Evening star., 1926-11-09
ARTS BODY URGES
CAPITAL TO CLING
TOL'ENFANT PLAN
Great Damage Already Done
to Beauty of City, Conn.,
mission Declares.
AID OF NEARBY STATES
IN DEVELOPMENT ASKED
More Parks, Better Subdivisions
and Adequate Roadways Are
Stressed in Report.

Restating its belief that the L'Enfant
plan is and must continue to be the
fundamental plan for the District of
Columbia and that the Mcmillan plan
of 1901 is a restatement of the au-
thority of the L'Enfant plan, together
with such extensions of that plan as
were necessary to make it Apply TO
increased areas and changed Condi-
tions, the National Commission of
Fine Arts declared in its annual re-
port today that their integrity should
be maintained, notwithstanding the
changes that have taken place in the
National Capital, and that changes
should be made only by as competent
authority as designed it.
The commission said its members
have never held that the plan of 1901
might not, in it's turn. require changes
and extensions to meet modern con-
ditions.
The report goes at great detail into
the many factors that have arisen i'll
connection with carrying out the
LEnfant and 1901 plans; takes up
specifically the PRONUNCIATION and ul-
innate conception of the public build
ings plan; deals with buildings for the
District of Columbia including schools,
police stations. hospitals and other
structures, and outlines a metropolitan
area around Washington in a circle
whose diameter is about 40 miles in
width. extending west to Fairfax
Court House in Virginia and north to
Rockville in Maryland.
Past Mistakes Cited.
Parenthetically, the commission
declares that Washington, potentially
with all the wealth Of the Nation at
its command and endowed at birth
with great and fine plan that COM
prises the best ideas and ideals of
the worlds greatest minds in city
planning" has suffered for the want
of steady. persistent and we'll directed
efforts for betterment on the part OF
her constitutional rulers.
The report deals specifically with
the Rock Creek and Potomac Park
way plan, the scheme for extension OF
Sixteenth street to a northern por-
tal'' or north gateway to the city, the
proposed Fort drive and the rela-
tions of the Maryland and Virginia
authorities with District authorities
and the National Capital Park Com
mission. The report restates the con-
ception of the plan of 1901 regarding
the location of public buildings with
relation to the public buildings pro-
gram authorized by Congress at the
past session. 1t goes In detail into the
location of the proposed new build
ings. insisting that the Capitol area
be devoted to the legislative bodies
and the Supreme Court of the United
States.
The report is signed by Charles
Moore, chairman of the commission:
James L. Greenleaf, vice chairman
and landscape architect; II. Siddons
Mowbray. painter: Milton B. Medary.
ir., architect; dorado Taft, sculptor,
and Abram Garfield. architect. Others
who served on the commission during
the period covered by the report were
John Russell Pope, James Il. Fraser.
Louis Oyres, Henry Bacon and Will
liam Adams Delano.
Projects Still Demanded.
THE principles laid down in the
nIan of 1901. and the ends sought to
be accomplished are as vital today as
they were a quarter of century ago.
Many of the larger projects are In
sistent today, as they were then-the
boulevard to Mount Vernon and the
development of the park features
along the upper Potomac, to menuon
two of several" the report says.
Reviewing the development OF the
original plan of Washington up 10
1898, the commission say the city nad
outgrown it's original boundaries.
"Speculators laid out new subdivisions
with no reference to the plan of the
CITY itself-misfit subdivisions they
came to be called. Thus Vermont and
New Hampshire avenues come to an
abrupt end at the old boundaries OF
the CITY: Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado,
Illinois and other avenues exist only
in pieces, being without beginning or
end BY an unskilful operation the
fUo parts of Connecticut avenue have
been pieced together; but the entire
region between Rock Creek Park and
the Anacostia Park is without ade-
uuate connections and sooner or later
east and west thOroughfares will be
created at a maximum of expense.
In 1898 Congress authorized the
District Commissioners to lay out a
permanent system of highways in that
part of the District lying outside OF
cities. I'm two vital particulars the
act was faulty the commission say.
First. it made no provision whatever
for park spaces, such as give at
tractiveness TO the old city. An occa-
sional circle might be provided, but
no parks or squares. Secondly, al
most no attention-certainly no ade-
uuate attentlOn-WaS given TO the
topogra ply. AS a result, the natural
beauties of the landscape have been
sacrificed to an extent that has now
become a recognized disgrace. Efforts
to overcome these fundamental errors
now must largely be abortive. The
ONLY remedy lies, first, in the direct
purchase of lands for small parks,
and, secondly, in such revision OF
those portions of the highway plan as
are still susceptible of such treatment:
that is, replanning the few remaining
areas not already subdivided."
Valley Roads Sacrificed.
During the time Immediately prior
to 1923 and since. many of the old
and beautiful valley roads leading
into Rock Creek Park have been sac
rifced, and the Washington plan has
been lost sight of in the rush of build.
ing operations, the commission says,
listing at the top of the projects to be
consummated Immediately the con.
struction of parkway to form a dag.
onal drive along Piney Branch from
Rock Creek Park to the Soldiers
Home. From Tiger Bridge to the
beginning of Arkansas avenue at
Fourteenth street. the most wanton
and least excusable dumping and fill
ing ever executed in the District of
Columbia have been perpetrated," the
report says.
Taking up the parks and park.
U~optiuIod m para . r,ot,,n.n -