Included were two models, one showing Washington as it 

 was and one showing what it might become. 24 



One of the most dazzling features of the numerous 

 changes proposed by the Park Commission was the creation 

 of an open Mall between the Capitol and the Washington 

 Monument, flanked on both sides by permanent public 

 buildings as it is today. The Commission's plan amounted 

 to an endorsement of the plan that Pierre Charles L'Enfant 

 had developed in the 1790s. 25 "Gone would be the tangles 

 of shrubbery, the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station 

 and sheds littering the area, and the infamous area of crime 

 known as Murder Bay." 26 



The location of the Botanic Garden was a problem for 

 two reasons. First, the Garden and its greenhouses 

 obstructed the planned vista between the Capitol and the 

 Washington Monument. Equally problematic was the fact 

 that the plan called for the large memorial to President 

 Ulysses S. Grant, which Congress had approved in January 

 of 1902 27 to be erected on the Garden's existing site. The 

 planners claimed that the Grant Memorial was the keystone 

 of their design for an open Mall 28 



A sizeable number of Washingtonians, as well as 

 Members of Congress and other governmental officials, 

 openly opposed the Park Commission's plan because the 

 placement of the Grant Memorial meant uprooting the 

 magnificent trees on the Botanic Garden property. This pro- 

 test was spearheaded through public appeals from 

 Superintendent William R. Smith along with editorials by 

 the Washington Evening Star denouncing the proposed 

 destruction of the living memorials 29 "Among the en- 



24 Charles Moore, Washington Past and Present, New York: The Cen- 

 tury Co., 1929, pp. 263-264. 



25 Improvement of the Park System of DC, Senate Report No. 166, pp. 

 23-26, 35-36. 



26 Byrd, Botanic Garden, p. S803. 



27 32 Stat. 460. 



28 Improvement of the Park System of DC, Senate Report No. 166, pp. 

 41-42. 



29 Answers Last Call, Washington Sunday Star, July 7, 1912, p. 2, pt. 

 2; Approved by Public: Star's Protest Against Destruction of Park Trees, 

 Washington Evening Star, October 6, 1907, p. 2; Grand Old Trees May 

 Escape Axe, Evening Star, October 7, 1907, p. 1; Most Noted Trees Succumb 

 to the Axe, Evening Star, October 5, 1907, p. 1; and New Site Proposed 

 For Grant Statue, Evening Star, October 12, 1907, p. 2. 



