The Trump administration is eyeing a Washington, D.C. park for its “National Garden of American Heroes,” according to two sources speaking anonymously to the Washington Post. West Potomac Park is south of the National Mall, near memorials to Martin Luther King Jr. and president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Just what part of the park is under review for the placement of the sculpture garden is not clear. The Post notes that if he wants to use the southern tip of the park, which is near the Jefferson Memorial, the president would likely have to seek an exemption under the Commemorative Works Act, which restricts the use of space around some federal lands in the District of Columbia. That section of the park has long been used as athletic fields.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) allotted a portion of its funding to the project in April 2025. One of the nation’s foremost funders of creative endeavors, the NEH had previously abruptly canceled most of its existing grant programs, notifying the recipients of the termination by saying the cancelation was “necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities.” Those funds had been awarded, Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine, said at the time, “and used funds already appropriated by Congress on a bipartisan basis.”
Later that month, the agency announced a new grant program for the design and creation of statues, which had first been announced on January 18, 2021, two days before Trump would leave office after an election he falsely claims was stolen, resulting in the January 6, 2021 attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
Congress then allocated some $40 million toward the sculpture garden in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July.
In a lengthy recent interview with the New York Times, Trump said the sculpture garden is “going to be most likely right on the Potomac River. You’ll see this, an area that is touching the golf course.” It was for that reason, wrote the Times, that his administration moved to seize control of the municipal golf courses in Washington. West Potomac Park is near but not adjacent to the golf course, writes the Post.
“That hasn’t been a final decision,” he added, “but it’s getting close.”
