Baltimore Living
Best Under Appreciated Local Landmark
Dorothy Parker Memorial Garden
Christopher Myers
BEST UNDER APPRECIATED LANDMARK: Dorothy Parker
Memorial Garden
NAACP National Headquarters, 4805 Mt. Hope Drive, (410) 521-4939
Little known fact: When sharp-shooting wit Dorothy Parker passed away in 1967, she left he literary estate first to Dr. Martin Luther King and, upon his death, to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to which Parker’s estate rolled over following the 1968 assassination of the civil-rights leader. Parker herself was cremated, and nobody claimed her ashes, which sat first at New York’s Ferncliff Crematorium and then in her lawyer’s office. In 1988 the NAACP, which receives royalties from Parker’s manuscripts to this day, learned that her ashes remained unclaimed, and it stepped forward, erected a memorial garden, and interred her ashes there. Here, a circle plaque, surrounded by pine trees, reads in classy tribute: This memorial garden is dedicated to her noble spirit which celebrated the oneness of humankind and to the bonds of everlasting friendship between black and jewish people.
