Construction
The southern part of the Pennsylvania Avenue district was flooded many times in the last three decades of the 19th century. Major floods occurred in October 1870 (during which Chain Bridge was destroyed), February 1881, November 1887, and June 1889 (the same storm which caused the Johnstown Flood). Floodwaters were high enough that rowboats were used on the avenue, and horse-drawn streetcars saw water reach the bottom of the trams. After a disastrous flood in 1881, the United States Army Corps of Engineers dredged a deep channel in the Potomac and used the material to fill in the Potomac (creating the current banks of the river) and raise much of the land near the White House and along Pennsylvania Avenue NW by nearly 6 feet (1.8 m). Much of the dredged material was used to build up existing mudflats in the Potomac River as well as sandbars which had been created by silting around Long Bridge (the predecessor structure to the 14th Street Bridge). This led to the creation of "Potomac Park" (now known as West Potomac Park) on March 3, 1897.
In 1900, the United States Senate established the Senate Park Commission to reconcile competing visions for the development of Washington, D.C., and the parks within it. Better known as the "McMillan Commission" because of its influential chairman, Senator James McMillan, the Commission released a document known as McMillan Plan in 1902. The McMillan Plan called for turning the undeveloped land into a formal park with extensive recreation facilities. After dredging was complete in 1911, a road was built around the perimeter of the park and Japanese cherry trees planted along the roadway. East Potomac Park was now established.
During World War I, temporary soldiers' barracks were built in the park, and victory gardens were extensively planted throughout the park. In the 1920s, the golf course, a teahouse, a camp site, and horse stables were built in the park. A four-mile-long pedestrian promenade was constructed in 1935. Congress designated Hains Point as the site for a National Peace Garden in 1988, but no memorials have as yet been constructed.
Read more about this topic: East Potomac Park
Famous quotes containing the word construction:
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“No real “vital” character in fiction is altogether a conscious construction of the author. On the contrary, it may be a sort of parasitic growth upon the author’s personality, developing by internal necessity as much as by external addition.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“No construction stiff working overtime takes more stress and straining than we did just to stay high.”
—Gus Van Sant, U.S. screenwriter and director, and Dan Yost. Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon)