33 [211] 



had brought under their consideration the subject treated of in an edito- 

 rial published in the Union of February 11. And they beg leave to offer, 

 in reply, a few remarks and a brief statement of their intentions in the 

 premises. 



The building committee of the Smithsonian Institution have already 

 exonerated the board from all responsibility connected with the selection 

 of a site on the Mall in preference to one in the populous portion 6f the 

 city ; no choice being in fact left to the board, since no suitable unoccu- 

 pied square is to be found on the entire plan of the city this side of the 

 canal ; and, with no other powers than those contained in the act organ- 

 izing the institution, no site already occupied could be purchased by the 

 institution. 



There is a site the most eligible, probably, in the city, for our institu- 

 tion — that of the present City Hall. It has been represented to the un- 

 dersigned that it would be most desirable, on the score of public conve- 

 nience, if it could be procured. They concur in this opinion. In the 

 immediate vicinity of the principal hotels and boarding houses, compri- 

 sing an eminence whence the ground gradually falls off in all directions, 

 in a healthy portion of the city, utility and appearance would be equally 

 consulted in selecting it. But it is in the occupation of the city, and, 

 while the present building remains upon it, it can properly receive no 

 other public edifice. Without the concurrent action of Congress and of the 

 City Corporation it cannot be obtained as a site for the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution. 



The undersigned, however, having had their attention called to this 

 subject not only by the article to which they are replying, but by other 

 similar representations, after maturely considering the subject, have re- 

 solved to endeavor to obtain such concurrent action. They examined 

 the plan of the present City Hall, the same of which a model now stands 

 in the corridor of that hall, and of which the building now erected is but 

 a small part; and that, too, unfinished, inconvenient, and unsightly. 

 They ascertained that this fraction of the plan, bald and gloomy as it is, 

 adapted to receive expensive porticoes and steps on three of its sides, (no 

 portions of which, during the quarter of a century it has stood, have 

 been attempted,) has cost ninety thousand dollars ; and they found the 

 estimate for its completion to be three hundred and ten thousand dollars 

 more. That it will ever be completed, no one believes. Congress will 

 not, and the city cannot, furnish the iheans. To give even to the frac- 

 tion that now stands a decent or reputable finish, would cost fifty or sixty 

 thousand dollars; and though its present dilapidated condition — most 

 discreditable both to the city and the government — may seem loudly to 

 demand some action, yet it is doubtful whether Congress will ever ex- 

 pend that amount on so unpromising and expensive an object. 



Nor is the present shell, great as has been its cost, profitable any 

 more than ornamental. It brings little or no revenue to the city. In 

 view of these circumstances, the undersigned came to the conclusion 

 that a sum, say of fifty thousand dollars, would probably be a sufficient 

 inducement to the city authorities to abandon a building they can never 

 hope to complete, and which, unfinished as it stands, is an eyesore and a 

 reproach ; inasmuch as with that sum they could put up, on the Centre 

 Market space, a plain building sufiicient to afford, in its upper story, 

 the accommodations required as well by t^ie United States circuit court 

 3 



