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L'Enfant Plaza
L'Enfant Plaza is a complex of four commercial buildings grouped around a large plaza in the Southwest section of Washington, D.C., United States. Immediately below the plaza and the buildings is La Promenade shopping mall.
The plaza is located south of Independence Avenue SW between 12th and 9th Streets SW (9th Street actually runs underneath the centers of the buildings on the easternmost side of the plaza). It was built perpendicular to L'Enfant Promenade, a north-south running street and pedestrian esplanade part of which is directly above 10th Street SW. The plaza is named for Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the architect and planner who first designed a street layout for the capital city, known as the L'Enfant Plan. It was dedicated in 1968 following completion of the north and south buildings.
L'Enfant Plaza was part of the Southwest Washington, D.C. urban renewal project, one of the earliest urban renewal projects in the U.S., and the first such in Washington, D.C. The rapid expansion of the population of Washington, D.C., during World War II led to the extensive construction of suburban office buildings and housing tracts. But with federal agencies (which were the area's largest employers) restricted to the city center, a movement began after the war to redevelop Washington's older, more dilapidated, single-family-dwelling neighborhoods to provide high-density, modern housing for workers.
In 1946, the United States Congress passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) and provided legal authority to clear land and funds to spur redevelopment in the capital. Congress also gave the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) the authority to designate which land would be redeveloped, and how. The RLA was not funded, however, until passage of the Housing Act of 1949.
A 1950 study by the NCPC found that the small Southwest quarter of the city suffered from high concentrations of old and poorly maintained buildings, overcrowding, and threats to public health, such as lack of running indoor water, sewage systems, electricity, central heating, and indoor toilets. Competing visions for the redevelopment ranged from renovation to wholesale leveling of neighborhoods, but the latter view prevailed as more likely to qualify for federal funding. Demolition faced almost all structures in Southwest Washington and was to have begun in 1950, but legal challenges led to piecemeal razing of the area until the mid-1950s. Most of the dwellings in Southwest D.C. were Victorian row houses. Poor and middle-class African American and immigrant Central and Eastern European families living in the area were forced out of their homes by use of eminent domain, receiving only a fraction of the value of their homes in compensation.
In 1954, Southwest D.C. had about 3,900 buildings housing 4,500 families. About 60 percent of the residents were African American, and the remainder Caucasian. Only 20 percent of the residents owned their own home, and 72 percent of the buildings were rated as substandard. The area which became L'Enfant Plaza was primarily Victorian townhouses, although a shuttered slaughterhouse also stood in the area.
The RLA was the first to propose a major plaza along 10th Street NW. It commissioned architects Robert Justement and Chloethiel Woodard Smith to devise a master site plan for Southwest D.C. The Justement-Smith plan, released in 1952, called for wholesale clearance of the area. Notably, the Justement-Smith plan also proposed building an esplanade above 10th Street SW (to allow it to pass over the railroad tracks and the then-under construction Southwest-Southeast Freeway) which would connect with Maine Avenue SW. The RLA later said it had studied putting the mall anywhere from 5th Street to 12th Street, but that 10th Street was the only economical location. Parks would border the esplanade east and west, with a goal of providing an unobstructed view of the Smithsonian Institution headquarters and the National Mall. In November 1952, the NCPC released a report largely supporting the Justement-Smith plan (although emphasizing the construction of low-rise townhouses rather than a "forest" of high-rise apartment buildings). The NCPC report also approved of the plan to build an esplanade above 10th Street SW, although it noted that there were significant geographical obstacles to the plan. In 1953, the RLA asked developers to submit plans based on the NCPC's November 1952 compromise report.
"L'Enfant Plaza" was the name proposed by New York City developer William Zeckendorf in February 1954 as the title for a 20-acre (8.1 ha) cultural center within a 330-acre (130 ha) development that would almost completely encompass all of Southwest D.C. (an area designated as "Project C"). As originally laid out, a traffic circle would be built on Independence Avenue SW in front of the Smithsonian Castle. A 400-foot (120 m) wide, grass-lined pedestrian mall replaced 10th Street SW. A concert hall, convention center, and opera house would line the pedestrian mall, which would be built over the railroad tracks and Southeast Freeway and connect with the Potomac River waterfront. The plan called for all existing buildings in the 20-acre area to be razed. Zeckendorf and the RLA signed a "memorandum of understanding" locking in most of the major aspects of Zeckendorf's plan to allow further site study and architectural design to move forward. By October of that year, Zeckendorf had agreed to add government office buildings to the planned pedestrian mall. The developer said he had already spent $450,000 on studies, and planned to spend another $500,000 in developing a detailed plan. In December, Zeckendorf asked the NCPC and RLA to formally approve his plan for a 10th Street SW mall, and proposed that the federal government build a "12th Street Bridge" over the Potomac River to help reduce traffic flows along his mall—which now incorporated a roadway. In February 1955, however, the NCPC proposed moving the planned "cultural mall" to 9th Street SW and retaining 10th Street as a major thoroughfare for traffic coming off the 14th Street Bridge. John Remon, chair of the RLA and NCPC vice chair, strongly criticized the plan (which also proposed relocating the railroad tracks) as far too costly. D.C. officials then proposed turning 12th Street into a southbound one-way, 9th Street into a northbound one-way, and building a new 14th Street Bridge span to accommodate the traffic flows. In a compromise, Zeckendorf agreed to revisit his plans to see if one or more of the proposed road plans could be accommodated under his proposed site redesign plan. The road and bridge dispute threatened to cause the failure of the entire redevelopment effort.
