A manual on the origin and development of Washington

As a result of the World War, Government departments in Washington became overcrowded, and from 30,000 to 40,000 employees were housed in temporary buildings. This congested situation made a public-building program one of urgent need. For 40 years no real department building had been erected in Washington. The Department of Agriculture was in 47 rented buildings. The Department of War and the Department of the Navy were housed in many temporary war buildings.

PLANS AS DEVELOPED

In 1910 plans were authorized for three department buildings—Justice, Commerce and Labor, and State—to be built along Fifteenth Street, between Pennsylvania Avenue and B Street NW., now Constitution Avenue, and the land in this locality was bought by the Government, but the building project was deferred. Again, in 1913, Congress took up the question of a public-building program, and in 1917 a comprehensive survey was made by the Public Buildings Commission of the needs of the Government for additional buildings. At that time the area south of Pennsylvania Avenue along Fifteenth Street to Constitution Avenue, which in 1910 was proposed for three buildings, was designated for two buildings. Then came the World War, during which the many temporary war buildings were erected. President Coolidge in his message to Congress on December 9, 1925, called attention to the great need for public buildings and asked for an annual appropriation of $10,000,000. He said:

The public buildings act was approved May 25, 1926.

This marked the beginning of a public-buildings program in the National Capital greater than any which had been undertaken by the United States since the establishment of the seat of government along the banks of the Potomac in 1790.

Congress placed the public-buildings program in the hands of the Secretary of the Treasury, both for Federal buildings in the States and for the District of Columbia. To assist him in the plans for new public buildings here in the National Capital the Secretary of the Treasury appointed a board of architectural consultants. The Commission of Fine Arts has been called upon regularly to advise in the development of the plans for the new public buildings.

Five years had not yet elapsed when the long pent-up needs for buildings to accommodate public business finally burst their bonds in the act of 1926. The preparations for the flood had been long in the making—so long and so carefully considered, indeed, that the flood has always been under control. There has been no haphazard planning. No hasty or ill-considered work has been done. The harmonious development of the National Capital has progressed in form that would have pleased George Washington, and latterly with a speed and vigor that would have gladdened his heart.

In addition to the great public-buildings program and the Arlington Memorial Bridge, Congress authorized during the past ten years many other great projects for the development of the National Capital which contribute to making Washington the greatest and most beautiful national capital in the world. Among these are: The completion of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington, the restoration of Arlington Mansion, the Mount Vernon Highway, the George Washington Memorial Parkway, the enlargement of the Capitol Grounds and development of Union Station Plaza, development of the Mall, addition to the House Office Building, addition to the Library of Congress, United States Supreme Court Building, Government Printing Office extension, Social Security Building, War Department Building, Navy Department Building, new Naval Hospital, Municipal Center development, Walter Reed General Hospital buildings, Botanic Garden and new conservatory near the Capitol, and a National Arboretum.

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

Pennsylvania Avenue is the great historic avenue of the Nation, particularly that portion between the legislative and executive branches of the Government—the Capitol and the White House—extending a distance of 1 mile. It was named by Congress at the time the plan of Washington was under consideration, in compliment to the State of Pennsylvania. In the time of Thomas Jefferson it was a dusty highway, and to add beauty to it he planted quick-growing poplar trees. Being about at sea level in elevation, it was the scene of rowboats in times of flood as late as the year 1880. Several large department stores of the city to-day had their beginning on the Avenue. The Evening Star has been published there for about 89 years; its home, remodeled from time to time, to-day is a large and beautiful building.

Since the L’Enfant plan provided for giving Pennsylvania Avenue a conspicuous place in the development of the National Capital, Congress decided, by the public buildings act of May 25, 1926, that the necessary land on the south side of the Avenue from the Capitol to the Treasury should be purchased by the Government and monumental buildings erected thereon. In the House of Representatives the bill was sponsored by Congressman Richard N. Elliott. As Chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, he had a very prominent part in furthering the legislation for the public buildings program of the National Capital and also for the country at large. More public buildings were authorized during the Sixty-ninth and Seventieth Congresses (1925-1929) than in all the preceding Congresses. In the United States Senate the public buildings program was sponsored by Senator Bert N. Fernald and after his death in 1926 by Senator Henry W. Keyes, Chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds of the Senate. This is the Triangle Plan, which is now being carried out. In due time it is expected also that the north side will be developed to correspond to the south side. However, several buildings now there may be considered as established for decades to come.

Here at Pennsylvania Avenue, connecting the Capitol and the White House, we are at the heart of the Nation. It is the Via Sacra of the great Republic of the New World.

