Happy 250th, America! As we celebrate our country’s founding and look hopefully toward the future of the American experiment, we must also rededicate ourselves to an encouraging future for our National Mall, the Stage for American Democracy: We need a new plan for the Mall’s 3rd Century!
The Mall today is facing unprecedented challenges. The historic blueprints for the Mall and the public’s role in shaping this symbolic landscape are under attack by the President’s unilateral and highly unpopular actions: destruction of the White House East Wing, an oversized Ballroom, a botched Reflecting Pool paint job, a National Garden of Heroes replacing public ball fields, a colossal Triumphal Arch severing the physical and visual connection of Lincoln and Arlington National Cemetery, and opposed by many veterans. A New York Times headline sums it up well: “Washington Has Been Carefully Planned for Two Centuries. Now Trump has His Own Designs.” Trump-appointed design review agencies deluged with public opposition nonetheless defer to his wishes. Moreover, a dozen or more agencies of the federal and DC governments have some jurisdiction over aspects of the Mall but do not collaborate or communicate about their priorities and initiatives.
It’s time to celebrate our 250th with a new 3rd Century Mall Plan that recommits to the historic inspiration, one that advances an optimistic, hopeful, forward-looking vision for the next 250 years and embraces the voices of the American people in shaping aspirations for the future.
The Founders’ Brilliant Planning Legacy
The original 1791 L’Enfant Plan – a collaboration of Peter (Pierre) Charles L’Enfant, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson – provided the visionary framework for today’s Mall. It laid out the capital, with the Mall at its heart, as an embodiment of the US Constitution: the Capitol located on the highest spot (Capitol Hill), the President’s House a mile away on a lower rise, a monument to George Washington on axis with both the Capitol and President’s House, all set within an expansive open space with “public walks” dedicated to We the People. A century later, after years of neglect and missteps, the 1901-2 McMillan Plan restored and extended L’Enfant’s Mall, adding sites to accommodate the Lincoln Memorial and Memorial Bridge along with the site for the future Jefferson Memorial and hundreds of acres of parkland dedicated to public recreation. In 2003, to protect this legacy, Congress declared the Mall a “substantially completed work of civic art.” But Congress then continues to approve new museums and onuments.
Let’s face it, the Mall cannot be completed any more than our history as an evolving, functional, secure nation is completed.
Now, more than ever, we need a vision for the Mall’s future. The American people need to demand that Congress create an independent 3rd Century Mall commission of architects and landscape architects, environmental scientists, civic leaders, historians, and educators to lead us in a collaborative effort to create a forward-looking, hopeful plan for the 3rd Century Mall that lays out how our Stage for Democracy can continue to grow and accommodate additions, and to tell the continually evolving American story through museums, monuments, memorials, and public open spaces.
We’ve Been Here Before
We’ve done it before, we can do it again. The Mall has recovered time and again from neglect of the founding vision. During the Civil War, Armory Square Hospital crossed the open expanse from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. A train station and railroad tracks bisected L’Enfant’s grand promenade. Even the 1901-2 McMillan Plan’s extension of the Mall to include the Lincoln Memorial, Memorial Bridge, and Jefferson Memorial took another 30 years and a Great Depression to spur government funding for the Mall, creating the majestic landscape we have today. Moreover, WWI and WWII “temporary” buildings filled the spaces around the Reflecting Pool and at the foot of the Washington Monument until they were removed in the 1970s.
What does this history teach us?
The planning legacy inspires and endures across generations. But like our democracy it suffers periods of neglect until we, the American people, are awakened – as we are today by the President’s ill-conceived and poorly planned redesigns. Without a forward-looking, comprehensive plan to guide intelligent growth, without conscientious, coordinated governance, without dedicated funding, and without meaningful and careful design review, the Mall will revert to chaos.
The Task Ahead
A Mall commission can start by creating a 3rd Century expansion plan with spaces for future museums and memorials. It can devise a public-spirited governance body with the mandate and authority to implement the 3rd Century Plan. And it can propose a means of dedicated funding, a 3rd Century Mall Foundation, for example, to ensure private money and private interests cannot redesign the Mall with impunity.
THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW!
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About the National Mall Coalition: The National Mall Coalition has advocated for the Mall’s public interest for more than 25 years, including on the recent Mall projects. We have joined two lawsuits, the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s suit against the White House Ballroom and Democracy Forward’s lawsuit challenging the National Garden of American Heroes location on West Potomac Park. Read our testimony concerning the Triumphal Arch, the Ballroom, and our press release on the Garden of Heroes.
Tags: 3rd Century Mall, National Mall
