Category Archives: Washington, D.C.

Olmsted’s Civil War

27 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by in New York City, Washington, D.C.

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Olmsted in 1857

Olmsted in 1857 around the time he was to begin constructing New York City’s Central Park

Today marks a unique moment in Civil War and American history: Frederick Law Olmsted arrived in Washington D.C. from New York City on this date 155 years ago today. It is interesting to note that while he was one of the few predicting a long war and not the ninety day fight many forecast, he thought his own work with The Sanitary was only going to take six weeks or so. After that he would,he believed, go back and finish Central Park. The timing, for the country if not Olmsted, could not have been better; the Central Park commissioners had just significantly cut back his authority, which subsequently freed him total on the job of the Sanitary Commission secretary. Olmsted passionately believed in Union and an end to slavery, and I have a feeling the USSC secretaryship was not the means by which he most wanted to serve in putting down the rebellion. Had his health issues not been a hindrance,he might well have served in uniform.

Olmsted stayed on with the Sanitary Commission for two years and eventually left due to burnout and endless squabbles with his superiors, something that was a pattern with the intense landscaper artist. Still in those two years he set many of the procedures and precedents that carried on through the Great War via the Red Cross, the Second World War with the USO, and really on to the present day, albeit in different ways. It all began less than a month before the First Battle of Bull Run when Olmsted stepped off that train on June 27, 1861.

May

02 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Washington, D.C., William Howard Taft

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IMG_3129Good morning, all. It’s hard to believe it is May. I got back from Virginia last night. I went there for a long weekend over spring break. I spent a good part of Saturday in Arlington Cemetery, touring the Lee Mansion and taking photos of headstones for a series I will be doing in the lead-up to the start of the Governors Island season later this month. From what I understand some of the seasonals are returning to work today. Our school semester ends in three weeks. When I was in Arlington I came William Howard Taft’s headstone. I had a good conversation here with a guy from Illinois who is visiting and photographing the graves of every Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. He said he’s been at it for fifteen years now. Meeting folks like that is always special. It was a nice overcast day, perfect for being outside for an extended period.

U.S. president and Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Taft rests today in Arlington National Cemetery.

U.S. president and Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Taft rests today in Arlington National Cemetery.

Countdown to the WW1 Memorial selection

29 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in Great War centennial, Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C.

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New York State doughboys retuning home, August 1919

Empire State doughboys retuning home: Oriskany Falls, August 1919

Blake Seitz of the Washington Free Beacon has written an informative piece about the ongoing project to build a national First World War memorial in Washington D.C. Some readers may know that the WW1 Centennial Commission has been working on this endeavor for some time now, and that the competition is now down to five selections. A winner will be chosen in January. Whichever design wins, there will undoubtedly be a few bugs and details to be worked out. Still, the process has gone fairly well so far. Seitz captures well the purposes of U.S. war memorials, especially how the ones in our nation’s capital reflect the times in which they were built and the individual conflicts they commemorate. There is a reason Lincoln is etched larger than life in granite and the Vietnam Wall stretches semi-below ground with its fatalities listed one-by-one in chronological order. As Centennial Commission Ed Fountain points out in the article, the Great War’s ambiguity has been one of the major reasons it has taken so long to build a national World War 1 memorial in Washington.

It was not always this way. In the 1920s and 30s Americans built approximately 10,000 tablets, memorials and statues across the country. D.C. itself had its own memorial, commissioned in 1924 and finished in 1931 in honor of the men from Washington City who served and died Over There. These were all locals projects however. The Depression and rise of Hitler eventually took away whatever enthusiasm there was to remember the events of 1914-18. I strongly urge you to read Seitz’s article.

(image/Oneida County Historical Society)

Happy Thanksgiving

26 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Washington, D.C., William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson

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St. Patrick's Church, Washington D.C. 26 November 1914: the mood was somber the first Thanksgiving of the Great War

St. Patrick’s Church, Washington D.C., 26 November 1914: the mood was somber the first Thanksgiving of the Great War

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I thought I would share these photographs from the Pan American Mass held at Washington D.C.’s St. Patrick’s Church in 1914. St. Patrick’s Monsignor William T. Russell conceived the idea of a Pan American Mass after hearing President Taft’s Thanksgiving proclamation in mid November. The monsignor pitched the idea to his boss Cardinal Gibbon who signed off on the idea. The Pan American concept goes back to the Pan Am Expo held in Buffalo nearly a decade earlier. That is of course where McKinley was killed and Roosevelt ascended to the presidency in 1901. William Howard Taft attended all four Thanksgiving Pan American Masses during his presidency.

