New

L’enfant Plaza Is Bad For Everyone. Is There An Opportunity To Return To Its Residential Past?

L’Enfant Plaza sucks.

The complex of concrete and federal buildings is an uninviting mess that offers visitors little in terms of amenities, walkability, or pleasant outdoor space. But it wasn’t always like that: Decades ago, it was a thriving neighborhood with houses and small businesses.

I’m no historian, but I can see that the “promise” of urban renewal has fallen short when just 60 years later there’s a need for another revitalization. With the Department of Energy preparing to leave the Forrestal Building, the question is whether DC can use this moment to finally finish what urban renewal never did and build a real neighborhood between the Mall and the Wharf.

The plaza I avoid

I work right outside Exit B of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station. On nice days, I’ll take my lunch down to the Wharf to try to catch a river breeze and a (mostly) car-fumes-free walk. I normally head down 7th Street, but sometimes I take the actual plaza, so I don’t have to walk over the I-395 bridge. Each time I do, I’m reminded why I normally choose 7th.

Broken brick pavers. High concrete walls that reflect heat. No trees to provide shade. Cars parked down both sides. Barely a crosswalk in sight. Even I, a lover of brutalist buildings, can see that the James V. Forrestal building blocks an awesome view of the Smithsonian Castle. I know it’s a pedestrian nightmare, and I can’t imagine it’s fun driving through what largely has become a parking lot with pedestrians crossing in any direction they want. Does L’Enfant Plaza work for anyone?

After a recent trek down L’Enfant Plaza in 90 degree weather, I came back to my desk and, with newfound fervor, began looking into how this mess of concrete and federal buildings between the Waterfront and the National Mall became that mess.

The ghosts of Southwest past

As it turns out, like most of the areas of DC that we may think of as nothing more than office buildings, such as Federal Triangle or Farragut and McPherson Squares, L’Enfant Plaza was once a residential part of the city. About 23,000 people lived in a neighborhood that was home to small businesses and a tight-knit community.

In 1954, it was leveled to make way for the promise of urban renewal and a promenade to rival Champs-Élysées in Paris. That led to 1,500 businesses closing. It seems to me that L’Enfant Plaza never became the vibrant urban district that its planners promised.

Instead, we have the practically empty federal buildings that sit on the site of old family homes. The Spy Museum and an underground shopping mall devoured by the most uninteresting of chains. A (largely sad) park that’s supposed to honor Benjamin Banneker, one of the surveyors of DC’s borders and a self-educated astronomer and mathematician.

The possibility for responsible development

Trump may not be an urbanist president, but overhauling L’Enfant Plaza will unfortunately require some federal involvement, in cooperation with local officials such as Janeese Lewis George who are prioritizing building more housing in DC. Most of the land surrounding L’Enfant Plaza is federally owned and houses agencies like the Department of Energy and the USPS. Redeveloping it means either moving these agencies completely out or reconfiguring their footprint to allow for new housing.

These complications aside, it doesn’t take a lot of dreaming to give the current L’Enfant Plaza what it is missing. Starting with some painted crosswalks and trees for shade would do a lot to make the plaza more welcoming, but there’s so much reimagining we could do. This is a chance to turn back the clock and replace empty office buildings with new homes surrounded by some of the best cultural amenities in the country, like the Smithsonian Castle, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the incoming National Museum of the American Latino at the old Arts and Industries Building.

There’s a neighborhood waiting to be recreated when we add residential apartments for families and young professionals, shops and restaurants at street level, and the activity that comes from people actually living there, along with better connections to the surrounding street grid, the National Mall, and Banneker Park. You can start to imagine a place where people actually want to be.