On September 5, 1931, at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Archives Building, at Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventh Street, Hon. Ferry K. Heath, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who was in immediate charge of the public-buildings program, said: “The story of the traffic and parades of this great Avenue would be an outline of the history of the United States.”

The act for enlarging the Capitol Grounds, and the municipal center development on the north side of the Avenue, gives the Government control from the Capitol to Sixth Street.

TRIANGLE DEVELOPMENT

Upon the adoption of the public buildings act of May 25, 1926, Hon. Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, took up with the Public Buildings Commission, and the executive departments that were in immediate need of new buildings, the project to place the building program under way. Secretary Mellon authorized the preparation of a tentative study for new public buildings, and after an interval of a few months sketches were submitted to him for a series of buildings monumental in character and intended for the most part for locations south of Pennsylvania Avenue. The greater part of the Triangle development has been completed.

ENLARGEMENT OF THE CAPITOL GROUNDS AND
UNION STATION PLAZA DEVELOPMENT

An important feature of the McMillan Park Commission plan of 1901 was the creation of a series of “Congress Gardens” on the north side of the Capitol. For many years this project was held in abeyance pending the completion of the purchase of lands. The development necessitated the purchase of 12 squares and laying out a plan for this long-neglected area at the entrance to the city. The plan also provided for a new avenue to extend from Union Station to Pennsylvania Avenue, and street cars are routed accordingly.

In addition to the landscape features, the plan, which was designed by Bennett, Parsons & Frost, architects of Chicago, provided for a terrace upon which is located a fountain and also a large basin, which reflects the Dome of the Capitol. To harmonize with this plan, a new approach to the northwest corner of the Senate Office Building has been built.

The temporary war buildings and Government hotels, which stood on the grounds a whole decade after the World War, have been removed, and the work of developing the plan was carried forward as rapidly as possible under the direction of David Lynn, Architect of the Capitol.

Through this plan the United States Capitol is given the appropriate landscape setting which, as the most important building in this country, it should have. The plan joins the plan for the Mall, giving the Capitol the open approach from the west and embellishing Union Square at the head of the Mall.

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT BUILDING

The United States Supreme Court Building is in classic style, in harmony with the architecture of the Capitol and adjacent buildings, and is located in the square east of the Capitol, north of the Library of Congress, and facing the United States Senate Chamber.

The building, 385 feet from east to west and 305 feet from north to south, has four open courtyards 64 feet square. The portico is of the Corinthian order, and there is a low pilaster treatment around the building.

General designs were prepared, and then, to unify every part of the design, a model was made which was publicly exhibited in the Rotunda of the Capitol for a number of months.

The Supreme Court Chamber is placed on the main axis of the plan. It is characterized by appropriate simplicity and quiet dignity. It is classical in style, 82 feet by 91 feet square in its extreme dimensions, about 64 feet square inside the columns, and 45 feet high from floor to ceiling.

The second floor contains a law library and rooms for members of the bar and conference rooms.

The third floor contains a law library and reading room. The justices’ rooms are on the first floor, convenient to the court room.

A number of rooms for the use of lawyers are provided in the second story. Two large conference rooms are provided on the main floor, and on this floor also rooms are provided for the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, the clerk of the Supreme Court, and the marshal. Convenient rooms and special telephone booths have been provided for the press.

The appropriation for the building authorized by Congress was $9,740,000.

The building was designed by Cass Gilbert, architect, and the erection was under the charge of the Supreme Court Building Commission, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, chairman. David Lynn, Architect of the Capitol, a member of the commission, was the contracting officer.

HOMES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

The Supreme Court of the United States is the major tribunal of one of three coordinate branches of the Government—the judicial. During the 148 years of its existence the Supreme Court has sat in eight different places, always in or near the Capitol or place of meeting of the legislative body. Thus it met, first, in New York; second, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia; third, in the basement of the Capitol, where it was when the British burned the Capitol in 1814; fourth, while the Capitol was being rebuilt the Supreme Court occupied the residence of the clerk of the court; fifth, when the Capitol wings were built it moved into its former chamber; sixth, when driven out by an explosion and fire in 1898 it occupied the committee room of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, of which Senator McMillan was chairman, and also sat for a brief period in the Judiciary Committee Room.

It then moved back into what was the old Senate Chamber until 1859 which was designed by Benjamin Latrobe, after the model of a Greek theater, a semicircular hall with a low-domed ceiling. It is historic. Here Webster replied to Hayne; here Calhoun debated with Clay and Webster; and in it the Electoral Commission sat which decided the presidential contest between Hayes and Tilden in 1877.