Washington DC is a planned city, as everyone knows. Peter L’Enfant’s plan from 1791 continues to guide the city even today, and changes to its streets are often allowed or denied based on a couple of lines drawn on parchment over 220 years ago.
Which is why it is so surprising to be walking around the Capitol and seeing numerous buildings which seem entirely out of place, squeezed in behind enormous marble federal buildings. Clearly, the planning has never quite gone far enough to eradicate such interlopers. But it hasn’t been for lack of trying, as an interesting document that recently fell into my hands shows.
The Master Plan for the United States Capitol is an over-sized, fully illustrated book put out by the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) and published by the GPO in 1981. In it are shown, in great detail, the changes that the AOC saw coming in the near future. It is a fascinating look into a future that, for the most part, never happened.
The biggest change is the almost complete eradication of non-monumental buildings between Washington Avenue (then still called Canal Street) and Louisiana Avenue – which are connected by a “ceremonial” road that sweeps around the reflecting pool. So gone is the Monocle, as well as the Methodist Building, and the reserve officers association building, as well as the rowhouses on D Street SE between S Capitol and New Jersey Avenue. Gone, too, are all the parking lots that – then as now – surrounded the Capitol.
In their stead are a number of parks, and many, many more office buildings. The whole area south of the House office buildings between Washington Avenue and 1st Street SE are new buildings, as well as a couple added just north of the Senate buildings. Clearly, the AOC foresaw a great need for further offices for both House and Senate.
The biggest change, however, was underground. Just to the east of the Capitol, and underground, was to be a multi-level car park, including special underground entrances for cars. Although it would have made for a distinct improvement in the surrounding area by the removal of parking lots, it would have made impossible the Capitol Visitor Center, ensuring that Congresspeople would continue to be surrounded by sweaty tourists from Dubuque while they attempted to go about their daily tasks.
The vision of Capitol Hill (AOC)
In short, it appears that little or none of this plan was ever implemented, and, in fact, most of the changes made in the intervening 30 years have been completely contradictory to the ideas outlined in the book, indicating that the AOC is no longer hoping to bring the Capitol grounds into line with the ideas put forth therein.
Which is too bad, as the idea of replacing parking lots with parks is a particularly excellent one, and the idea of bringing a certain uniformity to the area, in contrast to today’s hodgepodge, would also make DC seem more, well, representative.
But then, for a historian, there’s a certain joy in seeing that some non-governmental buildings have managed to survive in between their governmental siblings, a reminder that history is not linear, but rather proceeds at its own often messy pace, and that the best-made plans will succumb to outside influences that no one can predict.