A new National Park Service report supports Donald Trump’s proposed arch in Washington DC, despite acknowledging adverse effects on the sightlines of numerous landmarks, including the Washington Monument and the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.
The report, released Friday, states that the 250ft-tall (76-meter) memorial arch is likely to disrupt the historical significance of dozens of sites near its planned location adjacent to the Arlington Memorial Bridge.
Impact on iconic sightlines
Many of Washington’s monuments, buildings and sites have been carefully planned over decades to reflect significant moments in the nation’s history and to evoke symbolism through sightlines that connect them to other sites. The arch will disturb the sightline between more iconic Washington landmarks than anticipated, the report said.
However, the Park Service report argues that “the same characteristics that make Memorial Circle sensitive from a preservation perspective are also the characteristics that make it the historically appropriate location for the undertaking”.
The project’s effects cannot be “fully avoided without either relocating the Arch away from the historically identified site or eliminating the principal commemorative feature, both of which would fail to meet the undertaking’s purpose and need”, the report said. “For this reason, alternative locations outside Memorial Circle are not reasonable avoidance alternatives,” it added.
Legal challenge and affected sites
The 133-page report supports Trump’s plans for the arch and could play an important role in bolstering the administration’s case in its fight against a legal challenge filed by three veterans and a group of historians.
The proposed towering gilded arch, which last month received initial approval from a key federal commission, would affect the “integrity” of dozens of historic properties because it would change “character-defining visual and spatial relationships” among them.
One of the most obvious elements the report cited is that the arch would break alignment among the Lincoln Memorial, Memorial Bridge and Arlington House, which was the Confederate general Robert E Lee’s home. That alignment was “intended to physically and symbolically unite North and South through a coordinated monumental composition extending across the Potomac River”, the report said.
The Lincoln Memorial-Arlington House connection was one of dozens listed as being affected directly by the proposed structure. It added that the National Mall, the US Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the Georgetown Historic District, the Old Naval Observatory, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the National Cathedral and other sites also would be affected.
Reaction from legal challengers
Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, which is representing the plaintiffs, said the report “confirms what we’ve been saying all along: the project will have an enormous impact and transform that National Mall”.
The report underscores the legal challengers’ claim that a project of this size and importance “is a decision for Congress to make” and should not be rushed through by executive decree, Sansone said.
