Forbidden City
Content
Forbidden City
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Gugong" redirects here. For other uses, see Gugong (disambiguation). "Palace Museum" redirects here. For the historical building in Stone Town, Zanzibar, see Palace Museum, Zanzibar. For other uses, see Forbidden City (disambiguation).
Coordinates: 39°54′53″N 116°23′26″E
Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang *
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Country
China
Type
Cultural
Criteria
i, ii, iii, iv
Reference
439
Region **
Asia-Pacific
Inscription history
Inscription
1987 (11th Session)
Extensions
2004
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List ** Region as classified by UNESCO
This article contains Chinesetext. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead of Chinese characters.
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home ofemperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 720,000 m2(7,800,000 sq ft).
[1]
The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture,[2] and has influenced
cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987,[2] and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum's former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War.
Contents
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• • • o o
1 Name 2 History 3 Description 3.1 Walls and gates 3.2 Outer Court
o o o o • • • • • •
3.3 Inner Court 3.4 Religion 3.5 Surroundings 3.6 Symbolism 4 Collections 5 Influence 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links
[edit]Name
The Gate of Divine Might, the northern gate. The lower tablet reads "The Palace Museum" (故宫博物院)
The common English name, "the Forbidden City", is a translation of the Chinese name Zijin Cheng(Chinese: 紫禁城; pinyin: Zǐjinchéng; literally "Purple Forbidden City"). Another English name of similar origin is "Forbidden Palace".[3] The name "Zijin Cheng" is a name with significance on many levels. Zi, or "Purple", refers to theNorth Star, which in ancient China was called the Ziwei Star, and in traditional Chinese astrologywas the abode of the Celestial Emperor. The surrounding celestial region, the Ziwei Enclosure(Chinese: 紫微垣; pinyin: Zǐwēiyuán), was the realm of the Celestial Emperor and his family. The Forbidden City, as the residence of the terrestrial emperor, was its earthly counterpart. Jin, or "Forbidden", referred to the fact that no-one could enter or leave the palace without the emperor's permission. Cheng means a walled city.[4]
Today, the site is most commonly known in Chinese as Gùgōng (故宫), which means the "Former Palace".[5] The museum which is based in these buildings is known as the "Palace Museum" (Chinese: 故宫博物院; pinyin: Gùgōng Bówùyùan).
[edit]History
Main article: History of the Forbidden City
The Forbidden City as depicted in a traditional Ming Dynastypainting
The site of the Forbidden City was situated on the Imperial City during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. Upon the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered that the Yuan palaces be burnt down. When his son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital back to Beijing, and construction began in 1406 of what would become the Forbidden City.[4] Construction lasted 15 years, and required more than a million workers. [6] Material used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood (Chinese: 楠木; pinyin: nánmù) found in the jungles of southwestern China, and large blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing.[7] The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks" (Chinese: 金砖; pinyin: jīnzhuān), specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou.[6] From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming Dynasty. In April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun Dynasty.[8] He soon fled before the combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces, setting fire to parts of the Forbidden City in the process.[9] By October, the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China, and a ceremony was held at the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Shunzhi Emperor as ruler of all China under the Qing Dynasty.[10] The Qing rulers changed the names on some of the principal buildings, to emphasise "Harmony" rather than "Supremacy", [11]made the name plates bilingual (Chinese and Manchu),[12] and introduced Shamanist elements to the palace. [13]
In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war.[14] In 1900 Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion, leaving it to be occupied by forces of the treaty powers until the following year. After being the home of 24 emperors – 14 of the Ming Dynasty and 10 of the Qing Dynasty – the Forbidden City ceased being the political centre of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use,[15] until he was evicted after a coup in 1924.[16] The Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City in 1925.[17] In 1933, the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in the Forbidden City.
[18]
Part of the collection was returned at the end of World War II,[19] but the other part was evacuated to
Taiwan in 1947 under orders by Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese Civil War. This relatively small but high quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it again became public, as the core of the National Palace Museum inTaipei.[20]
The East Glorious Gate under renovation as part of the 16-year restoration process
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, some damage was done to the Forbidden City as the country was swept up in revolutionary zeal.[21] During the Cultural Revolution, however, further destruction was prevented when Premier Zhou Enlai sent an army battalion to guard the city.[22] The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties",[23] due to its significant place in the development ofChinese architecture and culture. It is currently administered by the Palace Museum, which is carrying out a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore all buildings in the Forbidden City to their pre1912 state.[24] In recent years, the presence of commercial enterprises in the Forbidden City has become controversial.[25] A Starbucks store that opened in 2000 sparked objections and eventually closed on
July 13, 2007.[26][27] Chinese media also took notice of a pair of souvenir shops that refused to admit Chinese citizens in order to price-gouge foreign customers in 2006.[28]
[edit]Description
The Forbidden City, viewed from Jingshan Hill to the north
Plan of the Forbidden City. Labels in red are used to refer to locations throughout the article.
- – - Approximate dividing line between Inner (north) and Outer (south) Courts.
A. Meridian Gate B. Gate of Divine Might
H. Hall of Military Eminence J. Hall of Literary Glory
C. West Glorious Gate D. East Glorious Gate E. Corner towers F. Gate of Supreme Harmony G. Hall of Supreme Harmony
K. Southern Three Places L. Palace of Heavenly Purity M. Imperial garden N. Hall of Mental Cultivation O. Palace of Tranquil Longevity
The Forbidden City is a rectangle 961 metres (3,153 ft) from north to south and 753 metres (2,470 ft) from east to west. It consists of 980 surviving buildings with 9,999 bays of rooms. [1] The Forbidden City was designed to be the centre of the ancient, walled city of Beijing. It is enclosed in a larger, walled area called the Imperial City. The Imperial City is, in turn, enclosed by the Inner City; to its south lies the Outer City. The Forbidden City remains important in the civic scheme of Beijing. The central north-south axis remains the central axis of Beijing. This axis extends to the south through Tiananmen gate to Tiananmen Square, the ceremonial centre of the People's Republic of China, and on toYongdingmen. To the north, it extends through Jingshan Hill to the Bell and Drum Towers.[29] This axis is not exactly aligned north-south, but is tilted by slightly more than two degrees. Researchers now believe that the axis was designed in the Yuan Dynasty to be aligned with Xanadu, the other capital of their empire.[30]
[edit]Walls
and gates
The Meridian Gate, front entrance to the Forbidden City, with two protruding wings
The northwest corner tower
The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 7.9 metres (26 ft) high city wall[11] and a 6 metres (20 ft) deep by 52 metres (171 ft) widemoat. The walls are 8.62 metres (28.3 ft) wide at the base, tapering to 6.66 metres (21.9 ft) at the top.[31] These walls served as both defensive walls andretaining walls for the palace. They were constructed with arammed earth core, and surfaced with three layers of specially baked bricks on both sides, with the interstices filled with mortar.[32] At the four corners of the wall sit towers (E) with intricate roofs boasting 72 ridges, reproducing the Pavilion of Prince Teng and the Yellow Crane Pavilion as they appeared in Song Dynasty paintings.[32] These towers are the most visible parts of the palace to commoners outside the
walls, and much folklore is attached to them. According to one legend, artisans could not put a corner tower back together after it was dismantled for renovations in the early Qing Dynasty, and it was only rebuilt after the intervention of carpenter-immortal Lu Ban.[11] The wall is pierced by a gate on each side. At the southern end is the main Meridian Gate (A).[33] To the north is the Gate of Divine Might (B), which faces Jingshan Park. The east and west gates are called the "East Glorious Gate" (D) and "West Glorious Gate" (C). All gates in the Forbidden City are decorated with a nine-by-nine array of golden door nails, except for the East Glorious Gate, which has only eight rows.[34] The Meridian Gate has two protruding wings forming three sides of a square (Wumen, or Meridian Gate, Square) before it.[35] The gate has five gateways. The central gateway is part of the Imperial Way, a stone flagged path that forms the central axis of the Forbidden City and the ancient city of Beijing itself, and leads all the way from the Gate of China in the south to Jingshan in the north. Only the Emperor may walk or ride on the Imperial Way, except for the Empress on the occasion of her wedding, and successful students after the Imperial Examination.[34]
[edit]Outer
Court
The Hall of Supreme Harmony
The sign of the Hall of Supreme Harmony
The throne in the Hall of Preserving Harmony
The Hall of Central Harmony (foreground) and the Hall of Preserving Harmony
Traditionally, the Forbidden City is divided into two parts. The Outer Court (外朝) or Front Court (前朝) includes the southern sections, and was used for ceremonial purposes. The Inner Court(内廷) or Back Palace (后宫) includes the northern sections, and was the residence of the Emperor and his family, and was used for day-to-day affairs of state. (The approximate dividing line shown as red dash in the plan above.) Generally, the Forbidden City has three vertical axes. The most important buildings are situated on the central north-south axis.[34] Entering from the Meridian Gate, one encounters a large square, pierced by the meandering Inner Golden Water River, which is crossed by five bridges. Beyond the square stands the Gate of Supreme Harmony (F). Behind that is the Hall of Supreme Harmony Square.[36] A three-tiered white marble terrace rises from this square. Three halls stand on top of this terrace, the focus of the palace complex. From the south, these are the Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿), the Hall of Central Harmony (中和 殿), and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (保和殿).[37] The Hall of Supreme Harmony (G) is the largest, and rises some 30 metres (98 ft) above the level of the surrounding square. It is the ceremonial centre of imperial power, and the largest surviving wooden structure in China. It is nine bays wide and five bays deep, the numbers 9 and 5 being symbolically connected to the majesty of the Emperor.[38] Set into the ceiling at the centre of the hall is an intricate caisson decorated with a coiled dragon, from the mouth of which issues a chandelier-like set
of metal balls, called the "Xuanyuan Mirror".[39] In the Ming Dynasty, the Emperor held court here to discuss affairs of state. During the Qing Dynasty, as Emperors held court far more frequently, a less ceremonious location was used instead, and the Hall of Supreme Harmony was only used for ceremonial purposes, such as coronations, investitures, and imperial weddings.[40] The Hall of Central Harmony is a smaller, square hall, used by the Emperor to prepare and rest before and during ceremonies.[41] Behind it, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, was used for rehearsing ceremonies, and was also the site of the final stage of the Imperial examination.[42] All three halls feature imperial thrones, the largest and most elaborate one being that in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.[43] At the centre of the ramps leading up to the terraces from the northern and southern sides are ceremonial ramps, part of the Imperial Way, featuring elaborate and symbolic bas-relief carvings. The northern ramp, behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony, is carved from a single piece of stone 16.57 metres (54.4 ft) long, 3.07 metres (10.1 ft) wide, and 1.7 metres (5.6 ft) thick. It weighs some 200 tonnes and is the largest such carving in China.[6] The southern ramp, in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, is even longer, but is made from two stone slabs joined together – the joint was ingeniously hidden using overlapping bas-relief carvings, and was only discovered when weathering widened the gap in the 20th century.[44] In the south west and south east of the Outer Court are the halls of Military Eminence (H) and Literary Glory (J). The former was used at various times for the Emperor to receive ministers and hold court, and later housed the Palace's own printing house. The latter was used for ceremonial lectures by highly regarded Confucian scholars, and later became the office of the Grand Secretariat. A copy of the Siku Quanshu was stored there. To the north-east are the Southern Three Places (南三所) (K), which was the residence of the Crown Prince.[36]
[edit]Inner
Court
The Inner Court is separated from the Outer Court by an oblong courtyard lying orthogonal to the City's main axis. It was the home of the Emperor and his family. In the Qing Dynasty, the Emperor lived and worked almost exclusively in the Inner Court, with the Outer Court used only for ceremonial purposes.
[45]
The Palace of Heavenly Purity
At the centre of the Inner Court is another set of three halls (L). From the south, these are thePalace of Heavenly Purity (乾清宮), Hall of Union, and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Smaller than the Outer Court halls, the three halls of the Inner Court were the official residences of the Emperor and the Empress. The Emperor, representing Yang and the Heavens, would occupy the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The Empress, representing Yin and the Earth, would occupy the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. In between them was the Hall of Union, where the Yin and Yangmixed to produce harmony.[46]
The throne in the Palace of Heavenly Purity
The Palace of Heavenly Purity is a double-eaved building, and set on a single-level white marble platform. It is connected to the Gate of Heavenly Purity to its south by a raised walkway. In the Ming Dynasty, it was the residence of the Emperor. However, beginning from the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the Emperor lived instead at the smaller Hall of Mental Cultivation (N) to the west, out of respect to the memory of the Kangxi Emperor.[11] The Palace of Heavenly Purity then became the Emperor's audience hall.[47] A caisson is set into the roof, featuring a coiled dragon. Above the
throne hangs a tablet reading "Justice and Honour" (Chinese: 正大光明; pinyin: zhèngdàguāngmíng).
[48]
The Palace of Earthly Tranquility (坤寧宮) is a double-eaved building, 9 bays wide and 3 bays deep. In the Ming Dynasty, it was the residence of the Empress. In the Qing Dynasty, large portions of the Palace were converted for Shamanist worship by the new Manchu rulers. From the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor, the Empress moved out of the Palace. However, two rooms in the Palace of Earthly Harmony were retained for use on the Emperor's wedding night.[49] Between these two palaces is the Hall of Union, which is square in shape with a pyramidal roof. Stored here are the 25 Imperial Seals of the Qing Dynasty, as well as other ceremonial items. [50]
The Nine Dragons Screen in front of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity
Behind these three halls lies the Imperial Garden (M). Relatively small, and compact in design, the garden nevertheless contains several elaborate landscaping features.[51] To the north of the garden is the Gate of Divine Might, the north gate of the palace. Distributed to the east and west of the three main halls are a series of self-contained courtyards and minor palaces, where the Emperor's concubines and children lived. Directly to the west is the Hall of Mental Cultivation (N). Originally a minor palace, this became thede facto residence and office of the Emperor starting from Yongzheng. In the last decades of the Qing Dynasty, empresses dowager, including Cixi, held court from the eastern partition of the hall. Located around the Hall of Mental Cultivation are the offices of the Grand Council and other key government bodies.[52] The north-eastern section of the Inner Court is taken up by the Palace of Tranquil Longevity (寧壽宮) (O), a complex built by the Qianlong Emperor in anticipation of his retirement. It mirrors the set-up of the Forbidden City proper and features an "outer court", an "inner court", and gardens and temples. The entrance to the Palace of Tranquil Longevity is marked by a glazed-tile Nine Dragons Screen.
[53]
This section of the Forbidden City is being restored in a partnership between the Palace Museum
and the World Monuments Fund, a long-term project expected to finish in 2017.
[edit]Religion
Religion was an important part of life for the imperial court. In the Qing Dynasty, the Palace of Earthly Harmony became a place of ManchuShamanist ceremony. At the same time, the native Chinese Taoist religion continued to have an important role throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. There were two Taoist shrines, one in the imperial garden and another in the central area of the Inner Court.[54] Another prevalent form of religion in the Qing Dynasty palace was Buddhism. A number of temples and shrines were scattered throughout the Inner Court, including that of Tibetan Buddhism or Lamaism. Buddhist iconography also proliferated in the interior decorations of many buildings.[55] Of these, the Pavilion of the Rain of Flowers is one of the most important. It housed a large number of Buddhist statues, icons, and mandalas, placed in ritualistic arrangements.[56]
[edit]Surroundings
See also: Imperial City (Beijing)
Location of the Forbidden City in the historic centre of Beijing
Beihai – the Bai Ta is in the distance
The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. To the north is Jingshan Park, also known as Prospect Hill, an artificial hill created from the soil excavated to build the moat and from nearby lakes.[57] To the west lies Zhongnanhai, a former garden centred on two connected lakes, which now serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. To the north-west lies Beihai Park, also centred on a lake connected to the southern two, and a popular park. To the south of the Forbidden City were two important shrines – the Imperial Shrine of Family (Chinese: 太庙; pinyin: Tàimiào) and the Imperial Shrine of State (Chinese: 太社稷; pinyin:Tàishèjì), where the Emperor would venerate the spirits of his ancestors and the spirit of the nation, respectively. Today, these are the Beijing Labouring People's Cultural Hall[58] andZhongshan Park (commemorating Sun Yat-sen) respectively.[59] To the south, two nearly identical gatehouses stand along the main axis. They are the Upright Gate (Chinese: 端门; pinyin: Duānmén) and the more famous Tiananmen Gate, which is decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in the centre and two placards to the left and right: "Long Live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples". The Tiananmen Gate connects the Forbidden City precinct with the modern, symbolic centre of the Chinese state, Tiananmen Square. While development is now tightly controlled in the vicinity of the Forbidden City, throughout the past century uncontrolled and sometimes politically motivated demolition and reconstruction has changed the character of the areas surrounding the Forbidden City. Since 2000, the Beijing municipal government has worked to evict governmental and military institutions occupying some historical buildings, and has established a park around the remaining parts of the Imperial City wall. In 2004, an ordinance relating to building height and planning restriction was renewed to establish the Imperial City area and the northern city area as a buffer zone for the Forbidden City.[60] In 2005, the Imperial City and Beihai (as an extension item to the Summer Palace) were included in the shortlist for the next World Heritage Site in Beijing.[61]
[edit]Symbolism
Imperial roof decoration of highest status on the roof ridge of the Hall of Supreme Harmony
The design of the Forbidden City, from its overall layout to the smallest detail, was meticulously planned to reflect philosophical and religious principles, and above all to symbolise the majesty of Imperial power. Some noted examples of symbolic designs include:
Yellow is the color of the Emperor. Thus almost all roofs in the Forbidden City bear yellow
glazed tiles. There are only two exceptions. The library at the Pavilion of Literary Profundity (文渊 阁) had black tiles because black was associated with water, and thus fire-prevention. Similarly, the Crown Prince's residences have green tiles because green was associated withwood, and thus growth.[38]
The main halls of the Outer and Inner courts are all arranged in groups of three – the shape of
the Qian triagram, representing Heaven. The residences of the Inner Court on the other hand are arranged in groups of six – the shape of the Kun triagram, representing the Earth.[11]
The sloping ridges of building roofs are decorated with a line of statuettes led by a man riding
a phoenix and followed by an imperial dragon. The number of statuettes represents the status of the building – a minor building might have 3 or 5. The Hall of Supreme Harmony has 10, the only building in the country to be permitted this in Imperial times. As a result, its 10th statuette, called a "Hangshi", or "ranked tenth" (Chinese: 行十; pinyin: Hángshí),[50] is also unique in the Forbidden City.[62]
The layout of buildings follows ancient customs laid down in the Classic of Rites. Thus,
ancestral temples are in front of the palace. Storage areas are placed in the front part of the palace complex, and residences in the back.[63]
[edit]Collections
Main article: Collections of the Palace Museum
Two Qing Dynasty "blue porcelain" wares
A blue and white porcelain vase with cloud and dragon designs, marked with the word "Longevity", Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty
Equestrian painting of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–1796) by Giuseppe Castiglione
The Jadeite Cabbage, formerly at the Forbidden City and now at the National Palace Museum, Taipei
The collections of the Palace Museum are based on the Qing imperial collection. According to the results of a 1925 audit,[64] some 1.17 million items were stored in the Forbidden City. In addition, the imperial libraries housed one of the country's largest collections of ancient books and various documents, including government documents of the Ming and Qing dynasties. From 1933, the threat of Japanese invasion forced the evacuation of the most important parts of the Museum's collection. After the end of World War II, this collection was returned to Nanjing. However, with the Communists' victory imminent in the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist government decided to ship the pick of this collection to Taiwan. Of the 13,427 boxes of evacuated artifacts, 2,972 boxes are now housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Almost ten thousand boxes were returned to Beijing, but 2,221 boxes remain today in storage under the charge of the Nanjing Museum.[20] After 1949, the Museum conducted a new audit as well as a thorough search of the Forbidden City, uncovering a number of important items. In addition, the government moved items from other museums around the country to replenish the Palace Museum's collection. It also purchased and received donations from the public.[65] Today, there are over a million rare and valuable works of art in the permanent collection of the Palace Museum, [66][67] including paintings, pottery, inscribed wares, bronze wares, court documents, etc.