Though undefined in the crowd, William Jennings Bryan was in attendance that Thanksgiving Day. His attendance assuaged concerns of Protestant exclusion and signaled America's determined neutrality in the escalating war.

Though undefined in the crowd, William Jennings Bryan was in attendance that Thanksgiving Day. His attendance at the Pan American Mass assuaged concerns of Protestant exclusion and signaled America’s determined neutrality in the escalating war.

Woodrow Wilson was there in 1913 but conspicuously absent in 1914. It seems there was a messy public dispute after the 1913 Thanksgiving mass when Protestants complained about what they saw as the mass’s exclusion. Wilson was at his retreat house in Williamsport, Massachusetts with his daughter, the two quietly celebrating Thanksgiving while mourning the death of his wife and her mother Ellen. Mrs. Wilson had hied the first of August during what turned out to be the first week of the Great War. Three months later peace was the topic of the day in St. Patrick’s. The president’s personal aide, Joe Tumulty, and his Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, represented his that Thanksgiving day. Tumulty and Bryan were wise if subtle choices; Tumulty was a practicing Catholic and Bryan a devout Protestant pacifist. With war in Europe entering its fourth month Bryan’s attendance signaled to both domestic and foreign audiences that the United States was determined to stay out of it.

St. Patrick’s marked the Pan American Thanksgiving Mass well into the 1950s, with presidents, ambassadors and Supreme Court justices usually in attendance.

(images/Library of Congress)

“They deserve their own memorial.”

10 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Great War centennial, Memory, Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C.

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Pershing Park is to become the location of the National WWI Memorial.

Pershing Park is to become the location of the National WWI Memorial. The design competition is now underway.

Early this afternoon, as per most Wednesdays, I sat in on the World War One Centennial Commission weekly conference call. I can tell you that many exciting things are being planned for the coming years. One initiative that is moving along quickly is the creation of a national WW1 memorial in Washington. Such projects tend to come in waves. Over the past 35+ years we have seen the creation of the Vietnam War memorial, followed by the Korean War memorial, and then the WW2 memorial.

There is currently no national monument for veterans of the First World War either on the Mall or anywhere in the District of Columbia. What many believe to be a monument to the veterans of 1917-19 is actually a site dedicated to veterans from the District of Columbia. Tourists always walked past this monument, which is happily getting more recognition due to its proximity to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. Still, there has never been a national monument for veterans of the Great War.

That brings me back to the Centennial Commission. One of the Commission’s efforts is to convert Pershing Park into a national monument. The park has a number of aesthetic and bureaucratic challenges. For one thing it falls under the jurisdiction of several different local and federal agencies. Nonetheless the project is proceeding smoothly, which is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the Centennial commissioners and staff.

Pershing Park has a lot going for it. It is on Pennsylvania Avenue not far from the White House. Look closely at the image above and you can see the Treasury Building in the background. This will be a real addition to our cultural memory within our nation’s capital. The design competition opened last week. The deadline for phase one submissions is Tuesday July 21, 2015. If you or anyone you know are interested in submitting a proposal check out the details here. You have six weeks.

(image/Tim1965 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

Remembering Nixon’s resignation

09 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by in Heritage tourism, Washington, D.C.

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Two years ago, on June 17, 2012 to be precise, I posted this small vignette about the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. Now today is the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation. August 9, 1974 was a momentous day in my family’s history. We moved from Connecticut to Florida that day. I was all of seven years old and even though I did not understand the specifics I understood that major changes for my parents, brother, sister, and me were underway. It was probably for the best that I didn’t all that was happening; my parents marital troubles were the reason for the relocation and they divorced the following year. In my mind the Nixon resignation and the relocation are forever linked.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. I have seen surprisingly little about this in the news. I suppose a reason is that it was never the break-in, but the cover-up, that was considered the big crime. It could be, too, that the Watergate scandal has reached that intermediary stage where it is no longer a current event and not quite yet history. Demographically, Washington has changed a great deal in the past several decades as well. Gentrification has brought many younger people–young twenty- and thirty-somethings–who are too busy building their careers to think about it. We know the least about the decade just before and the decade after we are born.

