Giving the Birds the Bird

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 21, 2001 | by John Elvin

Poor little tweety-birds won't be warbling and cooing in several acres of pines, poplars and red maples that used to grace what now is the parking lot of the new headquarters of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). The trees gave their lives so that NWF staffers might have parking spaces -- 285 of them, sprawled urbanely adjacent to NWF's new $17.4 million digs in Reston, Va.

The NWF, it might be noted, is vocal in opposing development "planned around the needs of the automobile," which lead to a "bleak, dispiriting landscape of highways, parking lots and strip malls." Right. But, as pointed out in the New Republic, the parking lot is "not even a tiered garage but a flat, mall-style lot." And no birds sing. Thanks to the National Center for Public Policy Research for passing this tidbit along.