A manual on the origin and development of Washington

by H. Paul Caemmerer

RESTORING THE MALL AXIS

According to the L’Enfant plan the Monument to George Washington was to be located at the point where a line drawn due west from the center of the Capitol would intersect a line drawn due south from the center of the White House. On these axial relations the Mall composition depended for its effect. The builders of the Washington Monument, despairing of securing adequate foundations in the lowlands at the intersection of the main and the cross axes, located the Monument without regard to points fixed in the plan. Feeling the absolute necessity of restoring these relationships, the Park Commission boldly determined to create a new main axis by drawing a line from the Capitol Dome through the Washington Monument and prolonging it to the shore of the Potomac, where they proposed, on the then unimproved lands dredged from the river to form Potomac Park, a site for a new memorial. Here they placed the long-contemplated memorial to Abraham Lincoln. This they did with full comprehension of the fact that by common consent Lincoln is the one man in the history of this Nation worthy to stand with Washington in the great central composition.

PLAN OF THE MALL

The original intersection had been marked by Thomas Jefferson by a small monument known as the Jefferson Pier. In the McMillan Park Commission plan of 1901 this pier is indicated by a circular pool. That commission, as has been said, restored the cross axis of the Mall, and from the Mall plan of 1901 by actual measurement the Washington Monument is 371.6 feet east of the north and south axis of the White House, and 123.17 feet south of the Capitol axis.

EXTENDING THE MALL AXIS TO THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL

While this location of the Lincoln Memorial commended itself to men like Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Elihu Root, and William H. Taft, it was opposed by many others, who had regard to the immediate future and who did not consider either the historical significance of the situation or the prospective development of Potomac Park, then far from the more populous parts of the city and thus seemingly isolated and remote. The struggle over this location, and indeed over any memorial of an ideal character, was long and bitter. Nor was it ended during the lifetime of Mr. McKim and Mr. Saint-Gaudens. Happily, however, the result was determined in accordance with the commission plan, and to-day no other site seems possible. This was a distinct victory for the plan, virtually insuring the realization of the large scheme as laid out in 1901.

The Park Commission wrote as follows:

From the Monument garden westward a canal 3,600 feet long and 200 feet wide, with central arms and bordered by stretches of green walled with trees, leads to a concourse raised to the height of the Monument platform. Seen from the Monument this canal, similar in character to the canals at Versailles and Fontainebleau in France and Hampton Court in England, introduces into the formal landscape an element of repose and great beauty. At the head of the canal a great rond-point, placed on the main axis of the Capitol and the Monument, becomes a gate of approach to the park system of the District of Columbia. Centering upon it as a great point of reunion are the drives leading southeast to Potomac Park and northwest by the Riverside Drive to the Rock Creek system of parks. From this elevation of 40 feet the Memorial Bridge leads across the Potomac directly to the base of the hill crowned by the mansion house of Arlington.