Topography

"In some cases, it is clear from Ellicott's working notes that the actual roads and avenues on the site, were marked out to accomodate contours, and that this in itself fed back amendments to the form of the map." page 42 "Secret Architecture".

"This system of radials was not rigidly imposed; it was dictated by the features and elevations of the existing landscape." p 41 "Myths in Stone"

Ovason mentions repeatedly that the topography of the area played a large part in the planning of the federal district, noting that "L'E clearly gave the impression that his plan had been determined after a close study of the terrain" (p 91), yet he never examines the 'lay of the land' in his analysis, except to mention that L'Enfant was enamored with Jenkins Heights, that point on the hill which was , he thought, 'a pedestal waiting for a monument' . [p.51 Ar.]

West of the Tiber

L'Enfant made no secret of the fact that he did not care for the land west of the Tiber, "because the heights from beyond Georgetown absolutely command the whole" there. (p39 Arnebeck) Jefferson, on the other hand, favored the west. You will note that there was a jealous rivalry between land owners on the west side of the district, near Georgetown and Rock Creek, and those on the east side, near Jenkins Heights and the Eastern Branch of the Potomac. Remember that GW owned hundreds of acres within the district.

Click to see large image

"Jenkins Hill was all that L'Enfant was writing to Philadelphia about" (p41 Ar.). This and the fact that L'Enfant told people that he instead of the president was laying out the city upset some of the land owners in the western areas of the district who complained to the president.

Wash. consulted with Jefferson, who 1)drafted a proclamation placing the capital city north and west of the Tiber, next to Georgetown and 2)drew a map of such city (Jefferson placed the president's house around today's 24th and G Streets Northwest and the Capitol at about 15th and G Streets Northwest), and 3)wrote to L'Enfant telling him to stop surveying near the Eastern Branch and move over toward Georgetown. [A. p.40]

Jefferson wrote that "the highest summit of lands in the town heretofore called Hamburg shall be appropriated for a Capitol and such other lands between Georgetown and the stream heretofore called the Tyber as shall be found convenient shall be appropriated for the accomodation of the President of the U.S." (Meyer p 116)

Jefferson's Sketches

The image below is entitled "Thomas Jefferson's own plan contrasted greatly with the one proposed by L'Enfant". While Jefferson may have contributed to the planning of the new Federal City, it is pretty obvious from the drawing that he was not the creative Genius behind the Plan.

Click to see large image

"Jefferson's original sketches for the federal city reveal that he had in mind that it's general ground plan should echo the ancient Roman model of roadways set in a groundplan of rectangular blocks". (p383 in Ovason) Remember that earlier Ovason hadn't even mentioned Jefferson's name when the notion of design elements came up.

Quoted from http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/washington_dc/washington_dc.html:

"The correspondence and papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Pierre L'Enfant are clear that although L'Enfant had been hired by Washington, it was with Jefferson that he discussed the details. Jefferson, who had sketched out a very preliminary plan that year, established the fundamental relationship between the executive and legislative headquarters and the public spaces connecting them. He even sketched out street sections for guidance of the city commissioners."

I am not sure why it is that people write things without checking their sources or looking at the map, but as you can plainly see by inspecting the Jefferson drawing, he placed the White House (marked "Residence") and the Capitol Building directly east and west from one another. This is Not where they are today, so Jefferson did Not establish the relationship between the two as it stands today.

A Compromise

As a matter of fact (??), we are told that the location of the CB in the southeast section of the city (beyond the Tiber Creek) was a part of a compromise between land owners across the area contained within the new 'district'. These were the Rock Creek and the Eastern Branch factions spoken of above.

"The proprietors were worried about who would decide where the public buildings would go. The president assured them that he would make those decisions and that since there would be a house for Congress and another for the president, each side of the city could share in the benefits arising from proximity to those buildings." p 44 AR.

