Pershing Park

This guide to Pershing Park in Washington, D.C. traces a sunken plaza built in 1981 to double as a summer reflecting pool and winter ice rink, complete with a hidden zamboni door and lunchtime skaters near the White House. It follows the park through a 1996 funding collapse that left the water dry for nearly two decades, and the unlikely memorial project that finally brought it back. For nearly twenty years, office workers had skated here on their lunch break beneath a domed glass concession stand.