June 27, 2006
L'Enfant to Congress?
Will a Frenchman represent the District in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall? It looks like it.
According to an online chat with WTOP Political Reporter Mark Plotkin over at the Post, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the man George Washington charged with designing the District, has been chosen as one of the city's two statues for the famed hall in the U.S. Capitol. As we reported in April, the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities allowed residents to vote for two District notables to represent the city in Statuary Hall, including in the list of candidates such luminaries as Thurgood Marshall, Frederick Douglass and Duke Ellington. According to Plotkin, of the six finalists, L'Enfant is the least qualified to represent the District:
I personally felt that Walter Washington and Joe Rauh or John Hechinger would have been great selections. The other finalists were Charles Houston, Mary Church Terrell, Sterling Brown and Fredrick Douglas was also selected. To me Pierre L'Enfant is a federal foreign contractor. Yes, he did design the city, but he is not of the city.What say you, D.C.? Should L'Enfant be given the spot? And before you comment, let this much be said -- Marion Barry was never in the running.
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None of this matters, under current law, DC does not get to put any statues in the Capitol (you must be a state). This vote was merely to select the statues, if, IF, DC ever gets to put them in.
Trust me, you and I will never see a statue of Pierre L'Enfant, or Marion Barry, or Alfonso Sorioano in the Capitol in our lifetimes. It ain't gonna happen.
It would be a crime if Frederick Douglass did not get chosen. I don't have anything against L'Enfant though. He was responsible for the layout of the city and D.C. would not be D.C. without him.
Clearly Butterstick should represent the city.
Am I the only one who curses Pierre L'Enfant on a near-daily basis for this nightmare of a city design? And how in hell is he a better candidate than Thurgood Marshall?! Sorry, I just had to vent.
So according to SWester these will just be DC's "shadow statues" should that glory day come when DC becomes a state? I like L'Enfant (DC's layout makes much more sense that Paris') and would vote for Frederick Douglass too, but DC has too many shadows already!