National Mall Historic District-National Register of Historic Places Nomination

Robinson and Associates, Inc.

The National Mall Historic District encompasses some of the oldest and most iconic public lands in our nation. Its development reflects two seminal historic plans for the federal city – the plan designed by Maj. Peter (Pierre) Charles L’Enfant in 1791 and the 1901-02 McMillan (Senate Park) Commission Plan – and represents significant contributions to the design heritage of our national capital.1 As the nation’s foremost commemorative landscape, the National Mall’s monuments and memorials symbolize the country’s collective values and ideals. Its open spaces define the setting of the executive and legislative branches of our federal government and provide essential civic space for historic events of national significance. This nomination for the National Mall Historic District revises, updates, and expands the original National Register of Historic Places (National Register) nomination for the National Mall. The National Mall was administratively listed in the National Register upon passage of the National Historic Preservation Act on October 15, 1966, as a historic site encompassing the formal greensward and museum buildings between the U.S. Capitol Grounds and 14th Street, NW-SW. The Keeper of the National Register accepted the nomination form documentation for the National Mall on May 19, 1981. This nomination expands the previous boundary to include the area from 14th Street, NW-SW, to the Potomac River behind the Lincoln Memorial and the area from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial to the edge of the White House Grounds (as shown on the map in Appendix A and presented in the boundary description below). The National Park Service commissioned this revised nomination in 2011 to satisfy Stipulation 1 of the Programmatic Agreement executed for the National Mall Plan among the National Park Service, the District of Columbia State Historic Preservation Officer, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and dated November 5, 2010. It redefines the National Mall as a historic district with extended boundaries, reevaluates the historic context of the National Mall, and reassesses the significance of its resources. In addition, it considers the National Register eligibility of multiple resources not included in original documentation including museum and government buildings, recently constructed memorials and monuments, cultural landscapes, and archeological sites.

National Mall Historic District-National Register of Historic Places Nomination

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