June 1, 2006
Mall Adjusted
Arguments over where to put new monuments on the National Mall have grown increasingly frequent and divisive as the front lawn has filled up. In 2003, Congress banned new construction on the Mall's cross-axis, beyond what had already been approved. In 2004, the National Museum of the American Indian and the World War II Memorial opened, and recently, a trapezoidal spot just northeast of the Washington Monument was chosen as the location for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. The increasing clutter has led to discussions on expanding the Mall's area, or at least increasing the utilization of Mall spots that go underused.
Later this month, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton plans to introduce legislation that would expand the Mall around the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers and up to RFK, according to an article in today's District Extra. The piece also notes that the National Capital Planning Commission is seeking to improve and monumentify other federal land around the downtown area:
To ease pressure on the Mall, the National Capital Planning Commission is kicking off a series of public meetings in the next few weeks to formulate a plan on how to beautify other federal lands to become Mall-like homes to future monuments and museums. Doing so also would draw tourists to other parts of the city.In addition to the RFK site and Poplar Point, they include the Northwest Rectangle, Federal Triangle, Southwest Federal Center, South Capitol Street, East Potomac Park and the Banneker Overlook, at the foot of L'Enfant Plaza.
Ah, yes, the Northwest Rectangle. Still, much of the attraction of some of these locations is their availability for recreational activities (East Potomac Park) or commercial use (South Capitol Street). And while an important part of Washington's city fabric is the Mall, serving as the national center for remembrance and repository of historical knowledge and artifacts, this is a working city, and its status as home and place of business for the cogs of government is vital. Congress should be careful not to harm the working city in creating the memorial city.
But what do our readers think? Should the Mall continue to occupy only its current space and grow more crowded, should it expand to include more of the city, or should the District Mall declare itself closed, leaving other monuments for our neighbors?
Picture taken by andertho.
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I said this a few months ago. Keep the mall as it is. It's an open forum for all sorts. From protesting to sporting events. To build stuff on it and take away from what careful planning brought would be sad.
I might have my history wrong, but wasn't the mall croweded just 100 years ago and alot of time, money, and energy was taken to remove crap from the area like a train depot?
Less than a 100 years ago. The temporary buildings for the War Dept. on the Mall lasted past completion of the Pentagon as other agencies used them.
how about, instead of making the mall bigger, we make the mall more enjoyable. Benches. water fountains. Perhaps some place to actually get food or a beverage. More trash cans. better foot paths around the tidal basin to handle the cherry blossom crowds. etc.
It wasn't so much that the mall had too many things in it a hundred years ago. It was more that there really wasn't a mall. It was an unplanned open space without strong defining boundaries, which is one reason that the Smithsonian Castle isn't inline with the buildings on either side.
The problem, though, is that (as Jane Jacobs has pointed out) the City Beautiful movement was pretty much a failure. Lining a park or parkway with a bunch of monumental buildings does not a living city make.
The Mall is walled off from the rest of Washington by the Smithsonian and the Federal Triangle. And as some tourists have discovered recently, that can make for a very unsafe place. There aren't "eyes on the street" as Jacobs would have said. The museums close, the offices shut down for the evening and the mall is pretty much a potential magnet for thieves.
It was never L'Enfants idea for the mall to be the center of all our monuments or monumental buildings. He pictured Paris, with monuments and cultural buildings spread throughout the city and at key intersections, at the end of key boulevards. And in the traffic circles.
The Macmillian commission pretty much scraped this idea of controlled chaos for the overly ordered, white marble city that we've got today. It may look all "historic," but that mentaility is pretty much a precursor to Crystal City and Reston in every way.
From a purely philospohical perspective, I say keep the Mall as it is and get better at planning and space utilization (water fountains and benches wouldn't hurt either). Thing is, there is only so much room, and until we're ready for more underground development, there's gonna have to be some space expansion.
I would vehemently oppose displacing any more businesses or residents, and be really skeptical of building over green spaces (they are, if nothing else, one of the really great features of DC). Knocking over some under-used federal cube farms wouldn't bother me in the least.
All in all, I think this is actually a good thing for people to be considering.
I think they're overlooking the Northeast Rhombus.
Keep the mall as it is. In fact, make it bigger. There are definitely some items we should tear down/get rid of to create more open space.