[66]
According to an inventory of the Museum's collection conducted between 2004 and 2010, the Palace
Museum holds a total of 1,807,558 artifacts and includes 1,684,490 items designated as nationally protected "valuable cultural relics."[68] Ceramic The Palace Museum holds 340,000 pieces of ceramicsand porcelain. These include imperial collections from the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, as well as pieces commissioned by the Palace, and, sometimes, by the Emperor personally. The Palace Museum holds about 320,000 pieces of porcelain from the imperial collection. The rest are almost all held in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Nanjing Museum. [69]
Paintings The Palace Museum holds close to 50,000 paintings. Of these, more than 400 date from before the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368). This is the largest such collection in China.[70] The collection is based on the palace collection in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The personal interest of Emperors such as Qianlong meant that the palace held one of the most important collections of paintings in Chinese history. However, a significant portion of this collection was lost over the years. After his abdication, Puyi transferred paintings out of the palace, and many of these were subsequently lost or destroyed. In 1948, many of the works were moved to Taiwan. The collection has subsequently been replenished, through donations, purchases, and transfers from other museums. Bronzeware The Palace Museum's bronze collection dates from the early Shang Dynasty. Of the almost 10,000 pieces held, about 1,600 are inscribed items from the pre-Qin period (to 221 BC). A significant part of the collection is ceremonial bronzeware from the imperial court.[71] Timepieces The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of mechanical timepieces of the 18th and 19th centuries in the world, with more than 1,000 pieces. The collection contains both Chinese- and foreignmade pieces. Chinese pieces came from the palace's own workshops,Guangzhou (Canton) and Suzhou (Suchow). Foreign pieces came from countries including Britain, France, Switzerland, the United States and Japan. Of these, the largest portion come from Britain.[72] Jade Jade has a unique place in Chinese culture.[73] The Museum's collection, mostly derived from the imperial collection, includes some 30,000 pieces. The pre-Yuan Dynasty part of the collection includes several pieces famed throughout history, as well as artifacts from more recent archaeological discoveries. The earliest pieces date from the Neolithic period. Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty pieces, on the other hand, include both items for palace use, as well as tribute items from around the Empire and beyond.[74] Palace artefacts In addition to works of art, a large proportion of the Museum's collection consists of the artefacts of the imperial court. This includes items used by the imperial family and the palace in daily life, as well as various ceremonial and bureaucratic items important to government administration. This comprehensive collection preserves the daily life and ceremonial protocols of the imperial era.[75]
[edit]Influence
A gilded lion in front of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity
Glazed building decoration
Architecture The Forbidden City, the culmination of the two-thousand-year development of classical Chinese and East Asian architecture, has been influential in the subsequent development of Chinese architecture, as well as providing inspiration for many modern constructions. Some specific examples include:
Emperor Gia Long of Vietnam built a palace and fortress in the 1800s. Its ruins are in Huế. In
English it is called the "Imperial City". The name of the inner palace complex in Vietnamese is translated literally as "Purple Forbidden City", which is the same as the Chinese name for the Forbidden City in Beijing.
The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington was designed to incorporate elements of
classical Chinese architecture and interior decoration. The ceiling of the auditorium features a dragon panel and chandelier reminiscent of the dragon caisson and Xuanyuan mirror found in the Forbidden City.[76] Depiction in art, film, literature and popular culture The Forbidden City has served as the scene to many works of fiction. In recent years, it has been depicted in films and television series. Some notable examples include:
The Forbidden City (1918), a fiction film about a Chinese emperor and an American. The Last Emperor (1987), a biographical film about Puyi, was the first feature film ever
authorised by the government of the People's Republic of China to be filmed in the Forbidden City.
Marco Polo a joint NBC and RAI TV miniseries broadcast in the early 1980s, was filmed inside
the Forbidden City. Note, however, that the present Forbidden City did not exist in the Yuan Dynasty, when Marco Polo met Kublai Khan. As performance venue The Forbidden City has also served as a performance venue. However, its use for this purpose is strictly limited, due to the heavy impact of equipment and performance on the ancient structures. Almost all performances said to be "in the Forbidden City" are held outside the palace walls.
Giacomo Puccini's opera, Turandot, about the story of a Chinese princess, was performed at
the Imperial Shrine just outside the Forbidden City for the first time in 1998.[77]
In 1988, the USA musician Marty Friedman composed a song inspired in Forbidden City, as
part of the "Dragon Kiss" album.[78]
In 1997, Greek-born composer and keyboardist Yanni performed a live concert in front of the
Forbidden City. The concert was recorded and later released as part of the "Tribute" album. [79]
In 2004, the French musician Jean Michel Jarre performed a live concert in front of the
Forbidden City, accompanied by 260 musicians, as part of the "Year of France in China" festivities.[80]
The first explicit attempt to utilize the vaguely classical Beaux-Arts architectural style, which emerged from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, for the explicit intent of beautification and social amelioration was the Senate Park Commission's redesign of the monumental core of Washington D.C. to commemorate the city's centennial. The McMillan Plan of 1901-02,
named for Senator James McMillan, the commission's liaison and principal backer in Congress, was the United States' first attempt at city planning. The original plans of Pierre L'Enfant had been largely unrealized in the growth of the city, and with the country's growing prominence in the international arena, Congress decided that Washington D.C. should be brought to the magnificence decreed in L'Enfant's plan. The members of the commission convened by the Congress included Daniel H. Burnham, former Director of Construction of the World's Columbian Exposition; architect Charles McKim, of McKim, Mead, & White, New York City; sculptor and World's Fair alumnus Augustus Saint-Gaudens; Frederick L. Olmsted, Jr.; and Congressional liaison Charles Moore. Together they sought to revitalize the capital city through the monumental forms of the Beaux-Arts style. Using their experience at the World's Fair as a jumping-off point, the commissioners sought to accomplish a number of goals: to obtain a sense of cultural parity with Europe; to establish themselves as cultural and societal leaders in the rapidly growing professional class; to revitalize Washington D.C.'s "monumental core" as an expression of continuity with the "founding fathers" as well as an expression of governmental legitimacy in a changing and confusing era of expansion; and finally, to utilize the beauty of the monumental center as a means of social control and civic amelioration. The means to these ends was the 1901 plan. The group began their research for the comprehensive city plan by visiting the "great cities" of Europe. Vienna, Paris, and the town planning of Germany were their destinations in an attempt to recover the spirit of L'Enfant. "Their pilgrimage in general, and their specific itinerary, reflected the reverence of the City Beautiful mentality for the culture of the Old World..." (Hines, 87) The commissioners were particularly impressed with Paris, seeing it as a "'well-articulated city--a work of civic art.'" (Hines, 87) The broad Parisian avenues and gardens of Versailles were a great influence on the men, and with their predilection for the Beaux-Arts style, an understandable influence on the final plan. The plan itself was a reworking of L'Enfant's plan, creating a monumental core, a great public Mall, and a series of public gardens. The focus of the plan, however, was on the Mall itself.
Briefly, the Commission proposed to surround the Capitol square with a series of monumental buildings for Congressional use and for the Supreme Court. These, together with the existing Library of Congress, would form a frame for the Capitol and its towering dome. Extending westwards on a rectified axis, a broad Mall with four carriage drives would lead to the Washington Monument. Lining the Mall on both sides would be major cultural and educational buildings. (Reps, 109) The buildings surrounding the Capitol eventually included Burnham's immense Union Station and Columbus Plaza. The placement of this railroad station is important in the 1901 plan. Not only does it demonstrate the Commission's mania for symmetry, harmony, and building groups rather than individual buildings, it also demonstrates its power. For the preceding decades the Pennsylvania railroad had its station at the base of Capitol Hill, its tracks cutting across the Mall. Daniel Burnham, used his influence with the railroad's president, Alexander Cassatt, and convinced him to move his station, as a matter of civic beauty and national loyalty. At the opposite end of the monumental core stood the Washington Monument, anchoring the two axes of power--the Capitol and the White House. However, the Monument had been built a few hundred yards off the White House's sight lines. "Elaborate sunken gardens proposed for the western side of the monument attempted to correct the off-center north-south axis from the White House. South of the monument were projected sites both for a principal memorial honoring the founding fathers [now the Jefferson Memorial] and for facilities for indoor and outdoor sports." (Gutheim, 90) In addition, a monument to Lincoln was planned for the reclaimed swampland west of the Washington Monument, as well as Memorial Bridge leading to Arlington Cemetery. The placement of the Lincoln Monument (a hotly debated site, which the Speaker of the House, a representative from Illinois, called a "damn swamp") served to enclose the Mall, creating a monumental core, a national civic center. L'Enfant's vision of a processional avenue similar to Paris' Champs Elysees became, in the hands of the Senate Park Commission, "a tapis vertthat was similar to elements at Versailles and to the Schoenbrunn Palace gardens in Vienna." (Hines, 94) The Mall was "unified and stripped of the...undulating walks as well as the intrusive railroad station and tracks, long a civic disfigurement. Elms were to be planted along the Mall's longitudinal edges, defining this space and its central panel of sward." (Gutheim, 34) This visual reference to great European cities was not an accident. Not only were the designers influenced by the French Beaux-Arts style, they took Europe as an explicit model for their plan. America had been struggling with defining its identity since its inception, and on the centennial of the national capital, was
still not quite sure of itself. To visually equate the American capital with European capitals was to create instant social and cultural cache for the nation. It was not only the nation for which the Senate Park Commission was attempting to attain social and cultural cache. As members of a growing professional class, which included professors, writers (such as Henry Adams, William and Henry James), architects, and civil servants, they were attempting to define their roles in this new category in a modern society. As social roles changed, government grew, and America underwent the last death pangs of an agricultural society, this new class of professionals sought recognition and power. The Senate Park Commission, whether consciously or not, identified themselves with the power of planning the national capital, using the BeauxArts style to indicate that they (and America) had as much class as the Europeans, and just as much right to be a part of the upper echelons of American society. However, it was not only European forms that the Commission used in its 1901 plan. The Beaux-Arts style gave the impression of being vaguely classical, connoting not only the democracy of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic, but also the early American Republic of L'Enfant's plan. "Classic architecture symbolized the historical heritage of the United States in a way that the Gothic, Romanesque, or commercial styles never could." (Wilson, 89) The classical reference in architecture was well-known in America, flowering through the late 1840s before the advent of Victorian eclecticism and the more austere and functional forms of the Chicago school. (Wilson, 89, Craig, 214) The very fact that the initial intent of the plan was to revisit L'Enfant demonstrates the Commission's attempt to link the growing power of their class and of the government itself with the ideals and forms of the early Republic. "It was the first large effort to retrieve and restore the historic capital of the Founders, one of the earliest major attempts in the history of the republic to reestablish for any city a sense of continuity with its origins and with the national heritage, as expressed in architectural forms." (Hines, 95) This explicit reference to the Founders allowed the government at the turn of the century, and subsequent governments, to align themselves with the powerful symbolism the Founders invoked. Drawing on this well of myth, the Mall was to present "the public a symbol of the power of the national government." (Gutheim, 43) In the past, the Mall was simply an open space for residents of Washington D.C.; with the new plan it "was reconceived as a new kind of governmental complex, a combined civic and cultural center that is at
once a national front lawn and an imperial forum. This long, wide swath of open space--something between a park and a boulevard--and the buildings along its edges have long served, in effect, as a sacred enclosure, a tenemos for a democracy." (Stern, 263) The growing power of the government and its bureaucracy needed the kind of legitimacy that classic forms and Republican allusions provided. Yet the monumental core was not the only part of the city the 1901 Plan addressed. The 1901 Plan was the first real expression of the City Beautiful movement in America, believing in the power of beauty in the urban center to not only increase business and property prices, but to induce civic pride and its attendant moral andeconomic reforms. The Plan did not explicitly address the problems of the overcrowded and impoverished tenements and alleys surrounding the monumental core; instead government buildings were to replace "notorious slum communities" with names like Swamppoodle and Murder Bay. (Gutheim, 43) The intent of the plan on its social level was not to address economic issues head-on; instead Burnham suggested the way to deal with the impoverished neighborhoods would be to cut "'broad thoroughfares through the unwholesome district.'" (qtd. in Boyer, 271-72) These City Beautiful proponents believed in the power of fountains, statues, and tree-lined boulevards as an "antidote to moral decay and social disorder." (Boyer, 265-66) but did not include the displaced poor in their city plans. Earlier planners, including Frederick Olmsted, Sr., believed in the restorative effects of beauty, as expressed in natural and park settings. His famous plan for New York's Central Park was conceived as a place where all economic classes could relax and mingle, "the locale of class reconciliation." (Wilson, 31) rather than a place where city dwellers (who were mostly working class or poor) would be imbued with the spirit of civic/national idealism, and be inspired to pick themselves up out of moral decay and into economic success. Olmsted, Sr. was never reconciled to the civic idealism or neoclassicism of the City Beautiful movement, although his son Olmsted, Jr., was a force for beauty's restorative effect within the Commission. The plan "might have emphasized primarily ceremonial aspects had the experience and sympathies of the younger Olmsted not been present." (Gutheim, 35) Olmsted's legacy in the plan is felt in the open green spaces of the Mall, and the park systems he included in the D.C. area. Yet in the end, the Commission "believed less in the Olmstedian view of beauty's restorative power and more in the shaping influences of beauty." (Wilson, 80) The potential for monumentality, beauty, and community building was immense in the redesign of Washington D.C. But as Norma Evenson observes
in her article "Monumental Spaces," : "As a planned city, Washington provided opportunities for the creation of large scale urban unity: the axial government complex could be harmoniously embodied within, and related to, a comprehensively ordered street fabric." (21) Yet this was not the case with the 1901 plan; in fact many, even at the time, saw the focus on the Mall as exclusive rather than inclusive, a lost opportunity to address not only city beautification as well as social and economic reforms, but also thoughts for the future as the growing national government expanded the borders of Washington D.C. The 1901 Plan for Washington D.C. was not at its core a plan for the growing metropolitan city, but for a monumental center which would invoke European and classical forms in order to legitimize the power of the planners, the growing government, and America in the international arena. It would also provide a focus for civic and national pride, which would in turn somehow magically ameliorate the city's and nation's economic and social problems. When the Commission presented the Plan to President Roosevelt and the public in an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery, the estimated $200-600 million required to put the plan into place was only one of many concerns voiced. The legacy of the City Beautiful movement in Washington D.C., and throughout the country, is being felt even today in debates over city beautification versus economic redevelopment.
History of Washington, D.C.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aerial photo of Washington, D.C.
