We’ve written a lot about the proposal to tear down the Whitehurst Freeway and among planning posts we’ve done, the Whitehurst posts seem to attract a boatload of comments, ranging from the standard “it’s ugly, tear it down” response, to the more class warfare rallying call “Georgetowners just want to boost their already-inflated land values” to the Virginian-Foxhallian-Palisadesian retort “just think of the traffic!” to the forward-looking “just think of what the waterfront could be” way of thinking. This DCist personally likes the Whitehurst (pictured at right, in a photo by Rob Goodspeed) simply for the fact that either going in or out of the city via the Whitehurst, there is no other drive like it. The far-off moumental views going by at 35 miles an hour are unparalleled, something that would be lost if the freeway would be demolished. The replacement view of the back side of Georgetown Harbour complex simply would not be very impressive for the American capital. Seeing the Watergate and the Kennedy Center with the Washington Monument in the background is a treat, but it is something we are prepared to live without. (We just hope the District figures out where Route 29 goes …)

The Post this weekend wrote a good overview covering the Whitehurst issue, but we’d like to propose two questions which to our knowledge, haven’t been asked yet:
– Can urban beauty be found in the Whitehurst as it is now, exisiting within the overall framework of a city filled with green space and criss-crossed by grand monumental boulevards?
– Could the Whitehurst be considered a historic landmark?