Washington Park is worth being at early, before the heat, when the light comes level across the hill and the carillon has not started up. The streets ringing the park have lawns built for that hour — wide, sloping, hemmed with old shade — and they show every line a mower leaves behind. Cuts stay on a weekly schedule through the growing season, with trimming in close around the oaks and a cut edge along the sidewalk. Leaves come off in several passes each fall, since the big trees on those blocks never let go all at once. A yard held to that rhythm reads clean from the sidewalk all week, which is the point.