Most big cities have dozens of access points from surrounding jurisdictions, but few have the sweeping and elegant ceremonial entry that features the Arlington Memorial Bridge (the proper name of the bridge) and the Lincoln Memorial into Washington. D.C. The low-slung neoclassical bridge connects the Memorial Circle on the Virginia side of the Potomac River to another circle that wraps around the classic marble architecture of the Lincoln Memorial. Rush hour drivers navigating the travel lanes may be too busy to ponder the remarkable design that has endured nearly a century.
The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in 1922 after several years of construction adjacent to the river. That was decades after Arlington National Cemetery was established on the grounds of Robert E. Lee’s Arlington House mansion during the American Civil War. The Arlington Memorial Bridge was opened in 1932, bringing to full “circle” the grand entry into the Nation’s Capital. The bridge placement, on an axis between the memorial and the cemetery, reflects a nation united, connecting North and South, according to the planners and architects.
Crossing the bridge on a bright sunny day highlights the creases and shadows of the magnificent marble edifice celebrating President Abraham Lincoln, blazing on the exterior and cooling on the interior. Making the trip back to Virginia, crossing the river at dusk or later, can be magical, as the eternal flame marking President John F. Kennedy’s Arlington National Cemetery gravesite glows in the distance, reminding passersby of the supreme sacrifices made by the hundreds of thousands of military personnel, veterans, and family members buried there. That view never fails to create a lump in my throat. The sweeping viewshed, punctuated by a majestic natural and human-made landscape, is both sacred and wondrous.
That’s why the disclosure last week that Mr. Trump wants to build a “triumphal arch” on the Memorial Circle to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary is troubling. His proposal for a monumental arch appears to block the view of Arlington House, the eternal flame, and the hallowed cemetery. Even before the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated, municipal planners had proposed a variety of arches for what sometimes is termed, awkwardly, “dead space” in Memorial Circle. Fortunately, none of these ill-conceived ideas has come to fruition, and the splendid viewshed has been maintained.
It’s no secret that Mr. Trump loves France’s Arc de Triumph in Paris, along with the grand military parades that march through and around that edifice. Earlier this year, he got his military parade (very expensive but a bust) and now it appears he wants his arch. A bit of history about the Arc de Triumph – it was started in 1806 by Napoleon (no surprise!) and it took 30 years to construct (again, no surprise!). It was not completed until 1836, 15 years after he died. The nation’s 250th anniversary is only a few months away. If Mr. Trump wanted an arch, he should have proposed it during his first term, not his last.
Good taste and esthetics are not values attributed to Donald Trump, whose appetite for the massive, the brash, and the gold-embellished never has been satiated. Whether the proposed “triumphal arch” is real or simply another attempt to flood the zone and distract from serious challenges – a fragile economy, rising household and healthcare costs, the Epstein scandal, weaponization of government against its citizens – remains to be seen. The energy and expense for this latest Trump folly would run to tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that could be far better spent on addressing real problems facing our region and nation, like infrastructure, healthcare, and homelessness. Let’s keep Memorial Circle the simple, elegant riverside design that has endured for nearly a century!