Over-Development On The National Mall - Special Interest Groups Each Fighting For Their Own Pet Projects

[The Hersch]

The pictures of the leafy green mall in that article remind me of how much I *don't* want any more development anytime soon.

Do you suppose we can get them to tear out the WWII Memorial?

Anyway, at least it doesn't look like this anymore:

This photograph is from 1942. The buildings along the north side (to the right) of the reflecting pool were built during the First World War, although the top story on each of those long wings was added during the Second. They were known as the Munitions Building (nearer the river) and Main Navy. The buildings in the foreground and to the left (where the "landscape portrait" is currently installed) were built during the Second World War. Note the little bridges over the pool connecting the two rows of buildings. When my family moved to the Washington area in 1963, I believe the WWII buildings on the south had already been removed, but the ones in the foreground, at least some of them, were still standing. They were torn down later in the decade, I don't know when, exactly. The massive WWI temporaries facing Constitution Avenue were still in use until just before they were demolished in 1970.

[DonRocks]

Your photo is absolutely amazing. Who knew that the Mall was more of an eyesore 72 years ago than it is today? Well, at least then it was for a good reason.

Do you suppose we can get them to tear out the WWII memorial?

Funny, I've *always* said that. The photo from this article is the first time I've ever enjoyed looking at it - up close, it's an eyesore, a travesty, and an architectural joke - this all said despite my father being in it. My mom, who donated to this memorial, was *so proud*. Same with the Korean War Veterans Memorial (walking soldiers notwithstanding, which are somewhat moving, albeit poorly executed), and the FDR Memorial (a big slab of condescending concrete and not much more).

What else can we do to fuck up the remaining mall space out of our own short-term selfishness?

Take, take, take. All we know how to do is take. That's why there's global warming as well as uncountable other problems which have spiraled out of control. Because we're selfish and we suck. Don't even get me started on chain restaurants.

[The Hersch]

 this all said despite my father being in it. My mom, who donated to this memorial, was *so proud*.

Both my father and mother served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War, which is how they met. I'm pretty sure my mother has never offered an opinion on the WWII memorial, nor has she ever visited it. She has offered negative comments on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which she also hasn't visited, because she's a right-wing crank about such things. The Vietnam memorial is the best thing that's been created in Washington in my lifetime, and when you look at the history of it it's astonishing that it got built at all. It still moves me to tears when I see it.

"Went on a duck hunt with Hirohito" is a wonderful thing for one's father to have done.

What else can we do to fuck up the remaining mall space out of our own short-term selfishness?

The Eisenhower Memorial? (Not really on the Mall, but fucked up beyond describing, even after the recent modifications to the plan.)

[Barbara]

 (You didn't ask but I detest the Lincoln Memorial. Such a graceless, joyless structure, and the gargantuan statue of Lincoln enthroned is grotesque.)

Speaking of cranks . . . 

Driving back into DC from the wilds of Virginia last night, we drove across the Memorial Bridge and onto Rock Creek Parkway. I've lived here almost all of my adult life and I have never ceased to be thrilled by the sight of that memorial--especially when it's lit at night. Nothing makes be feel better than the sight of the Mall from the inside of a plane landing at National. Looks like home to me.

[DonRocks]

Amazingly ironic in view of the controversy.  A tremendous testimony to the vision of the artist.

As long as we're being grumps, may I add that the Korean War Memorial "Wall Of Faces" is a travesty and a rip-off, and does a disservice to Korean War Veterans? (This is why I specifically referred to the "Marching Soldiers" up above which I think are pretty cool (if a bit kitschy); the wall is just awful, and I'm somewhat ashamed of it.

Speaking of cranks . . .  

Driving back into DC from the wilds of Virginia last night, we drove across the Memorial Bridge and onto Rock Creek Parkway. I've lived here almost all of my adult life and I have never ceased to be thrilled by the sight of that memorial--especially when it's lit at night. Nothing makes be feel better than the sight of the Mall from the inside of a plane landing at National. Looks like home to me.

I have to agree with Barbara - the Lincoln Memorial is old enough and Classical enough where it's beyond reproach in my eyes. However, I thoroughly agree with The Hersch about both the WWII Memorial and the Eisenhower Memorial, both of which are classic bureaucratic examples of "Design by Committee" which inevitably gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator - both works are shameful and embarrassing.

"Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial Gets A Break" on archdaily.com tells us that because of a couple concessions made, the project is now going to the "Commission on Fine Arts" <yawn> for approval. Death by bureaucracy, and further fucking up what is arguably the most important public space in the United States. *What is wrong with *trees* and leaving things alone or minimally disrupted?* Please, God, send a lightning bolt down onto the FDR Memorial (at night, when nobody will be hurt). Please. If I were Maya Lin, I would spend many a night in tears. "Commission on Fine Arts" - what a joke. This is the time when we need a benevolent dictator with some taste. Yes, the western portion of the Mall needs landscaping - badly - but not like this.

[The Hersch]

The one good thing to be said about the Eisenhower memorial is that it would hide the Department of Education Building, than which there are few Washington buildings uglier.

I'm all for public monuments to historically important or otherwise inspiring personages. I'd prefer that we keep more to the tradition for such things that is millennia old in western civilization: Put up a statue. Far finer than the wretched colossus in the not-quite Greek temple on the Potomac is this, the first public monument to our greatest president:

Can you see why I love this (1868) and don't love the other (1922)?

Incidentally, the Commission of Fine Arts has a mixed but in many ways illustrious history. Its first chairman was Daniel Burnham, for god's sake.

[Tweaked]

People should visit the original FDR Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the Archives.

"In September, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called his friend, Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter, to the White House and asked the Justice to remember the wish he then expressed:

"If any memorial is erected to me, I know exactly what I should like it to be. I should like it to consist of a block about the size of this (putting his hand on his desk) and placed in the center of that green plot in front of the Archives building. I don't care what it is made of, whether limestone, or granite or whatnot, but I want it plain without ornamentation, with the simple carving, "˜In Memory Of ___________________'."

A small group of living associates of the President, on April 12, 1965, the twentieth anniversary of his death, fulfilled his wish by providing and dedicating this modest memorial."

[The Hersch]

Your photo is absolutely amazing. Who knew that the Mall was more of an eyesore 72 years ago than it is today? Well, at least then it was for a good reason.

Not just 72 years ago, but up until less than 45 years ago, when the WWI temporaries were finally torn down and replaced with Constitution Gardens. Because my father was a naval officer and then a retired naval officer, when I was a boy the Main Navy Facility on Constitution Avenue was where I went to the doctor, right up until I went away to college. I remember what seemed like miles and miles of linoleum, that was obviously polished and repolished every day. (The Navy is very big on swabbing the decks.) The walls always seemed to be in a state of advanced decay.

This is what the Constitution Avenue facade looked like:

This is from the early 50s, but it hadn't changed much by the late 60s.

[Barbara]

The Eisenhower memorial? (Not really on the Mall, but fucked up beyond describing, even after the recent modifications to the plan.)

I have been saying this ever since I saw the monstrosity that Gehry wanted to add onto the Corcoran a few years ago: the Emperor has no clothes. I am soooo very grateful that they couldn't come up with the $150 million or so that it would have cost to completely desecrate the original building.

Gehry is an architect whose sole inspiration is: Look at ME!!!  A pox on all his houses. Why he was chosen to design the Eisenhower Memorial is absolutely beyond me. Nothing he could design belongs anywhere in this particular city. I throw (virtual) bouquets at the feet of Susan Eisenhower for standing up for her Grandfather and demanding changes.

Any memorial to Eisenhower needs, desperately, to go back to the drawing board. And, Gehry needs to go somewhere else.

[The Hersch]

I completely agree about Gehry. I was in Bilbao a few years ago, and Gehry's Guggenheim Building was the one thing in the whole city that I hated. As I remarked to my friend at the time, a century hence they will be asking "what the fuck were they thinking?" I loved Bilbao, though; everyone ought to visit.

To bring this around to food, my friend and I went to some corner joint of a restaurant, where, typically, they have the day's bill of fare posted on a chalkboard outside, but nothing inside but a waiter who can tell you the day's dishes but only in Spanish, which I have almost none of. When the communication problem became obviously insurmountable, the waiter beckoned us with his hand, and led me and my friend back into the kitchen to look at and choose from the dishes that were on the stove. It was one of my favorite restaurant moments of my whole life, and the highlight of my visit to Bilbao. We had a wonderful lunch.

[lovehockey]

The Eisenhower Memorial design needs to go back to the drawing board.  Personally, I think Eisenhower would be appalled at the whole idea.

As for the memorials we already have, I'll just relate the following:  Earlier this evening when I wanted to avoid traffic in the 3rd Street Tunnel and 295 I went down Washington Avenue, which merges into South Capitol Street.  Looking over at the new memorial for disabled vets, I saw a veteran in a wheelchair who had both legs amputated, with two others standing alongside him.  I regret not pulling over at the first chance, walking back, and saying thanks for his service.