The area around the Watergate Building Complex is off the beaten path and visited by very few tourists taking in the sights. We ourselves go to DC fairly frequently and I must say we have never gone out of our way to see it. Cultural Tourism DC is planning to install signage in the neighborhood. I wonder if the 50th anniversary of this event will be a bigger deal. We’ll know just a short decade from now.

(image/Watergate Building Complex, Allen Lew)

The monument to Washington’s Great War veterans

01 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C., WW1

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The District of Columbia War Memorial

The District of Columbia War Memorial

I took this photograph of the Great War Memorial a few months back.  It was restored a few years ago and looks fabulous. As you can tell by the image however, it does not get too much pedestrian traffic. That it is a tad off the beaten path explains part of it. Still, that can’t be the whole reason. It is less remote than it was even just three years ago when the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was built; one walks through this general area when passing from the Mall to the MLK statue or vice versa. Even with the extra foot traffic, people do not seem inclined to stop and look. Maybe that will change during the Centennial.

detail

detail

I met historian Mark Levitch at the World War One Centennial Commission Trade Show in June. Since then I have contributed a few memorials to his World War I Memorial Inventory Project with a few more in the hopper. Earlier this week Mark was interviewed by CBS News about the project. Check out the video here.

Washington then and now

08 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in Washington, D.C.

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The Boltbus has been a part of my and the Hayfoot’s life since we met six years ago. At first it was her going to meet a friend for the weekend. Then, as we knew each other better we would both go down to see the sites. It was in a Washington hotel room that I proposed. Now, with her working in the area one of us is on the bus every few weeks. It is part of our everyday life.

One thing I always note when the bus is approaching DC is how there are two Washingtons: the official one that tourists and public officials inhabit and the inner-city version one sees entering town. Like New York City Washington has gentrified a great deal over the past 15-20 years. The Boltbus itself is a product of that gentrification. Still, there are pockets here and there where one sees signs of the civil unrest of the 1960s. No, I am not old enough to remember the 1968 riots there and elsewhere, but I have been around enough to remember when the wounds were still raw. It is something I think about every time the bus is pulling in.

Here is some incredible, recently discovered film footage courtesy of media company CriticalPast. Looking closely at some of the additional footage, I noticed that some of the soldiers were from the Big Red One, which until a few years perviously had been stationed at Governors Island.

 

The other Roosevelt Island

04 Sunday May 2014

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace (NPS), Washington, D.C.

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When in Washington over spring break the Hayfoot and I went to Roosevelt Island. This out-of-the-way site is something most tourists never see, which is understandable given that it is a little difficult to get to. Still, as the crow flies it is only a mile or so from the Lincoln Memorial. Roosevelt Island rests in the Potomac River and can be reached from the Roslyn stop on the Blue Line. The Iwo Jima statue is at the same stop but we missed that this time around.

Roosevelt Island sign

The Potomac River

The Potomac River

IMG_0664

Look closely through the trees and you can see the skyscrapers of Arlington, Virginia from the island. Landscape architecture is fascinating because the designer must be thinking decades down the line as to what his creation will look like when the trees and foliage fully mature.

One of Roosevelt Island’s charms is its tranquility so close to the Greater DC sprawl. The degree of difficulty in reaching the island is intentional. The planners wanted people to visit but also intended it to be a refuge. Believe me, you have to want to get here. Again, this is just a long toss from the Lincoln Memorial and the other sites on the Mall.

It may seem like pristine nature, but the island and memorial were a planned environment built by the Roosevelt Memorial Association in the 1930s. The RMA purchased the island from the Washington Gas Light Company for $364,000 and donated it to the American people in 1932.

KM looking at TR

Paul Manship designed the statue. It is more severe in photos than in person. The surrounding tress soften the subject’s commanding size and pose. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. created the ninety acre island’s landscaping.

The statue came several decades after the memorialization of the island itself. The Depression, World War II, and other issues took precedence over the statue’s  creation. Lyndon Johnson dedicated the statue on 27 October 1967 with Alice Roosevelt Longworth in attendance.

LBJ and Alice Roosevelt Longworth, October 1967

LBJ and Alice Roosevelt Longworth at the statue dedication, October 1967

"Manhood"

“Manhood”

This monolith is one of four. Each notes an attribute considered important by Theodore Roosevelt.

Our only mistake was not bringing lunch. I have a feeling we’ll be back come summer.

(LBJ and Alive Roosevelt Longworth image from Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University)