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Okay, so this is Emma Arrighi. It is September 27th, 2025. We are at Rock Creek Park day. And could you both tell me your

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names? I'm Rebecca. I'm Andrew. Awesome to meet you guys. And just confirming I have your permission to record and

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everything. Yes. Yeah. Awesome.

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So, just starting off, like what? [dog interrupts interview] He's coming straight at us. Yeah. That was so funny.

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I just, like, watched him anyway. Sorry. What brought you here to Rockford Park Day? Oh, I think I saw it a couple

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weeks ago on, like, popville or something, and I put it in my calendar, and then it popped up for the notification today, and I was like, oh, I'm not doing anything. Might as well go on over.

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We live super close, but I've never actually been here. You know, to this center that's over here.

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And, we've been at Rock Creek Park plenty. Right. And I've done the golf course even, but there's so much to it

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that I haven't seen. So it's kind of nice that we came out. Yeah.

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Awesome. What have you guys kind of done since you got here? Oh, I mean, we just we just pulled up.

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Yeah. Yeah, we were just looking around and seeing what— We saw that the planetarium is doing a thing. And then there's the, uh, the

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punk, the bad jacket decorating thing and. Yeah, a couple of those activities look pretty fun. So. Can I ask where in D.C. do you guys live? So we're in Adams-Morgan, right? Right across from that McDonald's

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on, uh, 18th. Oh. How long have you guys lived over there? Three years now. Yeah.

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So a bit. Nice. Can you kind of talk about some of your earliest memories of Rock Creek Park?

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Yeah, I think I didn't know what it was when I moved here. And I walked down and I was like, oh, there's like a giant park, ten minutes from my apartment. I was really surprised.

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And then we live right across the Duke Ellington Bridge, which is a beautiful view of the river and everything. And I was like, oh, this is so cool, because a lot of times my friends, who don't live in cities are like, oh, I can never live in

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a city. It's so hot. And there's just concrete everywhere. There's no forest.

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And I'm like, there's a bunch of forests in DC. Don't even worry about it. So I grew up in San Francisco and we've got Golden Gate Park,

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obviously. Right. And like a lot of ways I feel like it's like a combo of two things. It's like the Rock Creek Parkway, right, that I always take to go to

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work. But then also it's got like that. Yeah. Like like she was saying all of

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the nature and everything right in the middle of your city. So it really does. It reminds me of, you know, a Grand Central type thing or a Golden Gate Park type thing.

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Big city type parks. Nice. Nice. Do you mean Central Park?

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Yeah. Wait, what did I say? Grand central? Oh, same. Same.

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Do you feel like Rock Creek Park has any kind of special significance for you guys? Um. I really like being right next to it because, for me, like I said, it's going to work, but it's also just like being next to like,

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we go to the you go to pick those berries. Yeah. So there's like a lot of really fun memories that we have of just like wandering around and finding

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things in the park, which I think is really fun. I would always want to live somewhere close to something like a Rock Creek park if I were, you know, we've been where we are for a long time, but if we were to move, I'd still want to stay on

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that like Parkway. Yeah. No, I think I'm the same. I really love living in a city,

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but it's nice that I can escape the city vibe sometimes and really be immersed in nature. When we were driving up here, it was like, "Oh, my gosh, this looks like Shenandoah."

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Like, this could be Shenandoah National Park. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

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Do you guys have, like, a favorite memory? Do you think of the park? Oh, uh, when it was snowing. Like every time it snows.

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Really? Right. You know how there's that big slope that, it's right next to where they host all the presidential, inauguration things? It's like right next to the Duke Ellington Bridge.

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There's this slope, and we always go there when it snows because everyone comes out with their sleds. We improvise and we come up with some sledding type stuff and we go with our friends.

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And that's like one of the best things —One of the best hills that you can use on a, on a snowy day. Yeah. No, I think in the summer, too,

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there's wild blackberries or raspberries, I think both. They grow in the park. You have to keep it a secret. [laughs] Oh, okay.

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It's like a secret. I'm. No, I'm not telling them where my picking spots are, but, yeah.

