The National Mall is officially crowded. Now that the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is set to open next week, all the usable space intended to be used for museums, monuments and other important national sites have been taken. The Post explores the politics of the National Mall in this morning's edition. Everybody wants a piece of it, but there's no room to spare.

In fact, the chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, John V. Cogbill III, tells the post that the Mall is "[d]one. We consider the Mall a finished work of civic art."

But there is still at least one big battle that is being fought. Supporters of the future National Museum of African American History and Culture think they deserve a spot on the Mall. The museum has a nod from Congress and the White House on everything except for a location. Some museum supporters are pushing a location at the corner of 15th Street and Constitution Avenue, between the Washington Monument and the Museum of American History.

What does this mean in a broader sense? One-hundred years of planning and construction after the McMillan Commission changed the size and scope of the National Mall, its mission seems complete.

The old Fourth Street train station was moved off the Mall. Union Station was built. The Tiber Creek and canal was filled in. And the tidal flats to the south and west of 17th Street and Constitution Avenue were drained and became a massive public park and grounds for monuments for Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR and memorials for fallen soliders and veterans in Vietnam, Korea and World War II.

DCist asks whether there be a new McMillan Commission for the 21st century. The Post suggests that parts of the city that seem odd today as likely spots for museums and monuments, e.g. North Capitol Street, South Capitol Street corridor, and RFK Stadium, may be tapped.

For the time being, one of the prime spots right now still sort of close to the Mall is the Benjamin Banneker Overlook at the end of L'Enfant Plaza Promenade.