Essay on the City of Washington

This newspaper article was published in New York City in the mid 1790s, describing official plans for the developing federal city. Although an Act of Congress in 1790 had declared that Washington would be the national capital as of 1800, it was at the time mostly farmland and a few groups of buildings. The author describes the Mall as a magnificent setting, and the park to be developed there as elegant as any in Europe.

Herald, February 4, 1795.(New York, NY).

02/04/1795

The garden which connects the capitol and the President’s house is laid out in proportions that correspond with the magnificence of those structures; the space which it is designed to occupy is 1700 feet broad, and more than 7000 in length, independent of the two immense declivities, and the President’s house to the canal which separates them from the garden.

To mention these large proportions is sufficient to give a high idea of the garden which will be terminated by the capitol on the east, and on the west by the Potomak. This river presents itself diagonally, and the prospect extends to a distance, upon an island, which rises 20 or 30 feet above the surface of the water, and on which the view reposes with most pleasurable sensations.

If nature has been lavish in the situation of the ground where the capitol and the President’s house are disposed; the author of the plan has been happy in making use of the advantages and selecting from them the most fortunate choice. Each point of the whole has been studied, and marked with the stamp of a genius, enlarged and accustomed to form plans on a large scale….

We see that this garden is situated, and perhaps disposed in such a manner, as to become the point of union for men of all countries and all conditions; and were the city of Washington never to extend beyond the two edifices here described, its whole construction would surpass in the elegance of this kind, all that the most celebrated cities of Europe can exhibit.

newspaper article