east. It would be D.C.'s High Line, the city's own example of taking out-of-date infrastructure and turning it into something useful.

"[Tregoning] had this idea, and asked if I was interested in helping," Kratz said Tuesday. "Maybe I should have had another cup of coffee, and said, 'Wait a minute,' but I said 'Sure, you bet.'"