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No, I pick berries in the summer, and that's always really fun because it's something I did growing up. So it's like I can keep that

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tradition alive. In your guys's experience, do you think there's any ways that, like, the park has changed over the years that you've been coming here?

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Oh, I think this past year it's, not to put Rock Creek Park on blast, but it's not as well maintained as it once was due to, like the big federal budget cuts. Like you can even see it here.

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I remember it was like a week or two ago. People were complaining that it was really smelly in the section that I lived in. And yeah, that was like because

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there was a dead deer. And with the federal budget cuts their rangers like, weren't patrolling enough. So they didn't see it, like someone had to report it and do

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all that stuff. That and the Lanternflies have gone crazy this year. We, you know, we kind of made it a

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habit to go out there and squish a few, back when they were young enough, and now they're flying all over. But, um, that's, that's definitely new in the last year and a half. Probably.

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Yeah. For sure. Have you seen the park change whether it's this year or like in years past, like in any ways for

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the better? Yeah, I was going to say we just had two negative things. Oh, I really like, um. What is it? The road.

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The section of the road that's fully closed now. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. Beech.

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Beech wood? Yeah. It's close. We passed it.

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I think on the on the way over here. They've closed off part so the cars can't drive through, but it's like more scenic, you know.

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Yeah. It's been that way since Covid, so I wasn't living here before. They fully shut it down to cars,

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but, like, that's a really lovely section. Um, and I've been there a couple of times and it's so fun. Everyone's always out and about there. Yeah, I'm trying to think of — I bike a lot or I bike through the

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park a lot, and I think, um, um, I don't think anything's changed, but it's it's always been really good for that. And it stayed good. So that's a positive, I guess.

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Yeah. For sure. And actually another question we had because, you know, Rock Creek Park is this kind of big, this ginormous park.

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It's in like the middle of DC. So do you guys see it as something that more like, kind of like divides the city, or do you think it brings it together? Oh my gosh.

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I think it really connects the city. I usually go through Rock Creek to go to Georgetown, which is famously hard to get to. Yeah, no, I agree, I agree.

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I mean, it's not like the, the river where like Arlington, we don't go across the bridge to Arlington like Rock Creek is not like that. I go to Cleveland Park across the

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the the Rock Creek divide all the time. It's not as, not as divisive, I would say. Yeah. And again, it is how you get

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anywhere, really. That's the quickest way to do anything. Uh, Uber doesn't put you through

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the park, which is really frustrating, but, it is the quickest way, by experience to get anywhere in the city to get to Nova, to get to Maryland, side. To bike places.

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Yeah. Awesome. And then just to kind of like wrap up, are there any kind of changes you'd like to see in Rock Creek Park in the future or just like in

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general, what do you see? Like the future of the park? Oh, you know, what would be really cool is I read on some DC history stuff once, but there used to be like an amphitheater or something in Rock Creek and it's still there, but it's rundown or or

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whatever. It's not maintained anymore. It'd be cool if there was something like that, right? If they had, like, a concert series.

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Yeah. Yeah, concert series would be really cool, I think that would be very nice. They should also keep the rush hour one ways, I love those.

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I know that they were trying to get rid of them, but I like them. Traffic? Yeah. No. For real. I'm trying to think of anything

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else. Um. No, I think that the concert series is something that's cool. I'm trying to think about.

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I mean, I don't think that there's anything facilities wise, besides the amphitheatre that could be improved upon. I think it's maybe just getting the word more out there about all the events and like, Rock Creek's resources and stuff because I've

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lived in DC for three years, but this is my first time going to the planetarium. Yeah, I didn't even know this place existed, so maybe more awareness would be nice too.

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Right. Like, wherever people come into Rock Creek, I don't know what exists in the rest of it, you know, because you said it's so big, it's hard to know without

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going actively to find it. What else is out there? So maybe more like —Maybe put pamphlets or like a map, one of those map placard things, you know.

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You know, those the things that they have, they're like the stands. Yeah. Where are they putting those? I don't know, by the bridge.

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Put it by Duke Ellington. Like a map. Rock Creek Map. Yeah, I don't know.

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Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for sitting down with me. I really appreciate.

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Of course. Thank you very much. Thank you.