Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site - Historic Designation and Rejuvenation

Historic Designation and Rejuvenation

By the 1950s, Pennsylvania Avenue was marked by deteriorating homes, shops, and office buildings on the north side and monumental Neoclassical federal office buildings on the south side. President John F. Kennedy noticed the dilapidated condition of the street when his inaugural procession traversed Pennsylvania Avenue in 1961. Kennedy established the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space to recommend new structures to accommodate the growing federal government (which had constructed almost no new office buildings in the city since the Great Depression). Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan was assigned to help staff the committee. But in writing the Ad Hoc Committee's final report, Moynihan went beyond the committee's mandate and proposed (in part) that Pennsylvania Avenue be redeveloped using the powers of the federal government.

Kennedy approved of the idea, and established an informal "President's Council on Pennsylvania Avenue" to draw up a plan. The initial proposal, by architect Nathaniel A. Owings, envisioned a number of massive mixed-use buildings on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue to complement Federal Triangle but which would also include theaters, restaurants, shops, condominiums, and apartments. The plan called for E Street NW to be buried and turned into a cross-town expressway, a major new plaza to anchor the avenue's west end, new plazas north and south of the National Archives, and a new reflecting pool for the base of Capitol Hill. The plan also envisioned that the proposed National Cultural Center (created by law in 1958) would be situated on the north side of the avenue (on the site of Chase's Theater and Riggs Building), but the location was later changed to the Foggy Bottom neighborhood and it was renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The plan was ready for review and presentation to Congressional leaders when Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. A few days after President Kennedy's funeral, President Lyndon B. Johnson met with Jacqueline Kennedy in the Oval Office and asked what he could do for her. Mrs. Kennedy requested two things: That Cape Canaveral be renamed for her husband, and that the Pennsylvania Avenue redevelopment plan move forward. Word of the request leaked to the public, and Johnson publicly supported the area's redevelopment on October 24, 1964. Johnson subsequently approved the establishment of a Temporary President's Commission on Pennsylvania Avenue (composed of Cabinet members, federal planners, architects, and others) to move the plan forward, although it did not hold its first meeting until May 21, 1965. The Temporary Commission's goal was to push for a permanent body with the legal authority to engage in condemnation and force public and private bodies to conform to its plans. Before the Temporary Commission was named, District of Columbia officials agreed to abandon plans to build an office building west of the District Building, and the FBI agreed to reorient its planned headquarters more squarely with Pennsylvania Avenue.

Redevelopment of the area north of Pennsylvania Avenue became one of Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall's highest priorities. The plan called for demolition of most of the existing structures north of Pennsylvania Avenue, but exercise of the government's powers of eminent domain would require (it was believed) creating a special designation for the area. In January 1965, the government proposed putting the entire area envisioned for redevelopment under the control of the National Park Service. According to historian Robert M. Utley, Secretary Udall and architect Nathaniel Owings drew the boundaries of the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site according to the needs of Owing's plan. Further investigation, however, revealed that the Historic Sites Act of 1935 required a study of the area's national significance and a finding by the National Park System Advisory Board. Utley, then an Interior Department historian, was summoned to make these findings, but advised Udall that the Historic Sites Act was intended to preserve (not tear down) old buildings and that the drawings of the site's boundaries would have to follow the historical findings rather than define them. When Utley was advised that Udall was unhappy with his assessment, Utley quickly backtracked. Utley quickly assembled a panel of historians and produced as much research on the area within the Owings boundaries as he could. Although the Utley panel found that much of historical significance had occurred within the Owings boundaries and that a number of historic buildings still existed within the proposed site, there was little to support designation of the area as a historic district. Nonetheless, the advisory board ignored this weakness in the study, and approved the designation of the historic site.

The avenue and several surrounding blocks were designated a national historic site on September 30, 1965. After the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.