The image below shows a topographic map of the district with the straight line that we established before, and with the locations of the WH and CB noted in red. Remember that L'Enfant said that Penn Ave "begins at the Eastern Branch and ends over Rock Creek at the wharves at Georgetown", which is what you get when you take the kinks out of the ferry road (which you can see in this image).

Notice that the greatest deviations between the road and the straight line occur where it takes a mile long detour around the south end of Jenkins Heights and where they meet the East Branch. It appears that the point on the river was changed specifically to accomodate the straight line.

The next image is a close-up of the area around the Capitol. The red line is the same red line in the illustration above, and the red dot is the current location of the CB. The blue square is due south of that location on the red line, a point that would have resulted in a straight avenue. As you can see that location lies on the side of a steep hill (each line equals 10 feet). Not a very good place to locate a large public building.

Note the steep steps in the back of the Capitol today.

I suggest 1)that the planners would have liked to have put the CB where the blue square is, but that it would have required too much work to prepare the site; and 2)that the current positioning was due to topographic considerations and not to an attempt to align Penn Ave.

Below we see an image that begins by locating the White House and the Capitol Building and marking the N-S axiis through those. Next we hightlight the other four points of the pentagram at the WH location. Next Penn Ave is drawn in in three sections, and then overalid with the straight line which crosses the N-S axis south of the current CB location.

The line connecting the left hand points on the pentagram is New Hampshire Ave. Note where it points in Arlington. There is no avenue on the right, but if we connect the dots, the line crosses the N-S axis in the same place as the straightened Penn Ave. This is where the CB should have been. Note that moving the CB south realigns Maryland Ave and repositions the Jeff Mml, there by redefining the rhombus formed there. The new west corner would be on the far bank of the Potomac River.

In simple terms, I believe that when they looked at where their straight line ran, they decided to simply move the CB north a little bit, resulting in three segments to the line. I believe that the crooked avenue was their second choice not their first, and that the orientation of the middle section of Penn Ave. is an accident not a plan, as Ovason suggests.

We read in "Secret Architecture", "One problem with an idea as sophisticated as the one that L'Enfant created was that it was so integrated, so well thought out, that even a minor deviation was the equivalent of removing a card from the bottom story of a house of cards" (p 57); but I recommend that the bend in PA is just such a deviation to accomodate the contours of the landscape, which did not result in any disaster.

According to Arnebeck, when Ellicott took over from L'Enfant, his major complaint was about the site of the Capitol; "This last defect is so obvious, that I do not remember to have met with one person who did not immediately see it, when on the ground." It was too close to the hill in an unstable position and to the east 20 to 30 feet of earth would have to be dug away so there could be a view...He suggested moving the building 600 feet to the east and cutting away a small part of the side of the hill. [Ar. p115]

Looking at the topo map (above), you can see that there are actually three hills east of the CB, both of which were 40 feet higher that it's current location, on which the building could have been positioned, but L'Enfant chose to place it on the very edge of Jenkins Heights. The question arises as to why it was not placed on top of one of these hills, the highest places in that area?

"The president did not make any show of his impatience with changing the site of the capitol or the plan of the city", but he determined that the Capitol Building would not be moved, and that "the hill to the east should stay". [Ar. p118]

In 1793, "once again, there was a meeting of the minds that the Capitol should be moved farther up the hill. Blodget, Thornton and Hoban all agreed; the commissioners so informed the president, hoping that he might give in. The president did not." [Ar. p163]

You will note that the notion that Ellicott wanted to move the CB to the east does not mesh with the idea that he was the one who determined or approved of the alignment of Penn Ave. Arnebeck depicts GW as the 'decider' though not the designer on this matter.

J Meyer in "Myths in Stone" gives us a different read on this story by claiming that the site of the Capitol was "actually moved slightly to the east" Page 2, while he offers no proof of that assertion. As you can see from the photo above, if it was moved east, it wasn't moved very far from the edge of the hill.

