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HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY L'ENFANT-MCMILLIAN PLAN OF WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Federal City) HABS NO. DC-668 Location: City of Washington, District of Columbia. The location of the proposed structure--along with its related sites, structures, buildings, and objects--is roughly established on the east-southeast by the Anacostia River from Constitution Avenue, NE, to the Washington Channel; on the west-southwest by the Potomac River, up to and along Rock Creek to Sheridan Circle at 24th and R streets, NW; the boundary continues east one-and-one-half blocks to Florida Avenue, NW, which demarks the boundary northeastward, then east, then southeast to 15th Street, NE; continuing south to C Street, it follows this route east to its terminus at Anacostia Park. The boundaries of the nominated city plan extend beyond the D.C. shoreline to the high-tide level reached by the river on the opposite Virginia and D.C. shoreline, excluding Columbia Island. The area encompasses approximately 3,500 acres within zip codes 20001, 20002, 20003, 20004, 20005, 20006, 20007, 20008, 20009, 20024, 20036 and 2003 7. Present Owner: The reservations, structures, etc. included are owned by the Federal Government, Department of the Interior, National Park Service and by the District of Columbia city government. Present Use: The nominated area includes all parks and reservations; streets and avenues; buildings, structures, and objects; and corridor of open space that extends from original building line to building line and forms the right-of-way; though they may not be nominated, specific scenic vistas along major axes and among major monuments are important features to the character of the plan. The ceiling of the nominated area is not lower than the maximum allowable height of the buildings on adjacent blocks. Significance: The historic plan of Washington, District of Columbia--the nation's capital-­ designed by Pierre L 'Enfant in 1791 as the site of the Federal City, represents the sole American example of a comprehensive baroque city plan with a coordinated system of radiating avenues, parks and vistas laid over an orthogonal system. Influenced by the designs of several European cities and eighteenth-century gardens such as France's Palace of Versailles, the plan of Washington, D.C., was symbolic and innovative for the new nation. Existing colonial towns surely influenced L'Enfant's scheme, just as the plan of Washington, in turn, influenced subsequent American city planning. Limited changes were made to the historic city--bounded by Florida Avenue on the north and the waterways on the east, west, and south--until after the Civil War. The foremost manipulation of L'Enfant's plan of Washington began in the late nineteenth century, and was codified in 1901 with the McMillan Commission, which directed urban improvements that resulted in the most elegant example of City Beautiful tenets in the nation. L'Enfant's plan was magnified and expanded during the early decades of the twentieth century with the reclamation of land for waterfront parks, parkways, and improved Mall, L'ENFANT-MCMILLIAN PLAN OF WASHINGTON, DC HABS No. DC-668 (Page 2) and new monuments and vistas. Two-hundred years since its design, the integrity of the plan of Washington is largely unimpaired--boasting a legally enforced height restriction, landscaped parks, wide avenues, and open space allowing intended vistas. Historian: Elizabeth Barthold. Edited by Sara Amy Leach. Project Statement: The project to document L'Enfant Plan of the City of Washington was undertaken from 1990 through 1993 by the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) of the National Park Service, Robert J. Kapsch Chief. The project was sponsored by Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Inc. of Washington, D.C.; the Historic Preservation Division, District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, which provided Historic Preservation Fund monies; the National Capital Region (NCR) of the National Park Service and its White House Liaison Office; and the National Park Foundation Inc. HABS historian Sara Amy Leach was the project leader and Elizabeth J. Barthold was the project historian. Architectural Delineators were: Robert Arzola, HABS; Julianne Jorgensen, University of Maryland; Robert Juskevich, Catholic University of America; Sandra M.E. Leiva, US/ICOMOS­ Argentina; and Tomasz Zweich, US/ICOMOS-Poland, Board of Historical Gardens and Palace Conservation. Katherine Grandine served as date collector. The photographs were taken by John McWilliams, Atlanta, except for the aerial views, which are by Jack E. Boucher, HABS, courtesy of the U.S. Park Police-Aviation Division. L'ENFANT-MCMILLIAN PLAN OF WASHINGTON, DC HABS No. DC-668 (Page 3) CONTENTS Pierre Charles L'Enfant's Plan . 