Washington in the Thirties
July 26, 2005
To begin with, it must have been cooler then. The past few days have been hot enough to drive a person crazy.. and Emily is close to that point when she comes in from her morning runs covered with beads of sweat. Various plans and outings have to be curtailed because of the heat out there.
Looking at a map for Washington in 1937, I am struck by how much easier Washington would have been to visit back then. The basic structure of the mall was in place by then. The Capitol on one side, the Lincoln Memorial on the other.. the Washington Monument between them, and the White House a bit to the north. The major pieces were in place, but most everything in between was still blank.
The Jefferson Memorial had not been constructed.. It was then commissioned, but would not be dedicated until 1943. A host of other buildings which we now consider as essential to the Washington experience were not yet built either.. most of the museums: the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of American History.. as well as important buildings such as the World Bank and the Watergate Complex. Washington as we experience it now, with its host of associations, has largely come into being since World War II. It is the child of the run away wealth that has been ours for two generations, and probably also of the competitive urge, spurred by the Cold War, to establish our national pride in lasting stone.
L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for Washington had always been big.. too large for anyone to conceive of it coming to fruition in his own lifetime. But now it seems that all that space was prophetically waiting for America to hit its stride as a world power. The large outline is now filled.. and discussion turns on the question “how much is too crowded?” rather than “what are we going to put there?” I sense a lesson there for all who begin a project: make the canvas extravagantly large; give yourself room to expand. L’Enfant’s design was great because it left room for the future.
The Memorial to FDR is another of the recent memorials added to the mall. It is different, though, because we are asked not to visit a temple-like memorial, but to walk through a review of his time as president of the United States. The memorial is walled with thick pink tinted granite, upon which Roosevelt’s own words are inscribed. Water cascades down the granite in several places, and bronze plaques or statues portray the historic challenges from his long presidency. It is a linear memorial which asks the visitor to proceed step by step..
One statement on the granite stopped me in my tracks:
I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust.
Roosevelt is referring to the White House.. but it feels strange to think of it like that.. Strange to think of any of this as by the people and for the people..
Another statement also caught my eye:
I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work... More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work.
The guidebook I have been using from 1937 was commissioned by the Works Progress Administration.. one more of the government initiatives aimed at putting people to work during the Depression.. a small part of the Civilian Conservation Corps plan. It tickles me that writers were included in the effort to get people back to work. And I would like to believe that there is indeed something of “moral and spiritual value” to the act of exploring.. to the act of catching a city in a particular time. Unfortunately I am a little too late to claim a paycheck from the WPA..