Note that, inspite of what Ovason said about Washington not having been involved with the details of the plan (p 333), Arnebeck writes that "Before leaving (in April 1791), Washington had pointed out the spot toward Georgetown where he wanted the president's house to be." (p50)

L'Enfant said of the site that he picked for the president's house, "The spot I assigned I chose somewhat more in the wood, and off the creek".

On June 22, 1791 L'Enfant delivers a copy of his map to Washington at Mt Vernon. [Ar. p52]

"On June 28... Washington went with L'Enfant and Ellicott to see if he liked where L'E had put the president's house. He did not." At a public meeting Washington proclaimed that, "The president's house would be more to the west "for the advantage of the higher ground" ... and that there would be "fewer diagonals" in the map. [ Ar p. 53] Looking at the image above you can see the 'higher ground' being refered to, and you will notice that the WH was Not Moved there.

Meyer gives us a different version of the facts in "Myths in Stone" where we read "Washington was not happy with the location and moved it a bit west to where it is today". p 101. While he is right about the dis-agreement, he is dead wrong about the WH having been moved.

In "Washington DC: A Smithsonian Book of the Nation's Capital" we read, "The architect called himself Pierre Charles L'Enfant. At the heart of his plan was the selection of two high spots- Jenkins Hill for the Congress House and a second for the President's Palace". (p23) "Matching his plans to the contour of the land, he placed the President's House on high ground northwest of Jenkins Hill." (p 71) "Washington and L'Enfant established the site a little south of where L'Enfant wanted it to be, but on a spot where Washington thought it should be." (p 96)

You can easily see that while the location of the WH is higher than the river, it is nowhere near as high as the location to the west that Washington alluded to. Compared to the area surrounding it, it is actually in a relative low spot. Meyer's claim above is that the CB now lies where Washington wanted it, but south of where L'Enfant wanted it, which is just wrong; Wash. wanted it on 'higher ground'.

You can see that in spite of the fact that "historians" tell us that both the WH and CB were located on "hills", which evokes a mental image of a building showcased above the surrounding landscape, neither of the two is actually placed on a relative high place. The White House, like the Capitol, was placed adjacent to a prominence that was at least 40 feet higher than the location chosen for it, in spite of Washington's declaration that the president's house would be more to the west.

[The idea that the White House lies in the spot chosen by L'Enfant and was not moved to the location prefered by GW raises more questions about who was responsible for what in the map, and implies that secrets were kept from Washington, which I see as unlikely. One begins to get the sense that we are not getting all the 'facts', or that the stories that we hear about the city are more fable than fact.]

Ovason gives us another version of the story, telling us that "The White House was not sited exactly where L'Enfant had planned. It was sighted a little further to the north, which implies that even in the days when L'Enfant was alive, the orientation he had specified was not being precisely observed by the builders". (p 381-2)

He continues, "L'Enfant had set back the building of the White House very slightly to the north of Pennsylvania Avenue - presumably to permit the sunset on a particualr day to unite three points on a single line.

Recall that Penn Ave was designed by L'E to connect, in a direct manner, the East Branch of the river to the wharves at Georgetown via the CB and the WH. This means that the northwest end of the avenue was determined in advance. We have pointed out that a straight line from there through the current WH position, points to the eventual end of the avenue at the East Branch. This means that, whether it is in the location picked by L'Enfant or the one picked by GW, whether or not it was moved, it is the WH's position which determines three points on the line.

On page 57, Ovason suggest that the placement of the WH was designed to determine the alignment of the middle section of Penn Ave to a sunset. I contend that the angle that was important to the planners was that of the upper segment directed to the Eastern Branch point.

Note that if the WH had been placed anywhere else it would no longer lie on the straightened version of the ferry road, which defines one side of the pentagon in the dc map, meaning that the pentagram would have been shaped differently today. I suggest that this line segment between the WH and Georgetown, along with 16th Street are the base lines for the pentagram form in the map, and that they projected it straight to the East Branch in spite of having to relocate the CB.