The history of Washington, D.C. is tied to its role as the capital of the United States. Originally inhabited by an Algonquian-speaking people known as the Nacotchtank, the site of the District of Columbia along the Potomac River was originally selected by President George Washington. The city came under attack during the War of 1812 in an episode known as theBurning of Washington. Upon
the government's return to the capital, it had to manage reconstruction of numerous public buildings, including the White House and United States Capitol. The McMillan Plan of 1901 helped restore and beautify the downtown core area, including establishing the National Mall, along with numerous monuments and museums. Unique among cities with a high percentage of African Americans, Washington has had a significant black population since the city's creation. As a result, Washington became both a center of African American culture and a center of civil rights movement. Since the city government was run by the federal government, black and white school teachers were paid at an equal scale as workers for the federal government. It was not until the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, a southerner who had numerous southerners in his cabinet, that federal offices and workplaces were segregated, starting in 1913.[1] This situation persisted for decades: the city was racially segregatedin certain facilities until the 1950s. Today, DC is marked by contrasts. Neighborhoods on the eastern periphery of the central city, and east of the Anacostia River tend to be disproportionately lower-income. Following World War II, many middle-income whites moved out of the city's central and eastern sections to newer, affordable suburban housing, with commuting eased by highway construction. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 sparked major riots in chiefly African American neighborhoods east of the Rock Creek Park. Large sections of the central city remained blighted for decades. By contrast, areas west of Rock Creek Park, including virtually the entire portion of the District between the Georgetownand Chevy Chase neighborhoods (the latter of which spills into neighboring Chevy Chase, Maryland), contain some of the nation's most affluent and notable neighborhoods. During the early 20th century, the U Street Corridor served as an important center for African Americanculture in DC. The Washington Metro opened in 1976. A rising economy and gentrification in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to revitalization of many downtown neighborhoods. Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution places the District (which is not a state) under the exclusive legislation of Congress. Throughout its history, Washington, D.C. residents have therefore lacked voting representation in Congress. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961, gave the District representation in the Electoral College. The 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act provided the local government more control of affairs, including direct election of the city council and mayor.
Contents
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•
1 Early settlement
• o • o o o o o o • o o o • o • • • •
2 Founding 2.1 Plan of the City of Washington 3 19th century 3.1 Economic development 3.2 War of 1812 3.3 Railroads arrive in Washington 3.4 Retrocession 3.5 Civil War era 3.6 Post-Civil War era 4 20th century 4.1 Civil rights 4.2 Electoral college votes 4.3 Home rule 5 21st century 5.1 Terrorism and security 6 Changing demographics 7 See also 8 Notes and references 9 External links
[edit]Early
settlement
Archaeological evidence indicates Native Americans settled in the area at least 4000 years ago, around the Anacostia River.[2] Early European exploration of the region took place early in the 17th century, including explorations by Captain John Smith in 1608.[3][4] At the time, the Patawomeck (loosely affiliated with the Powhatan) and the Doeg lived on the Virginia side, as well as on Theodore Roosevelt Island, while the Piscataway (also known as Conoy) tribe of Algonquians resided on the Maryland side.[5] Native inhabitants within the present-day District of Columbia included the Nacotchtank, at Anacostia, who were affiliated with the Conoy.[6] Another village was located between Little Falls and Georgetown,[5] and English fur trader Henry Fleet documented a Nacotchtank village called Tohoga on the site of present-day Georgetown. [7] The first colonial landowners in the present-day District of Columbia were George Thompson and Thomas Gerrard, who were granted the Blue Plains tract in 1662, along with Saint Elizabeth, and other tracts in Anacostia, Capitol Hill, and other areas down to the Potomac River in the following years.
Thompson sold his Capitol Hill properties in 1670, including Duddington Manor, to Thomas Notley; The Duddington property was handed down over the generations to Daniel Carroll, of Duddington. [8] As European settlers arrived, they clashed with the Native Americans over grazing rights. In 1697, Maryland authorities built a fort within what is now the District of Columbia, and two years later, the Conoy relocated to the west, near Point of Rocks.[9] Georgetown was established in 1751 when the Maryland legislature purchased sixty acres of land for the town from George Gordon andGeorge Beall at the price of £280, [10] while Alexandria, Virginia was founded in 1749. Situated on the fall line, Georgetown was the farthest point upstream to which oceangoing boats could navigate the Potomac River. Gordon had constructed a tobacco inspection house along the Potomac in approximately 1745. Warehouses, wharves, and other buildings were added, and the settlement rapidly grew. The Old Stone House, located in Georgetown, was built in 1765 and is the oldest standing building in the District. It did not take long before Georgetown grew into a thriving port, facilitating trade and shipments of tobacco and other goods from colonial Maryland.
[11]
[edit]Founding
Territorial progression of Washington, D.C.
The United States capital was originally located in Philadelphia, beginning with the First and Second Continental Congress, followed by the Congress of the Confederation upon gaining independence. In June 1783, a mob of angry soldiers converged upon Independence Hall to demand payment for their service during the American Revolutionary War. Congress requested that John Dickinson, the governor of Pennsylvania, call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters. In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia. As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey on June 21, 1783.[12]
Dickinson's failure to protect the institutions of the national government was discussed at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787[citation needed]. The delegates therefore agreed in Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution to give the Congress the power: To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square [259 km²]) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 43, also argued that the national capital needed to be distinct from the states, in order to provide for its own maintenance and safety.[13] The Constitution, however, does not select a specific site for the location of the new District. Proposals from the legislatures of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia all offered territory for the location of the national capital. Northern states preferred a capital located in one of the nation's prominent cities, unsurprisingly, almost all of which were in the north. Conversely,Southern states preferred that the capital be located closer to their agricultural and slave-holding interests.[14] The selection of the area around the Potomac River, which was the boundary between Maryland and Virginia, both slave states, was agreed upon between James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton had a proposal for the new federal government to take over debts accrued by the states during the Revolutionary War. However, by 1790, Southern states had largely repaid their overseas debts. Hamilton's proposal would require Southern states to assume a share of Northern debt. Jefferson and Madison agreed to this proposal and in return secured a Southern location for the federal capital.[15] On December 23, 1788, the Maryland General Assembly passed an act, allowing it to cede land for the federal district. The Virginia General Assembly followed suit on December 3, 1789.[16] The signing of the federal Residence Act on July 6, 1790, mandated that the site for the permanent seat of government, "not exceeding ten miles square" (100 square miles), be located on the "river Potomack, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern-Branch and Connogochegue".[17][18] The "EasternBranch" is known today as the Anacostia River. The Connogocheque (Conococheague Creek) empties into the Potomac River upstream near Williamsport and Hagerstown, Maryland.) The Residence Act limited to the Maryland side of the Potomac River the location of land that commissioners appointed by the President could acquire for federal use.[17] The Residence Act authorized the President to select the actual location of the site.
[17]
However, President George Washington wished to include the town of Alexandria, Virginia within
the federal district. To accomplish this, the boundaries of the federal district would need to encompass an area on the Potomac that was downstream of the mouth of the Eastern Branch.
The U.S. Congress amended the Residence Act in 1791 to permit Alexandria's inclusion in the federal district. However, some members of Congress had recognized that Washington and his family owned property in and near Alexandria, which was just seven miles (11 km) upstream from Mount Vernon, Washington's home and plantation. The amendment therefore contained a provision that prohibited the "erection of the public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac".[19][20] The final site was just below the fall line on the Potomac, the furthest inland point navigable by boats. It included the ports of Georgetown and Alexandria. The process of establishing the federal district, however, faced other challenges in the form of strong objections from landowners such as David Burns who owned a large, 650-acre (260 ha) tract of land in the heart of the district.[19] On March 30, 1791, Burns and eighteen other key landowners relented and signed an agreement with Washington, where they would be compensated for any land taken for public use, half of remaining land would be distributed among the proprietors, and the other half to the public.[19] Pursuant to the Residence Act, President Washington appointed three commissioners (Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll, and David Stuart) in 1791 to supervise the planning, design and acquisition of property in the federal district and capital city.[16] In September 1791, the three commissioners agreed to name the federal district as "The Territory of Columbia," and the federal city as the "City of Washington."[21][22] Working under the general supervision of the three commissioners and at the direction of President Washington, Major Andrew Ellicott, assisted by his brothers Benjamin and Joseph Ellicott, Isaac Briggs, George Fenwick, and an African American, Benjamin Banneker, surveyed the borders of the Territory of Columbia with Virginia and Maryland during 1791 and 1792.[23] The survey began at Jones Point, acape located at the confluence of Hunting Creek and the Potomac River south of Alexandria. The survey team enclosed within a square an area containing the full 100 square miles (260 km2) that the Residence Act had authorized. Each side of the square was 10 miles (16 km) long. The axes between the corners of the square ran north–south and east–west. [24] The center of the square is within the grounds of the Organization of American States headquarters west of the Ellipse.
[25]
The survey team placed sandstone boundary markers at or near every mile point along the sides of the square. Many of these markers still remain. The south cornerstone is at Jones Point.[26] The west cornerstone is at the west corner of Arlington County, Virginia.[27] The north cornerstone is south of East-West Highway near Silver Spring, Maryland, west of 16th Street.[28] The east cornerstone is east of the intersection of Southern Avenue and Eastern Avenue.[29]
[edit]Plan
of the City of Washington
See also: Streets and highways of Washington, D.C. See also: L'Enfant Plan
L'Enfant Plan for Washington, D.C., as revised by Andrew Ellicott. Engraved by Thackara & Vallance sc. Printed from the same plate as map appearing in "The universal asylum, and Columbian magazine", Philadelphia, March 1792 (the first printed edition of the Plan of the City of Washington).
A contemporary reprint of Samuel Hill's 1792 print of Ellicott's "Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia", published in "Massachusetts Magazine", Boston, May 1792, showing street names, lot numbers, coordinates and legends.
In early 1791, President Washington appointed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant to devise a plan for the new city in an area of land at the center of the federal territory that lay between the northeast shore of the Potomac River and the northwest shore of the Potomac's Eastern Branch.[30] L'Enfant then designed in his "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of the United States..." the city's first layout, a grid centered on the United States Capitol, which would stand at the top of a hill (Jenkins Hill) on a longitude designated as 0:0. The grid filled an area bounded by the Potomac River, the Eastern Branch (now named the Anacostia River), the base of an escarpment at the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line along which a street (initially Boundary Street, now Florida Avenue) would later travel, and Rock Creek.[31][32][33][34][35][36][37]
North-south and east-west streets formed the grid. Wider diagonal "grand avenues" later named after the states of the union crossed the grid. Where these "grand avenues" crossed each other, L'Enfant placed open spaces in circles and plazas that were later named after notable Americans. L'Enfant's broadest "grand avenue" was a 400 feet (122 m)-wide garden-lined esplanade, which he expected to travel for about 1 mile (1.6 km) along an east-west axis in the center of an area that the National Mall now occupies.[36] A narrower avenue (Pennsylvania Avenue) connected the "Congress house" (the Capitol) with the "President's house" (the White House). [36] In time, Pennsylvania Avenue developed into the capital city's present "grand avenue". L'Enfant's plan included a system of canals, one of which would travel near the western side of the Capitol at the base of Jenkins Hill.[36] To be filled in part by the waters of Tiber Creek, the canal system would traverse the center of the city and would enter both the Potomac River and the Eastern Branch. On August 19, 1791, L'Enfant presented his plan to President Washington. [31][38] However, L'Enfant subsequently entered into a number of conflicts with the three commissioners and others involved in the enterprise. During a particularly contentious period in February 1792, Andrew Ellicott informed the commissioners that L'Enfant had not arranged to have the city plan engraved and had refused to provide him with an original plan that L'Enfant was then holding. Ellicott, with the aid of his brother, Benjamin Ellicott, then revised the plan, despite L'Enfant's protests.[39][40][41][42][43][44] Ellicott's revisions realigned and straightened Massachusetts Avenue, eliminated five short radial avenues and added two others, removed several plazas and straightened the borders of the future Judiciary Square.[45][46] Shortly thereafter, Washington dismissed L'Enfant. Ellicott gave the first version of his own plan to James Thakara and John Vallance of Philadelphia, who engraved, printed and published it. This version, printed in March 1792, was the first Washington city plan that received wide circulation.[47] After L'Enfant departed, Ellicott continued the city survey in accordance with his revised plan, several larger and more detailed versions of which were also engraved, published and distributed. As a result, Ellicott's revisions became the basis for the capital city's future development. In 1800, the seat of government was finally moved to the new city, and on February 27, 1801, the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801placed the District and the municipalities of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria under the jurisdiction of Congress. The act also organized the unincorporated territory within the District into two counties: the County of Washington on the northeast bank of the Potomac, and the County of Alexandria on the southwest bank. On May 3, 1802, the City of Washington was granted a territorial government consisting of a mayor appointed by the President of the United States.
[edit]19th
century
development
[edit]Economic
The District of Columbia relied on Congress for support for capital improvements and economic development initiatives.[48] However, Congress lacked loyalty to the city's residents and was reluctant to provide support.[48] Congress did provide funding for the Washington City Canal in 1809, after earlier private financing efforts were unsuccessful. Construction began in 1810 and the canal opened in late 1815, connecting the Anacostia River with Tiber Creek.[49] Construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) began in Georgetown in 1828. Construction westward through Maryland proceeded slowly. The first section, from Georgetown to Seneca, Maryland, opened in 1831.[50] In 1833 an extension was built from Georgetown eastward, connecting to the City Canal. The C&O reached Cumberland, Maryland in 1850, although by that time it was obsolete as theBaltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) had arrived in Cumberland in 1842.[51]:1 The canal had financial problems, and plans for further construction to reach the Ohio River were abandoned.[52]:7
[edit]War
of 1812
The United States Capitol after the burning of Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812. Watercolor and ink depiction from 1814, restored.
City of Washington from Beyond the Navy Yard by George Cooke, 1833, on display in the White House Oval Office
During the War of 1812, British forces conducted an expedition between August 19 and August 29, 1814, that took and burned the capital city. On August 24, the British routed an American militia, which
had gathered at Bladensburg, Maryland to protect the capital (see Battle of Bladensburg). The militia then abandoned Washington without a fight. President James Madisonand the remainder of the U.S. government fled the capital shortly before the British arrived. The British then entered and burned the capital during the most notably destructive raid of the war. British troops set fire to the capital's most important public buildings, including the Presidential Mansion (the White House), the United States Capitol, the Arsenal, the Navy Yard, the Treasury Building, and the War Office, as well as the north end of the Long Bridge, which crossed the Potomac River into Virginia. The British, however, spared the Patent Office and the Marine Barracks. Dolley Madison, the first lady, or perhaps members of the house staff, rescued theLansdowne Portrait, a fulllength painting of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart as the British approached the Mansion.[53]
[edit]Railroads
arrive in Washington
The B&O opened a rail line from Baltimore to Washington in 1835.[54]:157 Passenger traffic on theWashington Branch had increased by the 1850s, as the company opened a large station in 1852 on New Jersey Avenue NW, just north of the Capitol. Further railroad development continued after the Civil War, with a new B&O line (the Metropolitan Branch) connecting Washington to the west, and the introduction of competition from the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in the 1870s. In 1907, Union Station opened as the city's central terminal.
[edit]Retrocession
Main article: District of Columbia retrocession Almost immediately after the "Federal City" was laid out north of the Potomac, some residents south of the Potomac in Alexandria County, D.C. began petitioning to be returned to Virginia's jurisdiction. Over time, a larger movement grew to separate Alexandria from the District for several reasons:
Alexandria's economy had stagnated as competition with the port of Georgetown, D.C. had
begun to favor the north side of the Potomac, where most members of Congress and local federal officials resided.
The Residence Act prohibited federal offices from locating in Virginia. Alexandria was a center for slave trading. There was increasing talk of abolition of slavery in
the national capital. Alexandria's economy would suffer if slavery were outlawed in the District of Columbia.
There was an active abolition movement in Virginia, and the pro-slavery forces held a slim
majority in the Virginia General Assembly. (Eighteen years later, in the American Civil War, the most anti-slavery counties would secede from Virginia to form West Virginia.) If Alexandria and
Alexandria County were retroceded to Virginia, they would provide two new pro-slavery representatives.
The Alexandria Canal, which connected the C&O Canal to Alexandria, needed repairs, which
the federal government was reluctant to fund.
Alexandria's residents had lost representation and the right to vote at any level of government.
After a referendum, Alexandria County's citizens petitioned Congress and Virginia to return the area to Virginia. By an act of Congress on July 9, 1846, and with the approval of the Virginia General Assembly, the area south of the Potomac (39 square miles; 101 km²) was returned, or "retroceded," to Virginia effective in 1847.[55] The retroceded land was then known as Alexandria County, Virginia, and now includes a portion of the independent city of Alexandria and all of Arlington County, the successor to Alexandria County. A large portion of the retroceded land near the river was an estate of George Washington Parke Custis, who had supported the retrocession and helped develop the charter in the Virginia General Assembly for the County of Alexandria, Virginia. The estate (Arlington Plantation) would be passed on to his daughter (the wife of Robert E. Lee), and would eventually become Arlington National Cemetery. See also: Alexandria County, D.C.
[edit]Civil
War era
Main article: Washington, D.C. in the American Civil War
President Lincoln insisted that construction of the U.S. Capitol continue during the Civil War.
Washington remained a small city of a few thousand residents, virtually deserted during the torrid summertime, until the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861. President Abraham Lincoln created theArmy of the Potomac to defend the federal capital, and thousands of soldiers came to the area. The significant expansion of the federal government to administer the war—and its legacies, such as veterans' pensions—led to notable growth in the city's population - from 75,000 in 1860 to 132,000 in 1870.
Slavery was abolished throughout the District on April 16, 1862 — eight months before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation — with the passage of the Compensated Emancipation Act.[56] The city became a popular place for freed slaves to congregate. Throughout the war, the city was defended by a ring of military forts that mostly deterred theConfederate army from attacking. One notable exception was the Battle of Fort Stevens in July 1864 in which Union soldiers repelled troops under the command of Confederate General Jubal A. Early. This battle was only the second time that a U.S. President came under enemy fire during wartime when Lincoln visited the fort to observe the fighting.[57] (The first had been James Madison during the War of 1812.) Meanwhile, over 20,000 sick and injured Union soldiers were treated in an array of permanent and temporary hospitals in the capital. On April 14, 1865, just days after the end of the war, Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth during the play Our American Cousin. The next morning, at 7:22 AM, President Lincoln died in the house across the street, the first American president to be assassinated. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton said, "Now he belongs to the ages."