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L'Enfant Plaza
L'Enfant Plaza is a complex of four commercial buildings grouped around a large plaza in the Southwest section of Washington, D.C., United States. Immediately below the plaza and the buildings is La Promenade shopping mall.
The plaza is located south of Independence Avenue SW between 12th and 9th Streets SW (9th Street actually runs underneath the centers of the buildings on the easternmost side of the plaza). It was built perpendicular to L'Enfant Promenade, a north-south running street and pedestrian esplanade part of which is directly above 10th Street SW. The plaza is named for Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the architect and planner who first designed a street layout for the capital city, known as the L'Enfant Plan. It was dedicated in 1968 following completion of the north and south buildings.
L'Enfant Plaza was part of the Southwest Washington, D.C. urban renewal project, one of the earliest urban renewal projects in the U.S., and the first such in Washington, D.C. The rapid expansion of the population of Washington, D.C., during World War II led to the extensive construction of suburban office buildings and housing tracts. But with federal agencies (which were the area's largest employers) restricted to the city center, a movement began after the war to redevelop Washington's older, more dilapidated, single-family-dwelling neighborhoods to provide high-density, modern housing for workers.
In 1946, the United States Congress passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) and provided legal authority to clear land and funds to spur redevelopment in the capital. Congress also gave the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) the authority to designate which land would be redeveloped, and how. The RLA was not funded, however, until passage of the Housing Act of 1949.
A 1950 study by the NCPC found that the small Southwest quarter of the city suffered from high concentrations of old and poorly maintained buildings, overcrowding, and threats to public health, such as lack of running indoor water, sewage systems, electricity, central heating, and indoor toilets. Competing visions for the redevelopment ranged from renovation to wholesale leveling of neighborhoods, but the latter view prevailed as more likely to qualify for federal funding. Demolition faced almost all structures in Southwest Washington and was to have begun in 1950, but legal challenges led to piecemeal razing of the area until the mid-1950s. Most of the dwellings in Southwest D.C. were Victorian row houses. Poor and middle-class African American and immigrant Central and Eastern European families living in the area were forced out of their homes by use of eminent domain, receiving only a fraction of the value of their homes in compensation.
In 1954, Southwest D.C. had about 3,900 buildings housing 4,500 families. About 60 percent of the residents were African American, and the remainder Caucasian. Only 20 percent of the residents owned their own home, and 72 percent of the buildings were rated as substandard. The area which became L'Enfant Plaza was primarily Victorian townhouses, although a shuttered slaughterhouse also stood in the area.
The RLA was the first to propose a major plaza along 10th Street NW. It commissioned architects Robert Justement and Chloethiel Woodard Smith to devise a master site plan for Southwest D.C. The Justement-Smith plan, released in 1952, called for wholesale clearance of the area. Notably, the Justement-Smith plan also proposed building an esplanade above 10th Street SW (to allow it to pass over the railroad tracks and the then-under construction Southwest-Southeast Freeway) which would connect with Maine Avenue SW. The RLA later said it had studied putting the mall anywhere from 5th Street to 12th Street, but that 10th Street was the only economical location. Parks would border the esplanade east and west, with a goal of providing an unobstructed view of the Smithsonian Institution headquarters and the National Mall. In November 1952, the NCPC released a report largely supporting the Justement-Smith plan (although emphasizing the construction of low-rise townhouses rather than a "forest" of high-rise apartment buildings). The NCPC report also approved of the plan to build an esplanade above 10th Street SW, although it noted that there were significant geographical obstacles to the plan. In 1953, the RLA asked developers to submit plans based on the NCPC's November 1952 compromise report.
"L'Enfant Plaza" was the name proposed by New York City developer William Zeckendorf in February 1954 as the title for a 20-acre (8.1 ha) cultural center within a 330-acre (130 ha) development that would almost completely encompass all of Southwest D.C. (an area designated as "Project C"). As originally laid out, a traffic circle would be built on Independence Avenue SW in front of the Smithsonian Castle. A 400-foot (120 m) wide, grass-lined pedestrian mall replaced 10th Street SW. A concert hall, convention center, and opera house would line the pedestrian mall, which would be built over the railroad tracks and Southeast Freeway and connect with the Potomac River waterfront. The plan called for all existing buildings in the 20-acre area to be razed. Zeckendorf and the RLA signed a "memorandum of understanding" locking in most of the major aspects of Zeckendorf's plan to allow further site study and architectural design to move forward. By October of that year, Zeckendorf had agreed to add government office buildings to the planned pedestrian mall. The developer said he had already spent $450,000 on studies, and planned to spend another $500,000 in developing a detailed plan. In December, Zeckendorf asked the NCPC and RLA to formally approve his plan for a 10th Street SW mall, and proposed that the federal government build a "12th Street Bridge" over the Potomac River to help reduce traffic flows along his mall—which now incorporated a roadway. In February 1955, however, the NCPC proposed moving the planned "cultural mall" to 9th Street SW and retaining 10th Street as a major thoroughfare for traffic coming off the 14th Street Bridge. John Remon, chair of the RLA and NCPC vice chair, strongly criticized the plan (which also proposed relocating the railroad tracks) as far too costly. D.C. officials then proposed turning 12th Street into a southbound one-way, 9th Street into a northbound one-way, and building a new 14th Street Bridge span to accommodate the traffic flows. In a compromise, Zeckendorf agreed to revisit his plans to see if one or more of the proposed road plans could be accommodated under his proposed site redesign plan. The road and bridge dispute threatened to cause the failure of the entire redevelopment effort.
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