Pierre Charles L'Enfant - Honors

Honors

• In 1942, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Pierre L'Enfant was launched. In 1970, she was shipwrecked and abandoned.
• L'Enfant Plaza, a complex of office buildings, a hotel, and an underground shopping center centered around an esplanade (L'Enfant Promenade) in southwest Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 1968. Meeting rooms in the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel bear the names of French artists, military leaders, and explorers. The central portion of the plaza contains a map of the city. Within the city map is a smaller map that shows the plaza's location.
• Beneath the L'Enfant Plaza is one of the central rapid transit Metro stops in Washington, D.C., the L'Enfant Plaza station.
• In 1980, Western Plaza (subsequently renamed to Freedom Plaza) in northwest Washington, D.C., was designed. An inlay in the Plaza depicts parts of L'Enfant's plan for the City of Washington.
• In 2003, L'Enfant's plan for Washington was commemorated on a USPS postage stamp. The diamond shape of the stamp reflects the original 100 square miles (259 km2) tract of land selected for the District. Shown is a view along the National Mall, including the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. Also portrayed are cherry blossoms around the tidal basin and row houses from the Shaw neighborhood.
• The Government of the District of Columbia has commissioned a statue of L'Enfant that it hopes will one day reside in the United States Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. As federal law currently only allows U.S. states to contribute statues to the Collection, the District's delegate to the United States House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes Norton, is attempting to have Congress change the law permit the installation of the statue in the Statuary Hall. The statue is presently displayed in a D.C. government office building.
• Since 2005, the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. has held an annual "L'Enfant Lecture on City Planning and Design" to draw attention to critical issues in city and regional planning in the United States.