[edit]Post-Civil
War era
Newspaper Row on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., 1874
By 1870, the District's population had grown 75% from the previous census to nearly 132,000 residents.[58] Despite the city's growth, Washington still had dirt roads and lacked basic sanitation. The situation was so bad that some members of Congress suggested moving the capital further west, but President Ulysses S. Grant refused to consider such a proposal.[59] In response to the poor conditions in the capital, Congress passed the Organic Act of 1871, which revoked the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and a created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia.[60] The act provided for a governor appointed by the President, a legislative assembly with an upper-house composed of eleven appointed council members and a 22-member house of delegates elected by residents of the District, as well as an appointed Board of Public Works charged with modernizing the city.[61]
President Grant appointed Alexander Robey Shepherd, an influential member of the Board of Public Works, to the post of governor in 1873. Shepherd authorized large-scale municipal projects, which greatly modernized Washington. However, the governor spent three times the money that had been budgeted for capital improvements and ultimately bankrupted the city.[62] In 1874, Congress abolished the District's territorial government and replaced it with a three-member Board of Commissioners appointed by the President, of which one was a representative from the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The three Commissioners would then elect one of themselves to be president of the commission.[63] An additional act of Congress in 1878 made the three-member Board of Commissioners the permanent government of the District of Columbia. The act also had the affect of eliminating any remaining local institutions such as the boards on schools, health, and police.[64]The Commissioners would maintain this form of direct rule for nearly a century.[65] The first motorized streetcars in the District began service in 1888 and spurred growth in areas beyond the City of Washington’s original boundaries.[66] In 1888, Congress required that all new developments within the District conform to the layout of the City of Washington.[67]The City of Washington's northern border of Boundary Street was renamed Florida Avenue in 1890, reflecting growth of suburban areas in the County of Washington.[66] The city's streets were extended throughout the District starting in 1893.[67] An additional law passed in 1895 mandated that Washington formally absorb Georgetown, which until then had maintained a nominal separate identity, and renamed its streets.[68] With a consolidated government and the transformation of suburban areas within the District into urban neighborhoods, the entire city eventually took on the name Washington, D.C.[66] In the early 1880s, the Washington City Canal was covered over. Originally an expansion of Tiber Creek, the canal connected the Capitol with the Potomac, running along the north side of the Mall where Constitution Avenue is today. However, as the nation transitioned over to railroads for its transport, the canal had become nothing more than a stagnant sewer, and so it was removed. [49] Some reminders of the canal still exist. South of the Capitol, a road named Canal Street connects Independence Avenue, SW, and E Street,SE (although the northernmost section of the street was renamed Washington Avenue to commemorate the state of Washington).[69] A lock keeper's house built in 1835 at the eastern terminal of the C&O Canal (where the C&O emptied into Tiber Creek and the Potomac River) remains at the southwest corner of Constitution Avenue, NW, (formerly B Street, NW) and 17th Street, NW. [70][71] The western end of the City Canal emptied into the Potomac and connected with the C&O Canal near the lock keeper's house.[72][73][74]
One of the most important Washington architects of this period was the German immigrant Adolf Cluss.[75] From the 1860s to the 1890s, he constructed over 80 public and private buildings throughout the city, including the National Museum, the Agriculture Department, Sumner and Franklin schools.
[edit]20th
century
The National Mall was the centerpiece of the 1901 McMillan Plan. A central pathway traversed the length of the Mall.
In 1901, the Senate Park Improvement Commission of the District of Columbia (the "McMillan Commission"), which Congress had formed the previous year, formulated the McMillan Plan, an architectural plan for the redevelopment of the National Mall.[76] The commission was inspired by L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the city, which had not been fully realized. The members of the commission also sought to emulate the grandeur of European capitals such as Paris, London, and Rome. They were also strongly influenced by the City Beautiful movement, a Progressive ideology that intended to build civic virtue in the poor through important, monumental architecture. Several of the Commission members, including Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. had in fact participated in the 1893 World Columbian Exposition, which was widely popular and helped to spread interest in the City Beautiful movement. The McMillan Plan in many respects was an early form of urban renewal that removed many of the slums that surrounded the Capitol, replacing them with new public monuments and government buildings. The Plan proposed a redesign of the National Mall and the construction of the future Burnham-designed Union Station.World War I interrupted the execution of the Plan, but construction of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 largely completed it. Although the McMillan Plan resulted in the demolition of some slums in the Federal Triangle area, substandard housing was a much larger problem in the city during the early 1900's, with large portions of the population living in so-called "alley dwellings."[77] Progressive efforts eventually led to the creation of the Alley Dwelling Authority in 1934. The agency, led by John Ihlder, was an early example
of a public housing agency, and was responsible for demolishing slum housing and building new units that were affordable, modern, and sanitary. During his first administration, President Woodrow Wilson introduced segregation into several federal departments, for the first time since 1863. He supported some cabinet appointees in their request for segregation of employees and creation of separate lunchrooms and restrooms. He was highly criticized for this, especially as he had attracted numerous votes from blacks. The policy held for decades.[78] One advantage of federal rule over the District of Columbia was that the public school teachers were considered federal workers. Although the schools were segregated, black and white teachers were paid on an equal scale. The system attracted highly qualified teachers, especially for the M Street School (later called Dunbar High School), the academic high school for African Americans.[79] In July 1919, whites, including uniformed sailors and soldiers, attacked blacks in Washington during Red Summer, when violence broke out in cities across the country. The catalyst in Washington was the rumored arrest of a black man for rape; in four days of mob violence, white men randomly beat black people on the street, and pulled others off streetcars for attacks. When police refused to intervene, the black population fought back. Troops tried to restore order as the city closed saloons and theaters, but a summer rainstorm had a more dampening effect. A total of 15 people were killed: 10 whites, including two police officers; and five blacks. Fifty people were seriously wounded and another 100 less severely wounded. [80] The NAACP protested to President Wilson.[81] In 1922, Washington was hit by its deadliest natural disaster when the Knickerbocker Storm dumped 18 inches (46 cm) of snow, causing the roof to collapse at the Knickerbocker Theater, a silent movie house. Ninety-eight people were killed, including a U.S. Congressman; 133 were injured. On July 28, 1932, President Herbert Hoover ordered the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans who gathered in Washington, D.C., to secure promised veterans' benefits early. U.S. troops dispersed the last of the "Bonus Army" the next day. The city's population grew rapidly with the creation of additional Federal agencies under the Great Depression's New Deal, during which most of the Federal Triangle buildings were constructed. World War II brought further population increases and a significant housing shortage, as existing residents were urged to rent rooms to the influx of Federal staffers who arrived from throughout the country. During the war, as many as 200,000 railroad passengers passed through Union Station in a single day. The Pentagon was built in nearby Arlington to efficiently consolidate Federal defense offices under one roof.
[edit]Civil
rights
President Harry Truman integrated the Armed Forces and federal workplaces in 1948. Parks and recreation facilities in Washington, D.C. remained segregated until 1954, and public schools were desegregated soon after. When the city's Board of Education began building the John Phillip Sousa Junior High, a group of parents from the Anacostia neighborhood petitioned to have the school admit black and white students. When it was constructed, the Board declared that only whites could enroll. The parents sued in a case decided in the landmarkSupreme Court ruling Bolling v. Sharpe. Partly due to the District's unique status under the Constitution, the court decided unanimously that all of D.C.'s public schools had to be integrated. In the wake of this and the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, the Eisenhower administration decided to make D.C. schools the first to integrate, as an example to the rest of the nation.
Civil Rights marchers at the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963.
In 1957, Washington became the first major city in the nation with a majority AfricanAmericanpopulation.[citation needed] As with other cities in the North, it had received thousands of black people from the South in the Great Migration, starting during World War I and continuing until after World War II. With the buildup of government and defense industries during World War II, many new residents found jobs. In the postwar years, whites who were better established economically began to move to newer housing in adjoining states in the suburbanizationmovement that occurred around most major cities. They were aided by the extensive highway construction undertaken by federal and state governments. On August 28, 1963, Washington took center stage in the American Civil Rights Movement, with the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famed "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Following the assassination of King on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Washington was devastated by the riots that broke out in the U Street neighborhood and spread to other black
areas, including Columbia Heights. The civil unrest drove many whites and middle-class blacks to move out of the city core. There had already been a steady movement of some residents to suburban locations in the search for newer housing and to avoid school integration. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, many businesses left the downtown and inner city areas, drawn to suburban malls and following residential development. Marks of riots scarred some neighborhoods into the late 1990s.
[edit]Electoral
college votes
The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on March 29, 1961, gave the people of Washington, D.C. the right to choose electors for president and vice president of the United States. The amendment states that the District shall be treated as though it were a state for all purposes relevant to the election of the president and vice president; and, specifically, that it shall have as many electors to which it would be entitled if it were a state, except that it cannot have more electors than the least populous state. However, the least number of electors any state can have is three, so the least number of representatives the District can have is three.
[edit]Home
rule
Main article: District of Columbia home rule In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, ceding some of its power over the city to a new, directly elected city council and mayor. Walter Washington became the first elected mayor of Washington, D.C. The first 4.6 miles (7.4 km) of the Washington Metro subway system opened on March 27, 1976, following years of acrimonious battles with Congress over funding and highway construction, including a rejected proposal to build a north-central freeway. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority had been created in 1973 through a merger of several local bus companies. Several new Metro stations such asFriendship Heights, Van Ness, Gallery Place, Columbia Heights, U Street, and Navy Yard – Ballpark eventually became catalysts for commercial development. The Kennedy Center opened, as well as several new museums and historic monuments on and around the National Mall. In 1978, Congress sent the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment to the states for ratification. This amendment would have granted the District representation in the House, Senate, and Electoral College as if it were a state. The proposed amendment had a seven-year limit for ratification, and only sixteen states ratified it in this period. The city's local government, particularly during the mayoralty of Marion Barry, was criticized for mismanagement and waste.[82] Barry defeated incumbent mayor Walter Washington in the 1978 Democratic Party primary. Barry was then elected mayor, serving three successive four-year terms.
During his administration in 1989, The Washington Monthly magazine claimed that the District had "the worst city government in America".[83] After being imprisoned for six months on misdemeanor drug charges in 1990, Barry did not run for reelection. [84] In 1991, Sharon Pratt Kelly became the first black woman to lead a major U.S. city.[85] Barry was elected again in 1994 and by the next year the city had become nearly insolvent.[84] In 1995, Congress created the District of Columbia Financial Control Board to oversee all municipal spending and rehabilitate the city government.[86] Mayor Anthony Williams won election in 1998. His administration oversaw a period of greater prosperity, urban renewal, and budget surpluses.[87] The District regained control over its finances in 2001 and the oversight board's operations were suspended in.[88] Williams did not seek reelection in 2006. Councilmember Adrian Fenty defeated Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp in that year's Democratic primary race to succeed Williams as mayor and started his term in 2007. Shortly upon taking office, Fenty won approval from the city council to directly manage and overhaul the city's under-performing public school system.[89] However, Fenty lost a Democratic Party primary to former Council Chair Vincent Gray in August 2010. Mayor Gray won the general election and assumed office in January 2011 with a pledge to bring economic opportunities to more of the city's residents and under-served areas.[90]
[edit]21st
century
and security
[edit]Terrorism
The Washington area was a main target of the September 11, 2001 attacks. One hijacked airplane was crashed into the Pentagon inArlington County, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington. The crash killed 64 aboard the plane and 125 people on the ground. Hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which went down in Pennsylvania, supposedly intended to target either the White House or theU.S. Capitol. Since September 11, 2001, a number of high-profile incidents and security scares have occurred in Washington. In October 2001, anthrax attacks, involving anthrax-contaminated mail sent to numerous members of Congress, infected 31 staff members, and killed two U.S. Postal Service employees who handled the contaminated mail at the Brentwood sorting facility. During three weeks of October 2002, fear spread among residents of the Washington area, during the Beltway Sniper attacks. Ten apparently random victims were killed, with three others wounded, before John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested on October 24, 2002.
In 2003 and 2004, a serial arsonist set over 40 fires, mainly in the District and the close-in Maryland suburbs, with one fire killing an elderly woman. A local man was arrested in the serial arson case in April 2005 and pled guilty. The toxin ricin was found in the mailroom of the White House in November 2003 and in the mailroom of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Fristin February 2004. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, security was increased in Washington. Screening devices for biological agents, metal detectors, and vehicle barriers became more commonplace at office buildings as well as government buildings. After the 2004 Madrid train bombings, local authorities decided to test explosives detectors on the vulnerable Washington Metro subway system. When U.S. forces in Pakistan raided a house suspected of being a terrorist hideout, they found information several years old about planned attacks on Washington, D.C., New York City, and Newark, New Jersey. It was directed to intelligence officials. On August 1, 2004, theSecretary of Homeland Security put the city on Orange (High) Alert. A few days later, security checkpoints appeared in and around the Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom neighborhoods, and fences were erected on monuments once freely accessible, such as the Capitol. Tours of the White House were limited to those arranged by members of Congress. Screening devices for biological agents, metal detectors, and vehicle barriers became more common at office buildings as well as government buildings and in transportation facilities. This ultra-tight security was referred to as "Fortress Washington"; many people objected to "walling off Washington" based on information several years old. The vehicle inspections set up around the U.S. Capitol were removed in November 2004.
[edit]Changing
demographics
New migration patterns have appeared. Washington has a steadily declining black population, due to many African Americans' leaving the city for suburbs. At the same time, the city's Caucasian and Hispanic populations have steadily increased. [91] Since 2000 there has been a 7.3% decrease in the African-American population, and a 17.8% increase in the European-American population.[92] In addition, many African Americans are going to the South in a New Great Migration, because of family ties, increased opportunities and lower cost of living.[93] They still are a majority in the city, comprising 55 percent of the population.
Radburn, New Jersey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A diagram showing the street network structure of Radburn and its nested hierarchy. Separate pedestrian paths run through the green spaces between the culs-de-sac and through the central green spine (Note: the shaded area was not built)
Radburn
U.S. National Register of Historic Places U.S. National Historic Landmark District New Jersey Register of Historic Places
A Radburn cul-de-sac
Location:
Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Built:
1928
Architect:
Clarence Stein, Henry Wright
Architectural style:
Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival
Governing body:
Private
NRHP Reference#:
75001118[1]
NJRHP #:
482
Significant dates
Added to NRHP:
April 16, 1975
Designated NHLD:
April 5, 2005[2]
Designated NJRHP:
October 15, 1974
Radburn is an unincorporated planned community located within Fair Lawn, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. Radburn was founded in 1929 as "a town for the motor age". [3] Its planners, Clarence Steinand Henry Wright, and its landscape architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley[4] aimed to incorporate modern planning principles, which were then being introduced into England'sGarden Cities, following ideas advocated by urban planners Ebenezer Howard, Sir Patrick Geddes[5] and Clarence Perry. Perry’s Neighbourhood unit concept was well-formulated by the time Radburn was planned, being informed by Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, New York (1909-1914), a garden-city development of the Russell Sage Foundation. Radburn was explicitly designed to separate traffic by mode,[5] with a pedestrian path system that does not cross any major roads at grade. Radburn introduced the largely residential "superblock" and is credited with incorporating some of the earliest culs-de-sac in the United States.[6]
Contents
[hide]
• •
1 Statistics 2 A community within a community
• • • • • •
3 Governance 4 Facilities 5 Radburn as a model 6 See also 7 References 8 External links
[edit]Statistics
There are approximately 3,100 people in 670 families residing in Radburn. [5] They live in 469 single family homes, 48 townhouses, 30 two-family houses and a 93-unit apartmentcomplex.[5] Radburn's 149 acres (0.60 km2) include 23 acres (93,000 m2) of interior parks, four tennis courts, three hardball fields, two softball fields, two swimming pools and an archery plaza. Young children and their parents can make use of two toddler playgroup areas, two playgrounds and a toddler bathing pool.[5] There is also a community center which houses administrative offices, library, gymnasium, clubroom, pre-school and maintenance shops. For census purposes, Radburn is mostly a subset of Census Tract 171 in Bergen County, New Jersey.
[7]
[edit]A
community within a community
The Radburn Community enjoys much autonomy within the Borough of Fair Lawn. Pursuant to enabling laws passed in the 1920s and covenants included in the original deeds for the development, the Radburn Association is a private association which is empowered to administer Radburn's common properties and to collect from the owners of properties quarterly association fees to cover the Association's maintenance and operation of communal facilities. The Association is also empowered to restrict development and decoration of Radburn properties in order to maintain a consistent "look" to the community. Use of Radburn Association facilities is limited to residents (though the parks themselves are ungated and the walkways are public property of the Borough.)
[edit]Governance
Radburn residents vote for a board of trustees to govern the Association. Nominees to six of the nine board seats are chosen by the sitting trustees. Two other seats are appointed by former trustees and not subject to the residents' vote. The ninth seat is filled by the President of the Radburn Citizens' Association ex-officio.
