DC park will close after all for WorldPride weekend

The National Park Service said Friday it would temporarily close the park at the center of Washington’s historic LGBTQ neighborhood ahead of the city’s annual Pride weekend, moving forward with plans that local officials believed had been scrapped. 

The temporary closure of Dupont Circle Park came at the request of the U.S. Park Police (USPP), the Park Service said in an order uploaded Friday to its website approving the installation of anti-scale fencing around the park’s perimeter through 6 p.m. EDT Sunday.

“Less restrictive measures will not suffice due to the security-based assessment of the USPP that this park area needs to be kept clear,” the Park Service said. 

In a letter dated June 4, Park Police Maj. Frank Hilsher wrote to Kevin Griess, superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks, that the agency's closure request “is based solely on several previous years of assaultive, destructive and disorderly behavior exhibited in Dupont Circle during the DC Pride weekend.” 

“The USPP maintains that a physical barrier effecting a full closure of Dupont Circle is necessary,” Hilsher wrote, to “secure the park, deter potential violence, reduce the risk of destructive acts and decrease the need for extensive law enforcement presences.” 

An earlier letter sent in April to Park Police Chief Jessica M.E. Taylor from Pamela A. Smith, chief of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), recommended that tall no-climb fences be temporarily installed around the park. 

“Over the years, Dupont Circle Park has been a popular location for Pride attendees to congregate, despite not being a sanctioned Pride event,” Smith wrote in the letter. “In the past five years, the Metropolitan Police Department and the United States Park Police have taken proactive steps, including increased police presence and enhanced lighting around the park."

"However, significant challenges persisted, including unpermitted large gathering with sound equipment, illegal vending and grilling, alcohol use, multiple physical altercation, and vandalism of the historic fountain and statue," she added.

Smith withdrew the MPD’s request to temporarily close the park earlier this week “after hearing from community leaders and residents,” she wrote in a June 3 letter to Taylor.

In the same letter, Smith pointed to specific disruptions that influenced her initial request, including a 2019 arrest in Dupont Circle Park after parkgoers heard gunshots and vandalism during Pride weekend in 2023 that resulted in roughly $175,000 in damage to the park’s more than 100-year-old fountain. 

The park’s closure is another obstacle for those in charge of WorldPride, an international LGBTQ Pride celebration taking place this year in Washington. The Capital Pride Alliance, the organizers of WorldPride D.C., have hit several snags related to Trump administration policies that disproportionately affect LGBTQ people. 

In April, the group issued a travel advisory for transgender visitors from abroad, citing President Trump’s executive order recognizing only two sexes, male and female, and a new State Department policy barring trans, nonbinary and intersex Americans from updating the sex designations on their passports. The same month, the Capital Pride Alliance announced it was moving WorldPride events from the Kennedy Center to “ensure our entire LGBTQ+ community will be welcome” following Trump’s takeover of the cultural institution in February. 

In posts on Truth Social, Trump said drag performances at the Kennedy Center “will stop” under his leadership and called drag, an art form that is deeply rooted in LGBTQ culture and history, “anti-American propaganda.” The White House has also declined to issue a proclamation for Pride Month.

In an emailed statement, the Capital Pride Alliance said it “is frustrated and disappointed in the National Park Service’s decision - again – to close Dupont Circle during the culmination of WorldPride this weekend.” 

“This beloved landmark is central to the community that WorldPride intends to celebrate and honor. It’s much more than a park, for generations it’s been a gathering place for DC’s LGBTQ+ community, hosting first amendment assemblies and memorial services for those we lost to the AIDS epidemic and following tragic events like the Pulse nightclub shooting,” the group said. “This sudden move was made overnight without consultation with the Capital Pride Alliance or other local officials.” 

No official WorldPride activities were planned in Dupont Circle Park, the Capital Pride Alliance said, “thus no events will be impacted.” 

D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), representing the Dupont Circle neighborhood, said she is “extremely disappointed and frustrated” that the park will not remain open for Pride weekend. 

“This closure is disheartening to me and so many in our community who wanted to celebrate World Pride at this iconic symbol of our city’s historic LGBTQ+ community," Pinto wrote Friday in a post on the social platform X. "I wish I had better news to share."

“World Pride will continue this weekend and it will be a time of celebration and commitment to uplift our LGBTQ+ neighbors," she added.