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Another Perspective
We’ll Always Have Rosslyn
Why Washington should remain like Paris.
John F. Kennedy once said of Washington, “It has Northern charm and Southern efficiency.” That, of course, was when it was a sleepy place lacking much air conditioning and before the bureaucratic explosion brought on by Lyndon Johnson’s and Richard Nixon’s many new programs. These caused a building boom that only now is slowing down.
Nearly every week, it seemed, an old building was being gutted or razed for a new one. Ever since the mid-Sixties ever more companies, trade associations and issue-oriented organizations have flocked to Washington to set up listening and lobbying posts. The city’s population, declining for several years as families fled to the suburbs, has been growing since 2000. It is now over 600,000 with many young people moving in to be closer to work.
With the prospect of downtown Washington seeming to run out of building space for new buildings, Democratic Mayor Vincent Gray and Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, have been considering the unthinkable: raising the capital’s century-old building height limit of 130 feet (12 stories in most cases). Cheering them on are property developers. The Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District thinks that the central area will be built out within a dozen or so years. That is, if trends of the last few decades continue. Such predictions are being made against a background of steady talk on Capitol Hill of curbing the growth of the federal government.
The Messrs. Gray and Issa are talking about possibly raising the downtown height limit by 15 feet, allowing an extra story for existing buildings. Ominously, though, outside the downtown, there is talk of allowing heights well above that. Not so fast, says George Clark, chairman of a preservation group, the Committee of 100. He says the scale of Washington is unique among American cities and emphasizes its monumental nature.
That’s what the current height limit is all about. It was inspired by the open feeling of central Paris. It has kept the focus on the city’s monuments and the U.S. Capitol (only the Washington Monument exceeds the height limit). In Paris, when the need arose for many new office buildings, a new area, La Défense, was created about a dozen miles away for high-rises. Washington already has its La Défense, right across the river in Rosslyn, Virginia, where the high-rise office buildings provide a nice — but arm’s-length — backdrop to the city.
For several years, I had frequent one-day business trips to New York from Washington, always taking the train. While I like New York’s tempo and scale, the best part of the day was stepping out of Union Station back in Washington in the early evening and drinking in the reassuring, comfortable human scale of the city. My first thought was always, “I’m home.”
Will builders be the kings of construction in the capital city? There is no certainty that office building demand of the last three decades will continue indefinitely. Here’s a way to put the Gray-Issa proposal to rest: Shrink the federal government, let more office buildings go up in Rosslyn and leave Washington’s scale just as it is.
Mr. Hannaford worked in Washington for 25 years.
About the Author
Peter Hannaford was closely associated for a number of years with the late President Reagan, beginning in the California Governor’s office. His latest book is Presidential Retreats.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (12) | Leave a comment
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Doctor Right| 6.25.12 @ 7:42AM
Interesting article.
One is left to wonder why instead of raising the height limit, the city planners couldn't look to renovate the multitude of dilapidated structures in the NE and SE quarters?
Wouldn't that serve to increase office space, provide much-needed construction jobs, and help to revive some downtrodden neighborhoods?
Derek Leaberry| 6.25.12 @ 12:22PM
What you suggest is happening, especially in northeast DC and ghetto areas of northwest DC. In just the last fifteen years, gentrification has spread down Rhode Island Avenue NW from Logan Circle, through Shaw and into Bloomingdale. I have even seen certain areas of Franklin Park gentrified. A swatch of gentrified houses from Catholic University/Brookland stretch through Rhode Island Ave NE to Franklin Park and up to the Mt. Rainier border. H Street NE, once a hellhole, has been gentrified by the Capitol Hill overflow and trendy bars and restaurants line H Street by the score. DC is fast becoming a majority-white city, albeit a very liberal one. More proof that the Republicans and the Conservative Movement have failed in their missions to reduce government. Of course, the GOP has never really tried to restore limited government. The Republicans like their pork, too.
JohnD| 6.25.12 @ 8:59AM
Kennedy's quote was in response to someone who had described neighboring Baltimore as "a city of Southern Charm and Northern efficiency."
Doctor Right| 6.25.12 @ 9:20AM
JFK would have to revise that quote today...
"Baltimore...a city of liberal inefficiency."
Albert Constantine Jr.| 6.25.12 @ 9:36AM
While the suburban sprawl may contribute to the nightmare heavy traffic within the Beltway and beyond, I’m not sure that increasing the population and office density inside the District itself will do as much to alleviate it as it will focus and intensify it more in the center.
Derek Leaberry| 6.25.12 @ 12:14PM
Here, here! Not only should the government should be downsized, many departments that remain should be moved to other parts of the country. For instance, the Department of Agriculture could be moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Move the Energy Department(if not closed down) to Amarillo, Texas. US Fish and Wildlife could be sent packing to Bangor, Maine. The Interior Department could be relocated to Pueblo, Colorado.
Aristocat| 6.26.12 @ 1:52AM
Yes, this is a very good idea first espoused by Sen. Zell Miller some years ago...Not only the federal agencies but the House, Senate, Supreme Court, and President all need to be moved out of DC into areas of the country where the people are not brain-dead liberals....
Petronius| 6.25.12 @ 12:54PM
And move the IRS to Tuna, Texas. The Lions Club is too liberal there and Patsy Cline never died.
JimH| 6.25.12 @ 1:41PM
It probably was no accident that our founding fathers sited the nation’s capitol in a malarial swamp. I suspect that you could link the major growth of the Federal government and it’s hangers on in Washington to the introduction of air conditioning.
Jane Chingo| 6.25.12 @ 5:14PM
Reassuring? Comfortable? Human scale? Home? PARIS?? Mr. Hannaford, please let us know what you're smoking, so we can avoid it at all costs.
Bob K| 6.25.12 @ 7:40PM
Mr. Hannaford,
This might be of importance to you and the other writers here at A. S. who worship at the feet of the elect and the elected in Washington D. C.
But out here in flyover country the over taxed millions won't be happy to hear about how the city is becoming "more gentrified" and how Representative Issa plans to give it more room to grow in the sky, like the beginnings of a Tower of Babble. All of it on their taxes too!
I would go one step more than Mr Leaberry and move the entire Capitol to the mid west. Somewhere around the Black Hills would be fine. The only monument this country needs is there.
You could chase the elect and the elected around wearing cowboy boots! Wouldn't that be grand!
Petronius| 6.25.12 @ 7:49PM
Bob
The poor Natives have been abused more than enough. Send the beltway bastards to Detroit.