URBAN PROBLEMS
Most cities have inherited some severe street problems.
. Many of such situations originated from the at-random growth from village to town to city
George Washington, has his share of such a problem, the city named after him which is now our national capital. George lived down river a few miles at Mt. Vernon , Virginia and he met an architect, born in France, who had joined and served as a private in the Colony's Revolution army. His name was Pierre Charles L'Enfant and Washington had seen what a fine job he had done remodeling the old New York City Hall to be the temporary capital of the new nation.
He was hired by the commission studying the need for a new national city which would be worthy of it's aspirations and promise. He had inspiring visions of what that new nation might become and with Washington's eager endorsement, the Commission hired L'Enfant to design a totally new city on the lands donated for that specific purpose by Maryland and Virginia. That was in September 1791.
The architect started work at once with great fervor and excitement. He laid out a wide, expansive city with broad avenues, long
straight streets as much as a hundred feet wide, parks and vistas galore. He named the long, spacious streets after each of the thirteen colonies.
The Commissioners and instructed the architect to number and letter his streets according to the simple system which has endured to our own day. They asked that he prepare a copy of it all for them. L'Enfant, it seems, was not the type of person who, once hired to do a job, can be “instructed” to “do” specific little things. L'Enfant refused tp give them a copy which he knew they wanted to use in conducting a public sale of lots. He let it be known far and wide that he would have no part in any scheme whereby “speculators might purchase locations and raise huddles of shanties which would “permanently disfigure” the city of his dreams. Without the detailed plats, the sale of lots was a dismal failure. The members of the Commission called on George Washington to smooth it all over and to “reprimand” the wayward architect.
For several weeks things went smoothly, until word reached L'Enfant that the largest landowner in the area was in the process of actually building his version of what a massive Manor House should be. He was building in the center of one of L'Enfant's most prized “vistas”.
The architect promptly sent word to David Carroll of Duddington. He was to demolish the structure a once. Carroll did not do so. L'Enfant did it for him.When the largest landowner complained to the Commissioners, they in turn, complained to George Washington and, together, they decided to send their architect packing. During his short tenure, the Frenchman had made enemies in Congress and a special foe in the person of Thomas Jefferson.
That was in January 1792. The previous builder was re-hired to take up the work of building the Federal city. L'Enfant was offered 600 Guineas - about $2500 - and a free lot near the site where the Presidential Mansion was the be built. He refused the offer and is said to have died in poverty in 1825.
We wonder what may have gone through he mind of those concerned during that period. His dream took shape., and it is evident that his plans influenced the growth of the city as it has grow to be one of the most beautiful of all capital cities.
Lest we think our treatment was too harsh. L'Enfant's remains were exhumed in 1909 and reburied with honors in Arlington National Cemetery [
A.L.M. May 5,2003 [c896wds]