1) The ugly and useless reflecting pool at the east end. Who likes this thing? What an enormous waste of space.
2) The greenhouse/botantical gardens. Can't this go somewhere else? It's an eyesore, at least on the the outside.
3) The ugly-ass tent/refreshment stand just east of the Washington monument.
I like the idea of expanding the mall southward into East Potomac Park. It's a terribly golf course anyway
The next thing to add is about 100 tons of compost, and about 50 tons of grass seed on the Mall....Honestly, with all our science and gardening skills in this county, why can't we grow grass on the mall that is durable and green, most of the year.
Also, wasn’t there talk about building a new Supreme Court building on East Potomac Park...this was right after a chunk of marble fell from the facade in fall.
Yup found it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2005/12/09/GR2005120900161.html
ok, i guess i have to ask an obvious question here....where is the northwest rectangle??? i thought i knew this city pretty well, but i'm stumped here
The solution to grass problems on the Mall: astroturf.
Thanks for the link RJ. Those proposals for East Potomac park are atrocious. They are so typical of the terrible illconceived ideas that architects seem to come up with when they look at DC. Put the Supreme Court on an island with limited road access and just about zero metro access? What?! Put a waterfront market on an island that nobody lives on and which can't be reached easily by metro? Are they kidding?
These are just as stoopid as the ideas for the Kennedy Center. There they expect that by building a bridge from the mall to the Kennedy Center, all the sudden people will decide to walk there. An idea which assumes that people will want to walk that far in clothes they expect to sit through a concert in, and that for some reason people are just hanging out around E St. expressway wondering how to get to the Kennedy Center (rather than just getting out at Foggy Bottom and taking the shuttle).
I like the idea of redeveloping the RFK site someday. With the new baseball stadium coming by 2010 and a soccer-only stadium idea being tossed around, what's to become of that huge piece of land?
Anyone like the idea of an "Eastern Mall?"
I'm really not sure how much Jane Jacobs can tell us about making truly useful parks. Parks are a completely different animal from neighborhoods and streets. Parks that get a lot of use and become symbols of their city have a lot in common. The problem is that a lot of these common characteristics will never be considered for the mall.
For example, Central Park in New York and Vondel Park in Amsterdam. These parks have a number of recognized gateways, compartmentalized spaces, and spaces of varying size. As a result users in the millions visit the park for different reasons and yet they all come away thinking of the parks as great exemplars of the city in which they are located.
That said, I can't imagine anyone with any planning power committing to a true reimagining of the spaces on the mall.
Jesse,
Jane Jacobs has a lot to say about parks, something that you would surely find out if you had actually read "Life and Death" before you started commenting on her.
The real problem here is Federal Triangle. It is an unbridgable barrier between the attractions of the mall and the rest of the city. These are highly fortified buldings with imposing facades. Foot traffic around these buildings is light because of the security that workers must go through to get in and out of the buildings. There is no ground level retail either. With all the foot traffic the Mall generates, there could have been a whole host of shops and restaurants and other enjoyable amenities around the Mall, making for a vibrant people-watching spot.
E. Potomac Park developments could work if a Yellow Line stop was put there. Not sure how feasible that is, though.
Yes, Jane Jacobs had a lot to say about parks. What I was trying to say is that most people who only read Jacobs once or only read critiques of her work focus on her comments on streets and neighborhoods. I apologize for the poorly written intro to my comment. I'm just tired of people using some of her work as if it addresses all urban problems.
Please go ahead and assume that I have never read Jane Jacobs.
One word: Condos
;)
What are the chances that the Federal government would redesign some of the buildings in the federal triangle to be more like the Reagan building in having ground-level retail?
I can't believe I just wished something was more like Reagan... anyway, it sure would be great to have tasteful restaurants and/or shops lining PA avenue and Constitution avenue.
Remember, Reagan is probably the nicest useful government building in the United States by a huge margin
Remember, Reagan is probably the nicest useful government building in the United States by a huge margin
The problem is not of the Mall but rather the lack of ground level retail (and the early closings of such nearby).
Several years of planning with widespread participation via the U.S. National Capital Planning Commission led to the concept of a South Capitol Mall, that was illustrated on the cover of NCPC's 1997 publication "Extending the Legacy: Planning America's Capital for the 21st Century".
http://wwwsouthcapitolstreet.blogspot.com/