1 Andrew Ellicott's Plan ................................................. 1800-1860: Slow Growth ............................................... Early Threats and Intrusions to the Plan . .... U.S. Department of the Interior . The Civil War . The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers . Formation of a Territorial Government ...................................... Beyond the L 'Enfant Plan . Regulating Building Heights . The McMillan Senate Park Commission . Early Effects of the McMillan Commission . .. World War I and Washington, D.C. ....................................... Toward a Comprehensive Plan . The New Deal in Washington ............................................ Adapting the Plan for Automobiles World War II and Decentralization Urban Blight and Southwest Redevelopment ................................... The Inner Loop and the Southeast/Southwest Freeway . Redevelopment Plans for Virginia and Pennsylvania Avenues . WMATA and the Development of Regionwide Public Transportation . Significance of L'Enfant's City Today ....................................... Home Rule Summary: Looking Ahead ............................................. Appendix A: List of Reservations/Parks and Avenues documented by HABS/HAER . Appendix B: Planned Capitals, American and Ideal Cities--Before and After Washington, D.C. Sources Consulted . L'ENFANT-MCMILLIAN PLAN OF WASHINGTON, DC HABS No. DC-668 (Page 4) From the Tidal Basin to Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C.,'s magnificence comes as much from its urban landscape as from its buildings. Large green expanses such as the monumental Mall and the Potomac parks, and small triangles along the avenues landscaped with trees and benches, provide generous areas of open space throughout the historic city. 1 Coupled with the building-height restriction that allows sunlight to reach the streets, the system of open spaces connected by wide avenues gives Washington an undeniable openness. While Washington has few structures that date to its founding, this network of avenues, streets and open spaces, designed in 1791, remains largely intact today. Although threatened during its 200-year history--and in several instances, violated--the original design of Washington is a landmark urban plan meriting study, assessment, and preservation as it enters its third century. Pierre Charles L'Enfant's Plan A congressional act of July 16, 1790, empowered the president of the United States to appoint three commissioners of the District of Columbia to lay out the city and oversee the construction of government buildings. Andrew Ellicott (1754-1820) and Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) surveyed a diamond-shaped area measuring ten miles on each side and encompassing the forks of the Potomac River and its Eastern Branch, the Anacostia. Forty stone markers, each a mile apart, were erected to mark the boundary from the celestial calculations of Banneker, a self-taught astronomer of African descent, and one of few free blacks living in the vicinity. Within this 100-square-mile diamond, which would become the District of Columbia, a smaller area was laid out as the City of Washington. Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant (1755-1825), a French artist and engineer who had formed a friendship with George Washington while serving in the Revolutionary War, asked for the honor of devising a city plan for the roughly 6,111-acre area that" would become Washington. The thriving port of Alexandria was located on the southern edge of the ten-mile-square, and another port city, Georgetown, was located within the diamond west of Rock Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River that defined the northwest boundary of the planned federal city. Within the city boundaries, towns called Hamburg and Carrollsburg had been already been planned on paper, although neither had been laid out on the land. A census of Prince George's County shows that the area to become the City of Washington was occupied by twenty households consisting of 720 persons: thirty-seven free white males older than 16, thirty-five free white males under 16, fifty-three white females, four other free persons, and 591 slaves. 2 The fact that the area was largely undeveloped gave the city founders George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, as well as Pierre L 'Enfant, the unique opportunity of creating a capital city that would define the identity of the nation it would serve. After surveying the site, L 'Enfant developed a plan in the baroque tradition of ceremonial spaces and grand radial avenues while respecting the natural contours of the land, in the manner of a picturesque English garden. 3 The result was a system of orthogonal streets with intersecting diagonal avenues radiating from two of the highest points in the city, selected as sites for

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