Visiting Information
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORY & HERITAGE COMMAND
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
Visiting InformationRelated Resource: Map of Washington Navy Yard
There are two parks in the Navy Yard. Leutze Park, between building 57 and the residence of the Chief of Naval Operations (Tingey House), is the parade ground for official change-of-command and retirement ceremonies. The park is named in honor of Rear Admiral Eugene H. C. Leutze, Yard Commandant from 1905 to 1910. Bronze cannon and other ordnance dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, some captured by U.S. forces in the Barbary Wars, the Civil War, and the Spanish American War, rim the park.
Across from the U.S. Navy Museum on the banks of the Anacostia River lies Willard Park, named after Rear Admiral Arthur Lee Willard, Yard Commandant from 1917 to 1919 and again from 1927 to 1930. The park is filled with naval ordnance from the Civil War, both world wars and the Vietnam era. A 14-inch railway gun, of the type used in France by the Navy in World War I, embellishes the museum's outdoor extension. Also at the west end of the park sits a Patrol Craft, Fast (PCF), or "Swift boat," as it was affectionately known. Eighty-four Mark I Swift boats served in Vietnam, while twenty, including the museum's PCF-1, remained in the Western Hemisphere for training.