National Park Service assessment finds Trump’s proposed arch would adversely affect dozens of DC sites

The National Park Service (NPS) found that President Trump's proposed Triumphal Arch would adversely affect dozens of historic sites around Washington, D.C. The NPS listed nearly 40 locations across the city after the agency asked outside groups to comment by last Thursday after reopening its public comment for its assessment. The list includes several major...

President Trump’s giant “triumphal arch” project is not only going to be big and ugly, it’ll also be in your way.According to a recent assessment by the National Park Service, the proposed arch design will irrevocably detract from Washington, D.C.’s carefully planned views and historic properties. The assessment lists, in detail, 37 significant historic sites in the capital city at risk for adverse effects.“Adverse effects” means “you’re building something that will irreversibly harm the experience in these other locations,” National Parks Conservation Association vice president for government affairs Ed Stierli told The New York Times.“These adverse effects are intentional and inherent in the design of the arch; it is intended to dominate the surrounding landscape,” Virginia State Historic Preservation Officer Roger W. Kitchen wrote in a letter to the Park Service in June.The Memorial Avenue Corridor—the stretch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, which includes Robert E. Lee’s historic Arlington House and the Kennedy Gravesite—is most at risk, as the 250-foot triumphal arch will alter and obstruct views from each site, the assessment explains.“The entirety of the corridor forms a major component of the monumental core of Washington, D.C. and was conceived as both a ceremonial gateway to the nation’s Capital and a symbolic landscape commemorating national unity and reconciliation following the Civil War,” the document reads. “The bridge alignment and associated ceremonial landscape were intended to physically and symbolically unite North and South through a coordinated monumental composition extending across the Potomac River.”And now there will be a big Trump shrine smack in the middle of it.This latest Park Service assessment on the proposed project’s impact on the surrounding landscape is an essential step in the administration’s mission to receive final approval for construction from the National Capital Planning Commission.As a federal undertaking, the arch project is subject to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which mandates an adverse effects assessment, but does not require any particular outcome or changes to the project. Instead, the assessment is “meant to get agencies to pause, consult experts and the public, and consider alternatives or design changes,” The New York Times’ Emily Badger explains.There have been alternative designs proposed—smaller arches, which were not considered sufficiently “representative” of the 250-year American independence milestone, and alternative locations beyond the historic heart of the city—but the project is expected to move forward as originally planned.Incidentally, the Park Service assessment comes as the Trump administration pushes to dramatically overhaul the process under which construction projects in historical areas are reviewed—a thinly veiled attempt to make it easier for Trump to redesign the nation’s capital in his own image. Under the proposed rules, “visual, atmospheric, or audible” adverse effects of building projects would be of no consequence, and federal agencies would be empowered to approve projects without the input of historical experts or the public.