Everyone wants a piece of America’s front yard.
The recent recommendation to build a museum dedicated to Latino-American heritage on the Capitol grounds would be just the latest of more than a dozen museums and memorials added to the National Mall, or plopped right outside its proverbial front gates, over the last four decades.
And while some restrictions have been put in place to contain development along one of the nation’s largest civic gathering places, the push is still on to honor the country’s more recent — and future — heroes. But the Mall is nearing its breaking point.
From the National Park Service’s point of view, the Mall’s sprawl was nipped in the bud when the Reserve Act, passed in 2003, closed off future development on the Mall except for three projects — including the National Museum of African American History and Culture — that had already been approved by then.
| National Mall’s development boom | ||
| Since 1970, nearly 17 monuments and museums have been approved on or adjacent to the Mall | ||
| Name | Date | Location |
| Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gard | 1974 | National Mall |
| National Gallery of Art East Building | 1978 | National Mall |
| Albert Einstein Memorial | 1979 | 22nd & Constitution |
| Vietnam Veterans Memorial | 1982 | National Mall |
| Arthur M. Sackler Gallery | 1987 | National Mall |
| African Art Museum | 1987* | National Mall |
| Navy Memorial | 1991 | 7th & Pennsylvania |
| Holocaust Memorial Museum | 1993 | 14th and Independence |
| Korean War Veterans Memorial | 1995 | National Mall |
| Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial | 1197 | National Mall/Tidal Basin |
| George Mason Memorial | 2002 | National Mall/Tidal Basin |
| World War II Memorial | 2004 | National Mall |
| Museum of the American Indian | 2004 | National Mall |
| Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial | 2011** | National Mall/Tidal Basin |
| Museum of African American History and Culture | 2015** | National Mall |
| Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center(underground) | TBD | National Mall |
| Eisenhower National Memorial | TBD | 6th & Independence |
| *Established in 1964, moved to Mall in 1987 | ||
| **Projected opening date | ||
“Everyone wants their monuments in a very prominent location,” said park service spokesman Bill Line. “They want it to be seen. The bottom line is, there is a limited amount of space. … That’s what the 2003 act says. It says the Mall is a completed work of civic art. Done. No more.”
Still, some groups pushing for their own place in the nation’s capital are finding loopholes while others are arguing for a second expansion of the Mall.
The group behind the nonprofit National Women’s History Museum has been stalled in its effort to build a museum near the National Mall since 1996. For the second congressional session in a row, the group is pushing legislation that would allow it to buy a parcel on 12th Street and Independence Avenue, just off of park service property.
That museum’s president, Joan Wages, said the bill died in the Senate last year but it has already been approved by a Senate committee this year.
“We thought that would be the route that would get us there quicker,” she said, referring to purchasing the land from the government.
The commission recommending a Smithsonian-affiliated National Museum for the American Latino wants a site on the Mall near the Capitol. While not impossible, new legislation would have to be passed allowing for another exception to the Reserve Act, Line said. Or the museum could join the likes of the Holocaust Memorial Museum or the future Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial and open just off of the Mall — land to which the Reserve Act restrictions don’t apply. Private funding is encouraged for new proposals, although they still have to pass muster with the National Capital Planning Commission.
Judy Scott Feldman, chairwoman of the nonprofit National Coalition to Save Our Mall, said the Mall shouldn’t be “shut down” to future generations. Her group advocates expanding the Mall instead.
“The real question in my view is what are we going to do about it so that we don’t say no to people but we intelligently allow the Mall to continue to function?” she said.