In November, 2006 a group of Radburn residents opposed to the current system of governance filed a lawsuit against the Radburn Association. The plaintiffs claim that Radburn's governance violates New Jersey state law and the New Jersey State Constitution. The residents are represented by two public interest legal organizations: the New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center and The Community Law Clinic of The Rutgers School of Law-Newark. On April 1, 2008, the New Jersey Superior Court awarded summary judgements for both sides in the democracy lawsuit. Judge Contillo found that Radburn's governance was legal as well as its membership. The Court ordered the Association to comply with the law by providing full financial disclosure to residents and amending its bylaws to support open trustee meetings four times each year. Respected New Jersey Constitutional expert Frank Askin of the Rutgers University School of Law at Newark, and his Clinic on Constitutional Law, have now joined the plaintiffs' pro bono legal team for the appeals process, intending to affirm through the courts that the PREDFDA statute guarantees free elections in planned community government On June 17, 2010, the Moore V Radburn litigation was finally put to rest by the NJ Supreme Court. The petition for certification filed by the 16 litigants was denied.
[edit]Facilities
The Radburn Plaza Building.
The Radburn School, an elementary school located on the edge of the "B" park, is operated by the Fair Lawn Public Schools. While many of its students are Radburn residents, it serves a larger district. The school, built in 1929, was designed by the architecture firm of Guilbert & Betelle. The building was expanded in 1955 and again in 2005.
Several prominent Fair Lawn businesses exist in Radburn's business district, which is at the intersection of Fair Lawn Avenue and Plaza Road, two important arteries in Fair Lawn. Many of these businesses are within the Radburn Plaza (clock tower) building, a signature landmark of Radburn and Fair Lawn itself. (The building suffered a severe fire several years ago and was recently restored in its prior image.) Nearby stands the Old Dutch House, a tavern built during the time of Dutch colonization of the Americas. Facing the Plaza Building is the Radburn railroad station, built by the Radburn developers along the Erie Railroad line (later Conrail) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Passenger service operates there today on the New Jersey Transit Bergen County Line.
[edit]Radburn
as a model
The same design choices seen as impediments to a lifestyle centered around the automobile led to perceptions that Radburn can serve as precedent both for New Pedestrianism and for the car-free movement. The impact of Radburn's urban form on energy consumption for short local trips was considered in a 1970 study by John Lansing of theUniversity of Michigan.[8] The study found Radburn's design to have important implications for energy conservation, recording that 47% of its residents shopped for groceries on foot, while comparable figures were 23% for Reston, Virginia (another Radburn-type development, but more car oriented) and only 8% for a nearby unplanned community. Other findings, such as low figures for weekend trips and low average numbers of miles traveled by car per resident, bore out this claim. (See reference, below.) In Canada, the Radburn concept was used in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the late 1940s and early 1950s in three communities: Wildwood Park in Fort Garry, consisting of ten bays (loop streets), Norwood Flats in St. Boniface, consisting of four bays, and Gaboury Place, a single bay in St. Boniface – totalling several hundred single family houses, all facing sidewalks and green spaces and backing onto short bays. Today, they are considered to be desirable middle to upper-middle class Winnipeg neighbourhoods to reside in. Clarence Stein incorporated Radburn design principles into the plan of Alcan company town Kitimat, British Columbia in the 1950s. The developers of Varsity Village and Braeside, subdivisions in Calgary, Alberta used the Radburn model in the late 1960s. In Australia, the Radburn model was used in the planning of some Canberra, Australia suburbs developed in the 1960s, in particularCharnwood, Curtin and Garran. It was also used in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster East in an area known as the Milgate Park Estate.In New South Wales the then Housing Commission used the Radburn concept in numerous new estates built in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the medium density dwellings are being 'turned around' by
lowering the road side 'rear' fence and fencing off the 'front yards that share a communal space. The lane ways have long been a problem giving local youth a place to hide and evade motorized police patrols while launching raids into homes virtually unobserved. One benefit of this plan not often mentioned is that it allows for narrower streets in the cul-de-sacs that serve the backs of the houses. This means lower costs as less bitumen, piping and cabling is needed to service the homes. In major Radburn areas such as Mt Druitt in Sydney the current Housing NSW are selling off many of their properties as they pass their economical maintenance life and begin to cost more than they are worth. Other properties, particularly the blocks of flats often housing the less affluent and educated are being demolished and new medium density developments built in their place. These are being given to the aged and (specifically migrant) families rather than the former residents, many of whom were on parole or being reintroduced to the general community after treatment for various psychiatric disorders. In the United Kingdom, Grove Hill, one of the seven planned neighbourhoods in the Hertfordshire new town of Hemel Hempstead, was also partially designed using the Radburn model. A part of Yate in South Gloucestershire in England was developed using the Radburn model. Elsewhere in England the model was employed in an extension to Letchworth Garden City. In The Meadows, Nottingham the model has been less successful: Nottingham City Council has stated that "the problems associated with the layout of the New Meadows Radburn style layout... contribute to the antisocial behaviour and crime in the area."[1] Many other towns in the UK contain areas or estates of Radburn-style housing; often on council estates and seen as a less-than-desirable place to live. The Radburn model also inspired the American Radburn design for public housing.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Gugong" redirects here. For other uses, see Gugong (disambiguation). "Palace Museum" redirects here. For the historical building in Stone Town, Zanzibar, see Palace Museum, Zanzibar. For other uses, see Forbidden City (disambiguation).
Coordinates: 39°54′53″N 116°23′26″E
Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang *
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Country
China
Type
Cultural
Criteria
i, ii, iii, iv
Reference
439
Region **
Asia-Pacific
Inscription history
Inscription
1987 (11th Session)
Extensions
2004
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List ** Region as classified by UNESCO
This article contains Chinesetext. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead of Chinese characters.
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home ofemperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 720,000 m2(7,800,000 sq ft).
[1]
The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture,[2] and has influenced
cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987,[2] and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum's former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War.
Contents
[hide]
• • • o o
1 Name 2 History 3 Description 3.1 Walls and gates 3.2 Outer Court
o o o o • • • • • •
3.3 Inner Court 3.4 Religion 3.5 Surroundings 3.6 Symbolism 4 Collections 5 Influence 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links
[edit]Name
The Gate of Divine Might, the northern gate. The lower tablet reads "The Palace Museum" (故宫博物院)
The common English name, "the Forbidden City", is a translation of the Chinese name Zijin Cheng(Chinese: 紫禁城; pinyin: Zǐjinchéng; literally "Purple Forbidden City"). Another English name of similar origin is "Forbidden Palace".[3] The name "Zijin Cheng" is a name with significance on many levels. Zi, or "Purple", refers to theNorth Star, which in ancient China was called the Ziwei Star, and in traditional Chinese astrologywas the abode of the Celestial Emperor. The surrounding celestial region, the Ziwei Enclosure(Chinese: 紫微垣; pinyin: Zǐwēiyuán), was the realm of the Celestial Emperor and his family. The Forbidden City, as the residence of the terrestrial emperor, was its earthly counterpart. Jin, or "Forbidden", referred to the fact that no-one could enter or leave the palace without the emperor's permission. Cheng means a walled city.[4]
Today, the site is most commonly known in Chinese as Gùgōng (故宫), which means the "Former Palace".[5] The museum which is based in these buildings is known as the "Palace Museum" (Chinese: 故宫博物院; pinyin: Gùgōng Bówùyùan).
[edit]History
Main article: History of the Forbidden City
The Forbidden City as depicted in a traditional Ming Dynastypainting
The site of the Forbidden City was situated on the Imperial City during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. Upon the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered that the Yuan palaces be burnt down. When his son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital back to Beijing, and construction began in 1406 of what would become the Forbidden City.[4] Construction lasted 15 years, and required more than a million workers. [6] Material used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood (Chinese: 楠木; pinyin: nánmù) found in the jungles of southwestern China, and large blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing.[7] The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks" (Chinese: 金砖; pinyin: jīnzhuān), specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou.[6] From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming Dynasty. In April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun Dynasty.[8] He soon fled before the combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces, setting fire to parts of the Forbidden City in the process.[9] By October, the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China, and a ceremony was held at the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Shunzhi Emperor as ruler of all China under the Qing Dynasty.[10] The Qing rulers changed the names on some of the principal buildings, to emphasise "Harmony" rather than "Supremacy", [11]made the name plates bilingual (Chinese and Manchu),[12] and introduced Shamanist elements to the palace. [13]
In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war.[14] In 1900 Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion, leaving it to be occupied by forces of the treaty powers until the following year. After being the home of 24 emperors – 14 of the Ming Dynasty and 10 of the Qing Dynasty – the Forbidden City ceased being the political centre of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use,[15] until he was evicted after a coup in 1924.[16] The Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City in 1925.[17] In 1933, the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in the Forbidden City.
[18]
Part of the collection was returned at the end of World War II,[19] but the other part was evacuated to
Taiwan in 1947 under orders by Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese Civil War. This relatively small but high quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it again became public, as the core of the National Palace Museum inTaipei.[20]
The East Glorious Gate under renovation as part of the 16-year restoration process
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, some damage was done to the Forbidden City as the country was swept up in revolutionary zeal.[21] During the Cultural Revolution, however, further destruction was prevented when Premier Zhou Enlai sent an army battalion to guard the city.[22] The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties",[23] due to its significant place in the development ofChinese architecture and culture. It is currently administered by the Palace Museum, which is carrying out a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore all buildings in the Forbidden City to their pre1912 state.[24] In recent years, the presence of commercial enterprises in the Forbidden City has become controversial.[25] A Starbucks store that opened in 2000 sparked objections and eventually closed on
July 13, 2007.[26][27] Chinese media also took notice of a pair of souvenir shops that refused to admit Chinese citizens in order to price-gouge foreign customers in 2006.[28]
[edit]Description
The Forbidden City, viewed from Jingshan Hill to the north
Plan of the Forbidden City. Labels in red are used to refer to locations throughout the article.
- – - Approximate dividing line between Inner (north) and Outer (south) Courts.
A. Meridian Gate B. Gate of Divine Might
H. Hall of Military Eminence J. Hall of Literary Glory
C. West Glorious Gate D. East Glorious Gate E. Corner towers F. Gate of Supreme Harmony G. Hall of Supreme Harmony
K. Southern Three Places L. Palace of Heavenly Purity M. Imperial garden N. Hall of Mental Cultivation O. Palace of Tranquil Longevity
The Forbidden City is a rectangle 961 metres (3,153 ft) from north to south and 753 metres (2,470 ft) from east to west. It consists of 980 surviving buildings with 9,999 bays of rooms. [1] The Forbidden City was designed to be the centre of the ancient, walled city of Beijing. It is enclosed in a larger, walled area called the Imperial City. The Imperial City is, in turn, enclosed by the Inner City; to its south lies the Outer City. The Forbidden City remains important in the civic scheme of Beijing. The central north-south axis remains the central axis of Beijing. This axis extends to the south through Tiananmen gate to Tiananmen Square, the ceremonial centre of the People's Republic of China, and on toYongdingmen. To the north, it extends through Jingshan Hill to the Bell and Drum Towers.[29] This axis is not exactly aligned north-south, but is tilted by slightly more than two degrees. Researchers now believe that the axis was designed in the Yuan Dynasty to be aligned with Xanadu, the other capital of their empire.[30]
[edit]Walls
and gates
The Meridian Gate, front entrance to the Forbidden City, with two protruding wings
The northwest corner tower
The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 7.9 metres (26 ft) high city wall[11] and a 6 metres (20 ft) deep by 52 metres (171 ft) widemoat. The walls are 8.62 metres (28.3 ft) wide at the base, tapering to 6.66 metres (21.9 ft) at the top.[31] These walls served as both defensive walls andretaining walls for the palace. They were constructed with arammed earth core, and surfaced with three layers of specially baked bricks on both sides, with the interstices filled with mortar.[32] At the four corners of the wall sit towers (E) with intricate roofs boasting 72 ridges, reproducing the Pavilion of Prince Teng and the Yellow Crane Pavilion as they appeared in Song Dynasty paintings.[32] These towers are the most visible parts of the palace to commoners outside the
walls, and much folklore is attached to them. According to one legend, artisans could not put a corner tower back together after it was dismantled for renovations in the early Qing Dynasty, and it was only rebuilt after the intervention of carpenter-immortal Lu Ban.[11] The wall is pierced by a gate on each side. At the southern end is the main Meridian Gate (A).[33] To the north is the Gate of Divine Might (B), which faces Jingshan Park. The east and west gates are called the "East Glorious Gate" (D) and "West Glorious Gate" (C). All gates in the Forbidden City are decorated with a nine-by-nine array of golden door nails, except for the East Glorious Gate, which has only eight rows.[34] The Meridian Gate has two protruding wings forming three sides of a square (Wumen, or Meridian Gate, Square) before it.[35] The gate has five gateways. The central gateway is part of the Imperial Way, a stone flagged path that forms the central axis of the Forbidden City and the ancient city of Beijing itself, and leads all the way from the Gate of China in the south to Jingshan in the north. Only the Emperor may walk or ride on the Imperial Way, except for the Empress on the occasion of her wedding, and successful students after the Imperial Examination.[34]
[edit]Outer
Court
The Hall of Supreme Harmony
The sign of the Hall of Supreme Harmony
The throne in the Hall of Preserving Harmony
The Hall of Central Harmony (foreground) and the Hall of Preserving Harmony
Traditionally, the Forbidden City is divided into two parts. The Outer Court (外朝) or Front Court (前朝) includes the southern sections, and was used for ceremonial purposes. The Inner Court(内廷) or Back Palace (后宫) includes the northern sections, and was the residence of the Emperor and his family, and was used for day-to-day affairs of state. (The approximate dividing line shown as red dash in the plan above.) Generally, the Forbidden City has three vertical axes. The most important buildings are situated on the central north-south axis.[34] Entering from the Meridian Gate, one encounters a large square, pierced by the meandering Inner Golden Water River, which is crossed by five bridges. Beyond the square stands the Gate of Supreme Harmony (F). Behind that is the Hall of Supreme Harmony Square.[36] A three-tiered white marble terrace rises from this square. Three halls stand on top of this terrace, the focus of the palace complex. From the south, these are the Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿), the Hall of Central Harmony (中和 殿), and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (保和殿).[37] The Hall of Supreme Harmony (G) is the largest, and rises some 30 metres (98 ft) above the level of the surrounding square. It is the ceremonial centre of imperial power, and the largest surviving wooden structure in China. It is nine bays wide and five bays deep, the numbers 9 and 5 being symbolically connected to the majesty of the Emperor.[38] Set into the ceiling at the centre of the hall is an intricate caisson decorated with a coiled dragon, from the mouth of which issues a chandelier-like set
of metal balls, called the "Xuanyuan Mirror".[39] In the Ming Dynasty, the Emperor held court here to discuss affairs of state. During the Qing Dynasty, as Emperors held court far more frequently, a less ceremonious location was used instead, and the Hall of Supreme Harmony was only used for ceremonial purposes, such as coronations, investitures, and imperial weddings.[40] The Hall of Central Harmony is a smaller, square hall, used by the Emperor to prepare and rest before and during ceremonies.[41] Behind it, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, was used for rehearsing ceremonies, and was also the site of the final stage of the Imperial examination.[42] All three halls feature imperial thrones, the largest and most elaborate one being that in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.[43] At the centre of the ramps leading up to the terraces from the northern and southern sides are ceremonial ramps, part of the Imperial Way, featuring elaborate and symbolic bas-relief carvings. The northern ramp, behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony, is carved from a single piece of stone 16.57 metres (54.4 ft) long, 3.07 metres (10.1 ft) wide, and 1.7 metres (5.6 ft) thick. It weighs some 200 tonnes and is the largest such carving in China.[6] The southern ramp, in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, is even longer, but is made from two stone slabs joined together – the joint was ingeniously hidden using overlapping bas-relief carvings, and was only discovered when weathering widened the gap in the 20th century.[44] In the south west and south east of the Outer Court are the halls of Military Eminence (H) and Literary Glory (J). The former was used at various times for the Emperor to receive ministers and hold court, and later housed the Palace's own printing house. The latter was used for ceremonial lectures by highly regarded Confucian scholars, and later became the office of the Grand Secretariat. A copy of the Siku Quanshu was stored there. To the north-east are the Southern Three Places (南三所) (K), which was the residence of the Crown Prince.[36]
[edit]Inner
Court
The Inner Court is separated from the Outer Court by an oblong courtyard lying orthogonal to the City's main axis. It was the home of the Emperor and his family. In the Qing Dynasty, the Emperor lived and worked almost exclusively in the Inner Court, with the Outer Court used only for ceremonial purposes.
[45]
The Palace of Heavenly Purity
At the centre of the Inner Court is another set of three halls (L). From the south, these are thePalace of Heavenly Purity (乾清宮), Hall of Union, and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Smaller than the Outer Court halls, the three halls of the Inner Court were the official residences of the Emperor and the Empress. The Emperor, representing Yang and the Heavens, would occupy the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The Empress, representing Yin and the Earth, would occupy the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. In between them was the Hall of Union, where the Yin and Yangmixed to produce harmony.[46]
The throne in the Palace of Heavenly Purity
The Palace of Heavenly Purity is a double-eaved building, and set on a single-level white marble platform. It is connected to the Gate of Heavenly Purity to its south by a raised walkway. In the Ming Dynasty, it was the residence of the Emperor. However, beginning from the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the Emperor lived instead at the smaller Hall of Mental Cultivation (N) to the west, out of respect to the memory of the Kangxi Emperor.[11] The Palace of Heavenly Purity then became the Emperor's audience hall.[47] A caisson is set into the roof, featuring a coiled dragon. Above the
throne hangs a tablet reading "Justice and Honour" (Chinese: 正大光明; pinyin: zhèngdàguāngmíng).
