For months, something was wrong on Charles Street.
One of the curving marble balustrades that frame the south quadrant of Mount Vernon Place disappeared suddenly in the spring of 1992, its vertical balusters sheared off at the base.
A city street-sweeper heading up Charles Street past Centre apparently lost its brakes on the incline and rolled back down the hill, taking the balustrade with it.
But two years later, it has been replaced, at a cost of $75,000. Fabricated to be a mirror image of the one on the west side of the park, it was set in place this fall.
It's not as dramatic an improvement, perhaps, as the seven-year restoration of the Washington Monument. But it speaks volumes about the city's commitment to preserve the architectural integrity of Mount Vernon Place, one of the finest urban spaces in America.
"They did a beautiful job, both crashing it and repairing it," said Jennifer Morgan, curator of the Washington Monument and Mount Vernon Place for the city's Department of Recreation and Parks.
Mount Vernon Place is "such a central focal point in the city, it reflects badly when things stay in a state of disrepair," she added.
The balustrade is a remnant of a bygone era when cities were considered worth decorating, said Phoebe Stanton, professor emeritus of architectural history at the Johns Hopkins University.
"It's a memento of the City Beautiful movement. It is remarkable that we have this vestige here. It matches the monument. I'm glad the city cared enough to repair it."
Architectural refinements such as the balustrade are a large part of what makes Mount Vernon Place a civic showpiece, said Reed Fulton, a landscape architect for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. In the 1980s, while employed by the city's housing department, he helped plan a $1.2 million refurbishment of the four squares around the Washington Monument.
"The light fixtures and balustrades and sculpture and benches -- I think of them as the jewelry in the space," he said. "They reflect a more genteel time when people really used their public spaces."
The four squares that make up Mount Vernon Place were laid out in the early 1800s to complement Robert Mills' Washington Monument, built between 1815 and 1829.
Created from land owned by Revolutionary War hero John Eager Howard and his heirs, the squares originally had a simpler Victorian layout. The Beaux Arts balustrades were added around 1917, when the park it was redesigned by Carrere and Hastings.
Although the cost of the repair work was covered by the city's insurance, the balustrade took a long time to replace because it couldn't simply be ordered from a catalog.
John Carter, architect supervisor for the city's Department of Public Works, drew up specifications after measuring the remaining balustrade along Centre Street.
After putting the project out for bid in 1993, the public works department hired Professional Restoration Inc., an Anne Arundel County-based company that specializes in stone and metal restoration, to fabricate the replacement.
Professional Restoration's crafts people hand-chiseled the balusters from White Cherokee marble quarried in Nelson, Ga. Although contractors were unable to match the color of the western balustrade precisely, the Georgia marble was selected to go with it -- and to hold up longer than the softer marble used elsewhere in the park, Mr. Carter explained.
"It should last at least 20 years or so," he said. "Maybe even more."
And maybe not. Two weeks after it was put in place, the new balustrade was hit, too. An unknown driver plowed into it from the south and knocked it slightly off its base. Ms. Morgan said the city intends to have the contractors reset it.
"It looks like somebody picked it up and moved it half an inch."
Maintaining the park is a never-ending job, and the only funds come from admission fees for the Washington Monument. At present, the parks department is working to repair another balustrade, which broke after someone leaned against it too heavily. The city also recently commissioned a plaque honoring philanthropist George Peabody to replace a vandalized one near the Peabody Institute.