U.S. Capitol And Mall
Looking east from the top of the Washington Monument.

ca. 1881
When Pierre L'Enfant laid out Washington, he envisioned the Mall as a magnificent avenue. However, the area between B Street, SW and the Washington Canal which later became B Street, NW remained neglected until plans in 1850 called for ornamental planting and landscaping in the parkland. On the left of the photograph just below the center can be seen the old Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station with its train sheds that streched halfway across the Mall along 6th Street. It was in this train station that President James Garfield was assasinated in 1881. At the base of Capitol Hill is the old United States Botanic Garden domed greenhouse. The Bartholdi Fountain (named after its designer Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi who created it at the same time he was designing the Statue of Liberty), placed at the base of Capitol Hill in 1877, can be seen to the left of the greenhouse on the Botanic Garden grounds. The Anacostia River can be seen in the distance. The Smithsonian Institution Building or "Castle," completed in 1855, can be seen in the foreground. Next to the Castle is the U.S. National Museum building, opened in 1881 to house the growing collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

1997
In 1902, a plan produced by the Senate Park Commission, also known as the McMillan Commission after Senator James McMillan, Chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, was presented for the future development of the capital. The plan reflected the original vision of Pierre L'Enfant and called for a monumental core along the Mall from the Capitol on the east, to the Lincoln Memorial on the west, between Independence Avenue, SW and Constitution Avenue, NW (formally B Street, NW). The cluttered Mall was slowly cleared. The train station was removed in 1907 and other small buildings were demolished. The curved, wandering paths were replaced by straight, broad paths and avenues. Between 1884 and 1892, the Olmstead Terrace was constructed which included marble steps from the top of Capitol Hill to its base to cause the Capitol to "gain greatly in the supreme qualities of stability, endurance, and repose." The old Botanical Gardens building was removed and a new one constructed just south of its former location in 1931. The Bartholdi Fountain was moved from the Mall to a location just south across Independence Avenue, SW (formally B Street, SW). In their place at the foot of Capitol Hill are the Capitol Reflecting Pool and the Grant Monument. On the left, across from the Castle, is the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, constructed in 1911. Above it the National Museum of American Art West Building (1941) and East Building (1976). Above the Castle are the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building (formally the U.S. National Museum building), the cylindrical Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1974) and the National Air and Space Museum (1976). On either side of the Capitol are the House Office Buildings on the right and the Senate Office Buildings on the left. In the distance, behind the Capitol, Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, built as the first combined baseball-football stadium in 1962, can be seen on the bank of the Anacostia River.


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