[48]
The Palace of Earthly Tranquility (坤寧宮) is a double-eaved building, 9 bays wide and 3 bays deep. In the Ming Dynasty, it was the residence of the Empress. In the Qing Dynasty, large portions of the Palace were converted for Shamanist worship by the new Manchu rulers. From the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor, the Empress moved out of the Palace. However, two rooms in the Palace of Earthly Harmony were retained for use on the Emperor's wedding night.[49] Between these two palaces is the Hall of Union, which is square in shape with a pyramidal roof. Stored here are the 25 Imperial Seals of the Qing Dynasty, as well as other ceremonial items. [50]
The Nine Dragons Screen in front of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity
Behind these three halls lies the Imperial Garden (M). Relatively small, and compact in design, the garden nevertheless contains several elaborate landscaping features.[51] To the north of the garden is the Gate of Divine Might, the north gate of the palace. Distributed to the east and west of the three main halls are a series of self-contained courtyards and minor palaces, where the Emperor's concubines and children lived. Directly to the west is the Hall of Mental Cultivation (N). Originally a minor palace, this became thede facto residence and office of the Emperor starting from Yongzheng. In the last decades of the Qing Dynasty, empresses dowager, including Cixi, held court from the eastern partition of the hall. Located around the Hall of Mental Cultivation are the offices of the Grand Council and other key government bodies.[52] The north-eastern section of the Inner Court is taken up by the Palace of Tranquil Longevity (寧壽宮) (O), a complex built by the Qianlong Emperor in anticipation of his retirement. It mirrors the set-up of the Forbidden City proper and features an "outer court", an "inner court", and gardens and temples. The entrance to the Palace of Tranquil Longevity is marked by a glazed-tile Nine Dragons Screen.
[53]
This section of the Forbidden City is being restored in a partnership between the Palace Museum
and the World Monuments Fund, a long-term project expected to finish in 2017.
[edit]Religion
Religion was an important part of life for the imperial court. In the Qing Dynasty, the Palace of Earthly Harmony became a place of ManchuShamanist ceremony. At the same time, the native Chinese Taoist religion continued to have an important role throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. There were two Taoist shrines, one in the imperial garden and another in the central area of the Inner Court.[54] Another prevalent form of religion in the Qing Dynasty palace was Buddhism. A number of temples and shrines were scattered throughout the Inner Court, including that of Tibetan Buddhism or Lamaism. Buddhist iconography also proliferated in the interior decorations of many buildings.[55] Of these, the Pavilion of the Rain of Flowers is one of the most important. It housed a large number of Buddhist statues, icons, and mandalas, placed in ritualistic arrangements.[56]
[edit]Surroundings
See also: Imperial City (Beijing)
Location of the Forbidden City in the historic centre of Beijing
Beihai – the Bai Ta is in the distance
The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. To the north is Jingshan Park, also known as Prospect Hill, an artificial hill created from the soil excavated to build the moat and from nearby lakes.[57] To the west lies Zhongnanhai, a former garden centred on two connected lakes, which now serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. To the north-west lies Beihai Park, also centred on a lake connected to the southern two, and a popular park. To the south of the Forbidden City were two important shrines – the Imperial Shrine of Family (Chinese: 太庙; pinyin: Tàimiào) and the Imperial Shrine of State (Chinese: 太社稷; pinyin:Tàishèjì), where the Emperor would venerate the spirits of his ancestors and the spirit of the nation, respectively. Today, these are the Beijing Labouring People's Cultural Hall[58] andZhongshan Park (commemorating Sun Yat-sen) respectively.[59] To the south, two nearly identical gatehouses stand along the main axis. They are the Upright Gate (Chinese: 端门; pinyin: Duānmén) and the more famous Tiananmen Gate, which is decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in the centre and two placards to the left and right: "Long Live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples". The Tiananmen Gate connects the Forbidden City precinct with the modern, symbolic centre of the Chinese state, Tiananmen Square. While development is now tightly controlled in the vicinity of the Forbidden City, throughout the past century uncontrolled and sometimes politically motivated demolition and reconstruction has changed the character of the areas surrounding the Forbidden City. Since 2000, the Beijing municipal government has worked to evict governmental and military institutions occupying some historical buildings, and has established a park around the remaining parts of the Imperial City wall. In 2004, an ordinance relating to building height and planning restriction was renewed to establish the Imperial City area and the northern city area as a buffer zone for the Forbidden City.[60] In 2005, the Imperial City and Beihai (as an extension item to the Summer Palace) were included in the shortlist for the next World Heritage Site in Beijing.[61]
[edit]Symbolism
Imperial roof decoration of highest status on the roof ridge of the Hall of Supreme Harmony
The design of the Forbidden City, from its overall layout to the smallest detail, was meticulously planned to reflect philosophical and religious principles, and above all to symbolise the majesty of Imperial power. Some noted examples of symbolic designs include:
Yellow is the color of the Emperor. Thus almost all roofs in the Forbidden City bear yellow
glazed tiles. There are only two exceptions. The library at the Pavilion of Literary Profundity (文渊 阁) had black tiles because black was associated with water, and thus fire-prevention. Similarly, the Crown Prince's residences have green tiles because green was associated withwood, and thus growth.[38]
The main halls of the Outer and Inner courts are all arranged in groups of three – the shape of
the Qian triagram, representing Heaven. The residences of the Inner Court on the other hand are arranged in groups of six – the shape of the Kun triagram, representing the Earth.[11]
The sloping ridges of building roofs are decorated with a line of statuettes led by a man riding
a phoenix and followed by an imperial dragon. The number of statuettes represents the status of the building – a minor building might have 3 or 5. The Hall of Supreme Harmony has 10, the only building in the country to be permitted this in Imperial times. As a result, its 10th statuette, called a "Hangshi", or "ranked tenth" (Chinese: 行十; pinyin: Hángshí),[50] is also unique in the Forbidden City.[62]
The layout of buildings follows ancient customs laid down in the Classic of Rites. Thus,
ancestral temples are in front of the palace. Storage areas are placed in the front part of the palace complex, and residences in the back.[63]
[edit]Collections
Main article: Collections of the Palace Museum
Two Qing Dynasty "blue porcelain" wares
A blue and white porcelain vase with cloud and dragon designs, marked with the word "Longevity", Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty
Equestrian painting of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–1796) by Giuseppe Castiglione
The Jadeite Cabbage, formerly at the Forbidden City and now at the National Palace Museum, Taipei
The collections of the Palace Museum are based on the Qing imperial collection. According to the results of a 1925 audit,[64] some 1.17 million items were stored in the Forbidden City. In addition, the imperial libraries housed one of the country's largest collections of ancient books and various documents, including government documents of the Ming and Qing dynasties. From 1933, the threat of Japanese invasion forced the evacuation of the most important parts of the Museum's collection. After the end of World War II, this collection was returned to Nanjing. However, with the Communists' victory imminent in the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist government decided to ship the pick of this collection to Taiwan. Of the 13,427 boxes of evacuated artifacts, 2,972 boxes are now housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Almost ten thousand boxes were returned to Beijing, but 2,221 boxes remain today in storage under the charge of the Nanjing Museum.[20] After 1949, the Museum conducted a new audit as well as a thorough search of the Forbidden City, uncovering a number of important items. In addition, the government moved items from other museums around the country to replenish the Palace Museum's collection. It also purchased and received donations from the public.[65] Today, there are over a million rare and valuable works of art in the permanent collection of the Palace Museum, [66][67] including paintings, pottery, inscribed wares, bronze wares, court documents, etc.
[66]
According to an inventory of the Museum's collection conducted between 2004 and 2010, the Palace
Museum holds a total of 1,807,558 artifacts and includes 1,684,490 items designated as nationally protected "valuable cultural relics."[68] Ceramic The Palace Museum holds 340,000 pieces of ceramicsand porcelain. These include imperial collections from the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, as well as pieces commissioned by the Palace, and, sometimes, by the Emperor personally. The Palace Museum holds about 320,000 pieces of porcelain from the imperial collection. The rest are almost all held in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Nanjing Museum. [69]
Paintings The Palace Museum holds close to 50,000 paintings. Of these, more than 400 date from before the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368). This is the largest such collection in China.[70] The collection is based on the palace collection in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The personal interest of Emperors such as Qianlong meant that the palace held one of the most important collections of paintings in Chinese history. However, a significant portion of this collection was lost over the years. After his abdication, Puyi transferred paintings out of the palace, and many of these were subsequently lost or destroyed. In 1948, many of the works were moved to Taiwan. The collection has subsequently been replenished, through donations, purchases, and transfers from other museums. Bronzeware The Palace Museum's bronze collection dates from the early Shang Dynasty. Of the almost 10,000 pieces held, about 1,600 are inscribed items from the pre-Qin period (to 221 BC). A significant part of the collection is ceremonial bronzeware from the imperial court.[71] Timepieces The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of mechanical timepieces of the 18th and 19th centuries in the world, with more than 1,000 pieces. The collection contains both Chinese- and foreignmade pieces. Chinese pieces came from the palace's own workshops,Guangzhou (Canton) and Suzhou (Suchow). Foreign pieces came from countries including Britain, France, Switzerland, the United States and Japan. Of these, the largest portion come from Britain.[72] Jade Jade has a unique place in Chinese culture.[73] The Museum's collection, mostly derived from the imperial collection, includes some 30,000 pieces. The pre-Yuan Dynasty part of the collection includes several pieces famed throughout history, as well as artifacts from more recent archaeological discoveries. The earliest pieces date from the Neolithic period. Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty pieces, on the other hand, include both items for palace use, as well as tribute items from around the Empire and beyond.[74] Palace artefacts In addition to works of art, a large proportion of the Museum's collection consists of the artefacts of the imperial court. This includes items used by the imperial family and the palace in daily life, as well as various ceremonial and bureaucratic items important to government administration. This comprehensive collection preserves the daily life and ceremonial protocols of the imperial era.[75]
[edit]Influence
A gilded lion in front of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity
Glazed building decoration
Architecture The Forbidden City, the culmination of the two-thousand-year development of classical Chinese and East Asian architecture, has been influential in the subsequent development of Chinese architecture, as well as providing inspiration for many modern constructions. Some specific examples include:
Emperor Gia Long of Vietnam built a palace and fortress in the 1800s. Its ruins are in Huế. In
English it is called the "Imperial City". The name of the inner palace complex in Vietnamese is translated literally as "Purple Forbidden City", which is the same as the Chinese name for the Forbidden City in Beijing.
The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington was designed to incorporate elements of
classical Chinese architecture and interior decoration. The ceiling of the auditorium features a dragon panel and chandelier reminiscent of the dragon caisson and Xuanyuan mirror found in the Forbidden City.[76] Depiction in art, film, literature and popular culture The Forbidden City has served as the scene to many works of fiction. In recent years, it has been depicted in films and television series. Some notable examples include:
The Forbidden City (1918), a fiction film about a Chinese emperor and an American. The Last Emperor (1987), a biographical film about Puyi, was the first feature film ever
authorised by the government of the People's Republic of China to be filmed in the Forbidden City.
Marco Polo a joint NBC and RAI TV miniseries broadcast in the early 1980s, was filmed inside
the Forbidden City. Note, however, that the present Forbidden City did not exist in the Yuan Dynasty, when Marco Polo met Kublai Khan. As performance venue The Forbidden City has also served as a performance venue. However, its use for this purpose is strictly limited, due to the heavy impact of equipment and performance on the ancient structures. Almost all performances said to be "in the Forbidden City" are held outside the palace walls.
Giacomo Puccini's opera, Turandot, about the story of a Chinese princess, was performed at
the Imperial Shrine just outside the Forbidden City for the first time in 1998.[77]
In 1988, the USA musician Marty Friedman composed a song inspired in Forbidden City, as
part of the "Dragon Kiss" album.[78]
In 1997, Greek-born composer and keyboardist Yanni performed a live concert in front of the
Forbidden City. The concert was recorded and later released as part of the "Tribute" album. [79]
In 2004, the French musician Jean Michel Jarre performed a live concert in front of the
Forbidden City, accompanied by 260 musicians, as part of the "Year of France in China" festivities.[80]
The first explicit attempt to utilize the vaguely classical Beaux-Arts architectural style, which emerged from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, for the explicit intent of beautification and social amelioration was the Senate Park Commission's redesign of the monumental core of Washington D.C. to commemorate the city's centennial. The McMillan Plan of 1901-02,
named for Senator James McMillan, the commission's liaison and principal backer in Congress, was the United States' first attempt at city planning. The original plans of Pierre L'Enfant had been largely unrealized in the growth of the city, and with the country's growing prominence in the international arena, Congress decided that Washington D.C. should be brought to the magnificence decreed in L'Enfant's plan. The members of the commission convened by the Congress included Daniel H. Burnham, former Director of Construction of the World's Columbian Exposition; architect Charles McKim, of McKim, Mead, & White, New York City; sculptor and World's Fair alumnus Augustus Saint-Gaudens; Frederick L. Olmsted, Jr.; and Congressional liaison Charles Moore. Together they sought to revitalize the capital city through the monumental forms of the Beaux-Arts style. Using their experience at the World's Fair as a jumping-off point, the commissioners sought to accomplish a number of goals: to obtain a sense of cultural parity with Europe; to establish themselves as cultural and societal leaders in the rapidly growing professional class; to revitalize Washington D.C.'s "monumental core" as an expression of continuity with the "founding fathers" as well as an expression of governmental legitimacy in a changing and confusing era of expansion; and finally, to utilize the beauty of the monumental center as a means of social control and civic amelioration. The means to these ends was the 1901 plan. The group began their research for the comprehensive city plan by visiting the "great cities" of Europe. Vienna, Paris, and the town planning of Germany were their destinations in an attempt to recover the spirit of L'Enfant. "Their pilgrimage in general, and their specific itinerary, reflected the reverence of the City Beautiful mentality for the culture of the Old World..." (Hines, 87) The commissioners were particularly impressed with Paris, seeing it as a "'well-articulated city--a work of civic art.'" (Hines, 87) The broad Parisian avenues and gardens of Versailles were a great influence on the men, and with their predilection for the Beaux-Arts style, an understandable influence on the final plan. The plan itself was a reworking of L'Enfant's plan, creating a monumental core, a great public Mall, and a series of public gardens. The focus of the plan, however, was on the Mall itself.
Briefly, the Commission proposed to surround the Capitol square with a series of monumental buildings for Congressional use and for the Supreme Court. These, together with the existing Library of Congress, would form a frame for the Capitol and its towering dome. Extending westwards on a rectified axis, a broad Mall with four carriage drives would lead to the Washington Monument. Lining the Mall on both sides would be major cultural and educational buildings. (Reps, 109) The buildings surrounding the Capitol eventually included Burnham's immense Union Station and Columbus Plaza. The placement of this railroad station is important in the 1901 plan. Not only does it demonstrate the Commission's mania for symmetry, harmony, and building groups rather than individual buildings, it also demonstrates its power. For the preceding decades the Pennsylvania railroad had its station at the base of Capitol Hill, its tracks cutting across the Mall. Daniel Burnham, used his influence with the railroad's president, Alexander Cassatt, and convinced him to move his station, as a matter of civic beauty and national loyalty. At the opposite end of the monumental core stood the Washington Monument, anchoring the two axes of power--the Capitol and the White House. However, the Monument had been built a few hundred yards off the White House's sight lines. "Elaborate sunken gardens proposed for the western side of the monument attempted to correct the off-center north-south axis from the White House. South of the monument were projected sites both for a principal memorial honoring the founding fathers [now the Jefferson Memorial] and for facilities for indoor and outdoor sports." (Gutheim, 90) In addition, a monument to Lincoln was planned for the reclaimed swampland west of the Washington Monument, as well as Memorial Bridge leading to Arlington Cemetery. The placement of the Lincoln Monument (a hotly debated site, which the Speaker of the House, a representative from Illinois, called a "damn swamp") served to enclose the Mall, creating a monumental core, a national civic center. L'Enfant's vision of a processional avenue similar to Paris' Champs Elysees became, in the hands of the Senate Park Commission, "a tapis vertthat was similar to elements at Versailles and to the Schoenbrunn Palace gardens in Vienna." (Hines, 94) The Mall was "unified and stripped of the...undulating walks as well as the intrusive railroad station and tracks, long a civic disfigurement. Elms were to be planted along the Mall's longitudinal edges, defining this space and its central panel of sward." (Gutheim, 34) This visual reference to great European cities was not an accident. Not only were the designers influenced by the French Beaux-Arts style, they took Europe as an explicit model for their plan. America had been struggling with defining its identity since its inception, and on the centennial of the national capital, was
still not quite sure of itself. To visually equate the American capital with European capitals was to create instant social and cultural cache for the nation. It was not only the nation for which the Senate Park Commission was attempting to attain social and cultural cache. As members of a growing professional class, which included professors, writers (such as Henry Adams, William and Henry James), architects, and civil servants, they were attempting to define their roles in this new category in a modern society. As social roles changed, government grew, and America underwent the last death pangs of an agricultural society, this new class of professionals sought recognition and power. The Senate Park Commission, whether consciously or not, identified themselves with the power of planning the national capital, using the BeauxArts style to indicate that they (and America) had as much class as the Europeans, and just as much right to be a part of the upper echelons of American society. However, it was not only European forms that the Commission used in its 1901 plan. The Beaux-Arts style gave the impression of being vaguely classical, connoting not only the democracy of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic, but also the early American Republic of L'Enfant's plan. "Classic architecture symbolized the historical heritage of the United States in a way that the Gothic, Romanesque, or commercial styles never could." (Wilson, 89) The classical reference in architecture was well-known in America, flowering through the late 1840s before the advent of Victorian eclecticism and the more austere and functional forms of the Chicago school. (Wilson, 89, Craig, 214) The very fact that the initial intent of the plan was to revisit L'Enfant demonstrates the Commission's attempt to link the growing power of their class and of the government itself with the ideals and forms of the early Republic. "It was the first large effort to retrieve and restore the historic capital of the Founders, one of the earliest major attempts in the history of the republic to reestablish for any city a sense of continuity with its origins and with the national heritage, as expressed in architectural forms." (Hines, 95) This explicit reference to the Founders allowed the government at the turn of the century, and subsequent governments, to align themselves with the powerful symbolism the Founders invoked. Drawing on this well of myth, the Mall was to present "the public a symbol of the power of the national government." (Gutheim, 43) In the past, the Mall was simply an open space for residents of Washington D.C.; with the new plan it "was reconceived as a new kind of governmental complex, a combined civic and cultural center that is at
once a national front lawn and an imperial forum. This long, wide swath of open space--something between a park and a boulevard--and the buildings along its edges have long served, in effect, as a sacred enclosure, a tenemos for a democracy." (Stern, 263) The growing power of the government and its bureaucracy needed the kind of legitimacy that classic forms and Republican allusions provided. Yet the monumental core was not the only part of the city the 1901 Plan addressed. The 1901 Plan was the first real expression of the City Beautiful movement in America, believing in the power of beauty in the urban center to not only increase business and property prices, but to induce civic pride and its attendant moral andeconomic reforms. The Plan did not explicitly address the problems of the overcrowded and impoverished tenements and alleys surrounding the monumental core; instead government buildings were to replace "notorious slum communities" with names like Swamppoodle and Murder Bay. (Gutheim, 43) The intent of the plan on its social level was not to address economic issues head-on; instead Burnham suggested the way to deal with the impoverished neighborhoods would be to cut "'broad thoroughfares through the unwholesome district.'" (qtd. in Boyer, 271-72) These City Beautiful proponents believed in the power of fountains, statues, and tree-lined boulevards as an "antidote to moral decay and social disorder." (Boyer, 265-66) but did not include the displaced poor in their city plans. Earlier planners, including Frederick Olmsted, Sr., believed in the restorative effects of beauty, as expressed in natural and park settings. His famous plan for New York's Central Park was conceived as a place where all economic classes could relax and mingle, "the locale of class reconciliation." (Wilson, 31) rather than a place where city dwellers (who were mostly working class or poor) would be imbued with the spirit of civic/national idealism, and be inspired to pick themselves up out of moral decay and into economic success. Olmsted, Sr. was never reconciled to the civic idealism or neoclassicism of the City Beautiful movement, although his son Olmsted, Jr., was a force for beauty's restorative effect within the Commission. The plan "might have emphasized primarily ceremonial aspects had the experience and sympathies of the younger Olmsted not been present." (Gutheim, 35) Olmsted's legacy in the plan is felt in the open green spaces of the Mall, and the park systems he included in the D.C. area. Yet in the end, the Commission "believed less in the Olmstedian view of beauty's restorative power and more in the shaping influences of beauty." (Wilson, 80) The potential for monumentality, beauty, and community building was immense in the redesign of Washington D.C. But as Norma Evenson observes
in her article "Monumental Spaces," : "As a planned city, Washington provided opportunities for the creation of large scale urban unity: the axial government complex could be harmoniously embodied within, and related to, a comprehensively ordered street fabric." (21) Yet this was not the case with the 1901 plan; in fact many, even at the time, saw the focus on the Mall as exclusive rather than inclusive, a lost opportunity to address not only city beautification as well as social and economic reforms, but also thoughts for the future as the growing national government expanded the borders of Washington D.C. The 1901 Plan for Washington D.C. was not at its core a plan for the growing metropolitan city, but for a monumental center which would invoke European and classical forms in order to legitimize the power of the planners, the growing government, and America in the international arena. It would also provide a focus for civic and national pride, which would in turn somehow magically ameliorate the city's and nation's economic and social problems. When the Commission presented the Plan to President Roosevelt and the public in an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery, the estimated $200-600 million required to put the plan into place was only one of many concerns voiced. The legacy of the City Beautiful movement in Washington D.C., and throughout the country, is being felt even today in debates over city beautification versus economic redevelopment.
History of Washington, D.C.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aerial photo of Washington, D.C.
The history of Washington, D.C. is tied to its role as the capital of the United States. Originally inhabited by an Algonquian-speaking people known as the Nacotchtank, the site of the District of Columbia along the Potomac River was originally selected by President George Washington. The city came under attack during the War of 1812 in an episode known as theBurning of Washington. Upon
the government's return to the capital, it had to manage reconstruction of numerous public buildings, including the White House and United States Capitol. The McMillan Plan of 1901 helped restore and beautify the downtown core area, including establishing the National Mall, along with numerous monuments and museums. Unique among cities with a high percentage of African Americans, Washington has had a significant black population since the city's creation. As a result, Washington became both a center of African American culture and a center of civil rights movement. Since the city government was run by the federal government, black and white school teachers were paid at an equal scale as workers for the federal government. It was not until the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, a southerner who had numerous southerners in his cabinet, that federal offices and workplaces were segregated, starting in 1913.[1] This situation persisted for decades: the city was racially segregatedin certain facilities until the 1950s. Today, DC is marked by contrasts. Neighborhoods on the eastern periphery of the central city, and east of the Anacostia River tend to be disproportionately lower-income. Following World War II, many middle-income whites moved out of the city's central and eastern sections to newer, affordable suburban housing, with commuting eased by highway construction. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 sparked major riots in chiefly African American neighborhoods east of the Rock Creek Park. Large sections of the central city remained blighted for decades. By contrast, areas west of Rock Creek Park, including virtually the entire portion of the District between the Georgetownand Chevy Chase neighborhoods (the latter of which spills into neighboring Chevy Chase, Maryland), contain some of the nation's most affluent and notable neighborhoods. During the early 20th century, the U Street Corridor served as an important center for African Americanculture in DC. The Washington Metro opened in 1976. A rising economy and gentrification in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to revitalization of many downtown neighborhoods. Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution places the District (which is not a state) under the exclusive legislation of Congress. Throughout its history, Washington, D.C. residents have therefore lacked voting representation in Congress. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961, gave the District representation in the Electoral College. The 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act provided the local government more control of affairs, including direct election of the city council and mayor.
Contents
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1 Early settlement
• o • o o o o o o • o o o • o • • • •
2 Founding 2.1 Plan of the City of Washington 3 19th century 3.1 Economic development 3.2 War of 1812 3.3 Railroads arrive in Washington 3.4 Retrocession 3.5 Civil War era 3.6 Post-Civil War era 4 20th century 4.1 Civil rights 4.2 Electoral college votes 4.3 Home rule 5 21st century 5.1 Terrorism and security 6 Changing demographics 7 See also 8 Notes and references 9 External links
[edit]Early
settlement
Archaeological evidence indicates Native Americans settled in the area at least 4000 years ago, around the Anacostia River.[2] Early European exploration of the region took place early in the 17th century, including explorations by Captain John Smith in 1608.[3][4] At the time, the Patawomeck (loosely affiliated with the Powhatan) and the Doeg lived on the Virginia side, as well as on Theodore Roosevelt Island, while the Piscataway (also known as Conoy) tribe of Algonquians resided on the Maryland side.[5] Native inhabitants within the present-day District of Columbia included the Nacotchtank, at Anacostia, who were affiliated with the Conoy.[6] Another village was located between Little Falls and Georgetown,[5] and English fur trader Henry Fleet documented a Nacotchtank village called Tohoga on the site of present-day Georgetown. [7] The first colonial landowners in the present-day District of Columbia were George Thompson and Thomas Gerrard, who were granted the Blue Plains tract in 1662, along with Saint Elizabeth, and other tracts in Anacostia, Capitol Hill, and other areas down to the Potomac River in the following years.
Thompson sold his Capitol Hill properties in 1670, including Duddington Manor, to Thomas Notley; The Duddington property was handed down over the generations to Daniel Carroll, of Duddington. [8] As European settlers arrived, they clashed with the Native Americans over grazing rights. In 1697, Maryland authorities built a fort within what is now the District of Columbia, and two years later, the Conoy relocated to the west, near Point of Rocks.[9] Georgetown was established in 1751 when the Maryland legislature purchased sixty acres of land for the town from George Gordon andGeorge Beall at the price of £280, [10] while Alexandria, Virginia was founded in 1749. Situated on the fall line, Georgetown was the farthest point upstream to which oceangoing boats could navigate the Potomac River. Gordon had constructed a tobacco inspection house along the Potomac in approximately 1745. Warehouses, wharves, and other buildings were added, and the settlement rapidly grew. The Old Stone House, located in Georgetown, was built in 1765 and is the oldest standing building in the District. It did not take long before Georgetown grew into a thriving port, facilitating trade and shipments of tobacco and other goods from colonial Maryland.
[11]
[edit]Founding
Territorial progression of Washington, D.C.
The United States capital was originally located in Philadelphia, beginning with the First and Second Continental Congress, followed by the Congress of the Confederation upon gaining independence. In June 1783, a mob of angry soldiers converged upon Independence Hall to demand payment for their service during the American Revolutionary War. Congress requested that John Dickinson, the governor of Pennsylvania, call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters. In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia. As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey on June 21, 1783.[12]
Dickinson's failure to protect the institutions of the national government was discussed at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787[citation needed]. The delegates therefore agreed in Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution to give the Congress the power: To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square [259 km²]) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 43, also argued that the national capital needed to be distinct from the states, in order to provide for its own maintenance and safety.[13] The Constitution, however, does not select a specific site for the location of the new District. Proposals from the legislatures of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia all offered territory for the location of the national capital. Northern states preferred a capital located in one of the nation's prominent cities, unsurprisingly, almost all of which were in the north. Conversely,Southern states preferred that the capital be located closer to their agricultural and slave-holding interests.[14] The selection of the area around the Potomac River, which was the boundary between Maryland and Virginia, both slave states, was agreed upon between James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton had a proposal for the new federal government to take over debts accrued by the states during the Revolutionary War. However, by 1790, Southern states had largely repaid their overseas debts. Hamilton's proposal would require Southern states to assume a share of Northern debt. Jefferson and Madison agreed to this proposal and in return secured a Southern location for the federal capital.[15] On December 23, 1788, the Maryland General Assembly passed an act, allowing it to cede land for the federal district. The Virginia General Assembly followed suit on December 3, 1789.[16] The signing of the federal Residence Act on July 6, 1790, mandated that the site for the permanent seat of government, "not exceeding ten miles square" (100 square miles), be located on the "river Potomack, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern-Branch and Connogochegue".[17][18] The "EasternBranch" is known today as the Anacostia River. The Connogocheque (Conococheague Creek) empties into the Potomac River upstream near Williamsport and Hagerstown, Maryland.) The Residence Act limited to the Maryland side of the Potomac River the location of land that commissioners appointed by the President could acquire for federal use.[17] The Residence Act authorized the President to select the actual location of the site.
[17]
However, President George Washington wished to include the town of Alexandria, Virginia within
the federal district. To accomplish this, the boundaries of the federal district would need to encompass an area on the Potomac that was downstream of the mouth of the Eastern Branch.
The U.S. Congress amended the Residence Act in 1791 to permit Alexandria's inclusion in the federal district. However, some members of Congress had recognized that Washington and his family owned property in and near Alexandria, which was just seven miles (11 km) upstream from Mount Vernon, Washington's home and plantation. The amendment therefore contained a provision that prohibited the "erection of the public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac".[19][20] The final site was just below the fall line on the Potomac, the furthest inland point navigable by boats. It included the ports of Georgetown and Alexandria. The process of establishing the federal district, however, faced other challenges in the form of strong objections from landowners such as David Burns who owned a large, 650-acre (260 ha) tract of land in the heart of the district.[19] On March 30, 1791, Burns and eighteen other key landowners relented and signed an agreement with Washington, where they would be compensated for any land taken for public use, half of remaining land would be distributed among the proprietors, and the other half to the public.[19] Pursuant to the Residence Act, President Washington appointed three commissioners (Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll, and David Stuart) in 1791 to supervise the planning, design and acquisition of property in the federal district and capital city.[16] In September 1791, the three commissioners agreed to name the federal district as "The Territory of Columbia," and the federal city as the "City of Washington."[21][22] Working under the general supervision of the three commissioners and at the direction of President Washington, Major Andrew Ellicott, assisted by his brothers Benjamin and Joseph Ellicott, Isaac Briggs, George Fenwick, and an African American, Benjamin Banneker, surveyed the borders of the Territory of Columbia with Virginia and Maryland during 1791 and 1792.[23] The survey began at Jones Point, acape located at the confluence of Hunting Creek and the Potomac River south of Alexandria. The survey team enclosed within a square an area containing the full 100 square miles (260 km2) that the Residence Act had authorized. Each side of the square was 10 miles (16 km) long. The axes between the corners of the square ran north–south and east–west. [24] The center of the square is within the grounds of the Organization of American States headquarters west of the Ellipse.
[25]
The survey team placed sandstone boundary markers at or near every mile point along the sides of the square. Many of these markers still remain. The south cornerstone is at Jones Point.[26] The west cornerstone is at the west corner of Arlington County, Virginia.[27] The north cornerstone is south of East-West Highway near Silver Spring, Maryland, west of 16th Street.[28] The east cornerstone is east of the intersection of Southern Avenue and Eastern Avenue.[29]
[edit]Plan
of the City of Washington
See also: Streets and highways of Washington, D.C. See also: L'Enfant Plan
L'Enfant Plan for Washington, D.C., as revised by Andrew Ellicott. Engraved by Thackara & Vallance sc. Printed from the same plate as map appearing in "The universal asylum, and Columbian magazine", Philadelphia, March 1792 (the first printed edition of the Plan of the City of Washington).
A contemporary reprint of Samuel Hill's 1792 print of Ellicott's "Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia", published in "Massachusetts Magazine", Boston, May 1792, showing street names, lot numbers, coordinates and legends.
In early 1791, President Washington appointed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant to devise a plan for the new city in an area of land at the center of the federal territory that lay between the northeast shore of the Potomac River and the northwest shore of the Potomac's Eastern Branch.[30] L'Enfant then designed in his "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of the United States..." the city's first layout, a grid centered on the United States Capitol, which would stand at the top of a hill (Jenkins Hill) on a longitude designated as 0:0. The grid filled an area bounded by the Potomac River, the Eastern Branch (now named the Anacostia River), the base of an escarpment at the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line along which a street (initially Boundary Street, now Florida Avenue) would later travel, and Rock Creek.[31][32][33][34][35][36][37]
North-south and east-west streets formed the grid. Wider diagonal "grand avenues" later named after the states of the union crossed the grid. Where these "grand avenues" crossed each other, L'Enfant placed open spaces in circles and plazas that were later named after notable Americans. L'Enfant's broadest "grand avenue" was a 400 feet (122 m)-wide garden-lined esplanade, which he expected to travel for about 1 mile (1.6 km) along an east-west axis in the center of an area that the National Mall now occupies.[36] A narrower avenue (Pennsylvania Avenue) connected the "Congress house" (the Capitol) with the "President's house" (the White House). [36] In time, Pennsylvania Avenue developed into the capital city's present "grand avenue". L'Enfant's plan included a system of canals, one of which would travel near the western side of the Capitol at the base of Jenkins Hill.[36] To be filled in part by the waters of Tiber Creek, the canal system would traverse the center of the city and would enter both the Potomac River and the Eastern Branch. On August 19, 1791, L'Enfant presented his plan to President Washington. [31][38] However, L'Enfant subsequently entered into a number of conflicts with the three commissioners and others involved in the enterprise. During a particularly contentious period in February 1792, Andrew Ellicott informed the commissioners that L'Enfant had not arranged to have the city plan engraved and had refused to provide him with an original plan that L'Enfant was then holding. Ellicott, with the aid of his brother, Benjamin Ellicott, then revised the plan, despite L'Enfant's protests.[39][40][41][42][43][44] Ellicott's revisions realigned and straightened Massachusetts Avenue, eliminated five short radial avenues and added two others, removed several plazas and straightened the borders of the future Judiciary Square.[45][46] Shortly thereafter, Washington dismissed L'Enfant. Ellicott gave the first version of his own plan to James Thakara and John Vallance of Philadelphia, who engraved, printed and published it. This version, printed in March 1792, was the first Washington city plan that received wide circulation.[47] After L'Enfant departed, Ellicott continued the city survey in accordance with his revised plan, several larger and more detailed versions of which were also engraved, published and distributed. As a result, Ellicott's revisions became the basis for the capital city's future development. In 1800, the seat of government was finally moved to the new city, and on February 27, 1801, the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801placed the District and the municipalities of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria under the jurisdiction of Congress. The act also organized the unincorporated territory within the District into two counties: the County of Washington on the northeast bank of the Potomac, and the County of Alexandria on the southwest bank. On May 3, 1802, the City of Washington was granted a territorial government consisting of a mayor appointed by the President of the United States.
[edit]19th
century
development
[edit]Economic
The District of Columbia relied on Congress for support for capital improvements and economic development initiatives.[48] However, Congress lacked loyalty to the city's residents and was reluctant to provide support.[48] Congress did provide funding for the Washington City Canal in 1809, after earlier private financing efforts were unsuccessful. Construction began in 1810 and the canal opened in late 1815, connecting the Anacostia River with Tiber Creek.[49] Construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) began in Georgetown in 1828. Construction westward through Maryland proceeded slowly. The first section, from Georgetown to Seneca, Maryland, opened in 1831.[50] In 1833 an extension was built from Georgetown eastward, connecting to the City Canal. The C&O reached Cumberland, Maryland in 1850, although by that time it was obsolete as theBaltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) had arrived in Cumberland in 1842.[51]:1 The canal had financial problems, and plans for further construction to reach the Ohio River were abandoned.[52]:7
[edit]War
of 1812
The United States Capitol after the burning of Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812. Watercolor and ink depiction from 1814, restored.
City of Washington from Beyond the Navy Yard by George Cooke, 1833, on display in the White House Oval Office
During the War of 1812, British forces conducted an expedition between August 19 and August 29, 1814, that took and burned the capital city. On August 24, the British routed an American militia, which
had gathered at Bladensburg, Maryland to protect the capital (see Battle of Bladensburg). The militia then abandoned Washington without a fight. President James Madisonand the remainder of the U.S. government fled the capital shortly before the British arrived. The British then entered and burned the capital during the most notably destructive raid of the war. British troops set fire to the capital's most important public buildings, including the Presidential Mansion (the White House), the United States Capitol, the Arsenal, the Navy Yard, the Treasury Building, and the War Office, as well as the north end of the Long Bridge, which crossed the Potomac River into Virginia. The British, however, spared the Patent Office and the Marine Barracks. Dolley Madison, the first lady, or perhaps members of the house staff, rescued theLansdowne Portrait, a fulllength painting of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart as the British approached the Mansion.[53]
[edit]Railroads
arrive in Washington
The B&O opened a rail line from Baltimore to Washington in 1835.[54]:157 Passenger traffic on theWashington Branch had increased by the 1850s, as the company opened a large station in 1852 on New Jersey Avenue NW, just north of the Capitol. Further railroad development continued after the Civil War, with a new B&O line (the Metropolitan Branch) connecting Washington to the west, and the introduction of competition from the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in the 1870s. In 1907, Union Station opened as the city's central terminal.
[edit]Retrocession
Main article: District of Columbia retrocession Almost immediately after the "Federal City" was laid out north of the Potomac, some residents south of the Potomac in Alexandria County, D.C. began petitioning to be returned to Virginia's jurisdiction. Over time, a larger movement grew to separate Alexandria from the District for several reasons:
Alexandria's economy had stagnated as competition with the port of Georgetown, D.C. had
begun to favor the north side of the Potomac, where most members of Congress and local federal officials resided.
The Residence Act prohibited federal offices from locating in Virginia. Alexandria was a center for slave trading. There was increasing talk of abolition of slavery in
the national capital. Alexandria's economy would suffer if slavery were outlawed in the District of Columbia.
There was an active abolition movement in Virginia, and the pro-slavery forces held a slim
majority in the Virginia General Assembly. (Eighteen years later, in the American Civil War, the most anti-slavery counties would secede from Virginia to form West Virginia.) If Alexandria and
Alexandria County were retroceded to Virginia, they would provide two new pro-slavery representatives.
The Alexandria Canal, which connected the C&O Canal to Alexandria, needed repairs, which
the federal government was reluctant to fund.
Alexandria's residents had lost representation and the right to vote at any level of government.
After a referendum, Alexandria County's citizens petitioned Congress and Virginia to return the area to Virginia. By an act of Congress on July 9, 1846, and with the approval of the Virginia General Assembly, the area south of the Potomac (39 square miles; 101 km²) was returned, or "retroceded," to Virginia effective in 1847.[55] The retroceded land was then known as Alexandria County, Virginia, and now includes a portion of the independent city of Alexandria and all of Arlington County, the successor to Alexandria County. A large portion of the retroceded land near the river was an estate of George Washington Parke Custis, who had supported the retrocession and helped develop the charter in the Virginia General Assembly for the County of Alexandria, Virginia. The estate (Arlington Plantation) would be passed on to his daughter (the wife of Robert E. Lee), and would eventually become Arlington National Cemetery. See also: Alexandria County, D.C.
[edit]Civil
War era
Main article: Washington, D.C. in the American Civil War
President Lincoln insisted that construction of the U.S. Capitol continue during the Civil War.
Washington remained a small city of a few thousand residents, virtually deserted during the torrid summertime, until the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861. President Abraham Lincoln created theArmy of the Potomac to defend the federal capital, and thousands of soldiers came to the area. The significant expansion of the federal government to administer the war—and its legacies, such as veterans' pensions—led to notable growth in the city's population - from 75,000 in 1860 to 132,000 in 1870.
Slavery was abolished throughout the District on April 16, 1862 — eight months before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation — with the passage of the Compensated Emancipation Act.[56] The city became a popular place for freed slaves to congregate. Throughout the war, the city was defended by a ring of military forts that mostly deterred theConfederate army from attacking. One notable exception was the Battle of Fort Stevens in July 1864 in which Union soldiers repelled troops under the command of Confederate General Jubal A. Early. This battle was only the second time that a U.S. President came under enemy fire during wartime when Lincoln visited the fort to observe the fighting.[57] (The first had been James Madison during the War of 1812.) Meanwhile, over 20,000 sick and injured Union soldiers were treated in an array of permanent and temporary hospitals in the capital. On April 14, 1865, just days after the end of the war, Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth during the play Our American Cousin. The next morning, at 7:22 AM, President Lincoln died in the house across the street, the first American president to be assassinated. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton said, "Now he belongs to the ages."
[edit]Post-Civil
War era
Newspaper Row on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., 1874
By 1870, the District's population had grown 75% from the previous census to nearly 132,000 residents.[58] Despite the city's growth, Washington still had dirt roads and lacked basic sanitation. The situation was so bad that some members of Congress suggested moving the capital further west, but President Ulysses S. Grant refused to consider such a proposal.[59] In response to the poor conditions in the capital, Congress passed the Organic Act of 1871, which revoked the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and a created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia.[60] The act provided for a governor appointed by the President, a legislative assembly with an upper-house composed of eleven appointed council members and a 22-member house of delegates elected by residents of the District, as well as an appointed Board of Public Works charged with modernizing the city.[61]
President Grant appointed Alexander Robey Shepherd, an influential member of the Board of Public Works, to the post of governor in 1873. Shepherd authorized large-scale municipal projects, which greatly modernized Washington. However, the governor spent three times the money that had been budgeted for capital improvements and ultimately bankrupted the city.[62] In 1874, Congress abolished the District's territorial government and replaced it with a three-member Board of Commissioners appointed by the President, of which one was a representative from the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The three Commissioners would then elect one of themselves to be president of the commission.[63] An additional act of Congress in 1878 made the three-member Board of Commissioners the permanent government of the District of Columbia. The act also had the affect of eliminating any remaining local institutions such as the boards on schools, health, and police.[64]The Commissioners would maintain this form of direct rule for nearly a century.[65] The first motorized streetcars in the District began service in 1888 and spurred growth in areas beyond the City of Washington’s original boundaries.[66] In 1888, Congress required that all new developments within the District conform to the layout of the City of Washington.[67]The City of Washington's northern border of Boundary Street was renamed Florida Avenue in 1890, reflecting growth of suburban areas in the County of Washington.[66] The city's streets were extended throughout the District starting in 1893.[67] An additional law passed in 1895 mandated that Washington formally absorb Georgetown, which until then had maintained a nominal separate identity, and renamed its streets.[68] With a consolidated government and the transformation of suburban areas within the District into urban neighborhoods, the entire city eventually took on the name Washington, D.C.[66] In the early 1880s, the Washington City Canal was covered over. Originally an expansion of Tiber Creek, the canal connected the Capitol with the Potomac, running along the north side of the Mall where Constitution Avenue is today. However, as the nation transitioned over to railroads for its transport, the canal had become nothing more than a stagnant sewer, and so it was removed. [49] Some reminders of the canal still exist. South of the Capitol, a road named Canal Street connects Independence Avenue, SW, and E Street,SE (although the northernmost section of the street was renamed Washington Avenue to commemorate the state of Washington).[69] A lock keeper's house built in 1835 at the eastern terminal of the C&O Canal (where the C&O emptied into Tiber Creek and the Potomac River) remains at the southwest corner of Constitution Avenue, NW, (formerly B Street, NW) and 17th Street, NW. [70][71] The western end of the City Canal emptied into the Potomac and connected with the C&O Canal near the lock keeper's house.[72][73][74]
One of the most important Washington architects of this period was the German immigrant Adolf Cluss.[75] From the 1860s to the 1890s, he constructed over 80 public and private buildings throughout the city, including the National Museum, the Agriculture Department, Sumner and Franklin schools.
[edit]20th
century
The National Mall was the centerpiece of the 1901 McMillan Plan. A central pathway traversed the length of the Mall.
In 1901, the Senate Park Improvement Commission of the District of Columbia (the "McMillan Commission"), which Congress had formed the previous year, formulated the McMillan Plan, an architectural plan for the redevelopment of the National Mall.[76] The commission was inspired by L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the city, which had not been fully realized. The members of the commission also sought to emulate the grandeur of European capitals such as Paris, London, and Rome. They were also strongly influenced by the City Beautiful movement, a Progressive ideology that intended to build civic virtue in the poor through important, monumental architecture. Several of the Commission members, including Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. had in fact participated in the 1893 World Columbian Exposition, which was widely popular and helped to spread interest in the City Beautiful movement. The McMillan Plan in many respects was an early form of urban renewal that removed many of the slums that surrounded the Capitol, replacing them with new public monuments and government buildings. The Plan proposed a redesign of the National Mall and the construction of the future Burnham-designed Union Station.World War I interrupted the execution of the Plan, but construction of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 largely completed it. Although the McMillan Plan resulted in the demolition of some slums in the Federal Triangle area, substandard housing was a much larger problem in the city during the early 1900's, with large portions of the population living in so-called "alley dwellings."[77] Progressive efforts eventually led to the creation of the Alley Dwelling Authority in 1934. The agency, led by John Ihlder, was an early example
of a public housing agency, and was responsible for demolishing slum housing and building new units that were affordable, modern, and sanitary. During his first administration, President Woodrow Wilson introduced segregation into several federal departments, for the first time since 1863. He supported some cabinet appointees in their request for segregation of employees and creation of separate lunchrooms and restrooms. He was highly criticized for this, especially as he had attracted numerous votes from blacks. The policy held for decades.[78] One advantage of federal rule over the District of Columbia was that the public school teachers were considered federal workers. Although the schools were segregated, black and white teachers were paid on an equal scale. The system attracted highly qualified teachers, especially for the M Street School (later called Dunbar High School), the academic high school for African Americans.[79] In July 1919, whites, including uniformed sailors and soldiers, attacked blacks in Washington during Red Summer, when violence broke out in cities across the country. The catalyst in Washington was the rumored arrest of a black man for rape; in four days of mob violence, white men randomly beat black people on the street, and pulled others off streetcars for attacks. When police refused to intervene, the black population fought back. Troops tried to restore order as the city closed saloons and theaters, but a summer rainstorm had a more dampening effect. A total of 15 people were killed: 10 whites, including two police officers; and five blacks. Fifty people were seriously wounded and another 100 less severely wounded. [80] The NAACP protested to President Wilson.[81] In 1922, Washington was hit by its deadliest natural disaster when the Knickerbocker Storm dumped 18 inches (46 cm) of snow, causing the roof to collapse at the Knickerbocker Theater, a silent movie house. Ninety-eight people were killed, including a U.S. Congressman; 133 were injured. On July 28, 1932, President Herbert Hoover ordered the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans who gathered in Washington, D.C., to secure promised veterans' benefits early. U.S. troops dispersed the last of the "Bonus Army" the next day. The city's population grew rapidly with the creation of additional Federal agencies under the Great Depression's New Deal, during which most of the Federal Triangle buildings were constructed. World War II brought further population increases and a significant housing shortage, as existing residents were urged to rent rooms to the influx of Federal staffers who arrived from throughout the country. During the war, as many as 200,000 railroad passengers passed through Union Station in a single day. The Pentagon was built in nearby Arlington to efficiently consolidate Federal defense offices under one roof.
[edit]Civil
rights
President Harry Truman integrated the Armed Forces and federal workplaces in 1948. Parks and recreation facilities in Washington, D.C. remained segregated until 1954, and public schools were desegregated soon after. When the city's Board of Education began building the John Phillip Sousa Junior High, a group of parents from the Anacostia neighborhood petitioned to have the school admit black and white students. When it was constructed, the Board declared that only whites could enroll. The parents sued in a case decided in the landmarkSupreme Court ruling Bolling v. Sharpe. Partly due to the District's unique status under the Constitution, the court decided unanimously that all of D.C.'s public schools had to be integrated. In the wake of this and the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, the Eisenhower administration decided to make D.C. schools the first to integrate, as an example to the rest of the nation.
Civil Rights marchers at the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963.
In 1957, Washington became the first major city in the nation with a majority AfricanAmericanpopulation.[citation needed] As with other cities in the North, it had received thousands of black people from the South in the Great Migration, starting during World War I and continuing until after World War II. With the buildup of government and defense industries during World War II, many new residents found jobs. In the postwar years, whites who were better established economically began to move to newer housing in adjoining states in the suburbanizationmovement that occurred around most major cities. They were aided by the extensive highway construction undertaken by federal and state governments. On August 28, 1963, Washington took center stage in the American Civil Rights Movement, with the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famed "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Following the assassination of King on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Washington was devastated by the riots that broke out in the U Street neighborhood and spread to other black
areas, including Columbia Heights. The civil unrest drove many whites and middle-class blacks to move out of the city core. There had already been a steady movement of some residents to suburban locations in the search for newer housing and to avoid school integration. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, many businesses left the downtown and inner city areas, drawn to suburban malls and following residential development. Marks of riots scarred some neighborhoods into the late 1990s.
[edit]Electoral
college votes
The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on March 29, 1961, gave the people of Washington, D.C. the right to choose electors for president and vice president of the United States. The amendment states that the District shall be treated as though it were a state for all purposes relevant to the election of the president and vice president; and, specifically, that it shall have as many electors to which it would be entitled if it were a state, except that it cannot have more electors than the least populous state. However, the least number of electors any state can have is three, so the least number of representatives the District can have is three.
[edit]Home
rule
Main article: District of Columbia home rule In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, ceding some of its power over the city to a new, directly elected city council and mayor. Walter Washington became the first elected mayor of Washington, D.C. The first 4.6 miles (7.4 km) of the Washington Metro subway system opened on March 27, 1976, following years of acrimonious battles with Congress over funding and highway construction, including a rejected proposal to build a north-central freeway. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority had been created in 1973 through a merger of several local bus companies. Several new Metro stations such asFriendship Heights, Van Ness, Gallery Place, Columbia Heights, U Street, and Navy Yard – Ballpark eventually became catalysts for commercial development. The Kennedy Center opened, as well as several new museums and historic monuments on and around the National Mall. In 1978, Congress sent the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment to the states for ratification. This amendment would have granted the District representation in the House, Senate, and Electoral College as if it were a state. The proposed amendment had a seven-year limit for ratification, and only sixteen states ratified it in this period. The city's local government, particularly during the mayoralty of Marion Barry, was criticized for mismanagement and waste.[82] Barry defeated incumbent mayor Walter Washington in the 1978 Democratic Party primary. Barry was then elected mayor, serving three successive four-year terms.
During his administration in 1989, The Washington Monthly magazine claimed that the District had "the worst city government in America".[83] After being imprisoned for six months on misdemeanor drug charges in 1990, Barry did not run for reelection. [84] In 1991, Sharon Pratt Kelly became the first black woman to lead a major U.S. city.[85] Barry was elected again in 1994 and by the next year the city had become nearly insolvent.[84] In 1995, Congress created the District of Columbia Financial Control Board to oversee all municipal spending and rehabilitate the city government.[86] Mayor Anthony Williams won election in 1998. His administration oversaw a period of greater prosperity, urban renewal, and budget surpluses.[87] The District regained control over its finances in 2001 and the oversight board's operations were suspended in.[88] Williams did not seek reelection in 2006. Councilmember Adrian Fenty defeated Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp in that year's Democratic primary race to succeed Williams as mayor and started his term in 2007. Shortly upon taking office, Fenty won approval from the city council to directly manage and overhaul the city's under-performing public school system.[89] However, Fenty lost a Democratic Party primary to former Council Chair Vincent Gray in August 2010. Mayor Gray won the general election and assumed office in January 2011 with a pledge to bring economic opportunities to more of the city's residents and under-served areas.[90]
[edit]21st
century
and security
[edit]Terrorism
The Washington area was a main target of the September 11, 2001 attacks. One hijacked airplane was crashed into the Pentagon inArlington County, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington. The crash killed 64 aboard the plane and 125 people on the ground. Hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which went down in Pennsylvania, supposedly intended to target either the White House or theU.S. Capitol. Since September 11, 2001, a number of high-profile incidents and security scares have occurred in Washington. In October 2001, anthrax attacks, involving anthrax-contaminated mail sent to numerous members of Congress, infected 31 staff members, and killed two U.S. Postal Service employees who handled the contaminated mail at the Brentwood sorting facility. During three weeks of October 2002, fear spread among residents of the Washington area, during the Beltway Sniper attacks. Ten apparently random victims were killed, with three others wounded, before John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested on October 24, 2002.
In 2003 and 2004, a serial arsonist set over 40 fires, mainly in the District and the close-in Maryland suburbs, with one fire killing an elderly woman. A local man was arrested in the serial arson case in April 2005 and pled guilty. The toxin ricin was found in the mailroom of the White House in November 2003 and in the mailroom of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Fristin February 2004. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, security was increased in Washington. Screening devices for biological agents, metal detectors, and vehicle barriers became more commonplace at office buildings as well as government buildings. After the 2004 Madrid train bombings, local authorities decided to test explosives detectors on the vulnerable Washington Metro subway system. When U.S. forces in Pakistan raided a house suspected of being a terrorist hideout, they found information several years old about planned attacks on Washington, D.C., New York City, and Newark, New Jersey. It was directed to intelligence officials. On August 1, 2004, theSecretary of Homeland Security put the city on Orange (High) Alert. A few days later, security checkpoints appeared in and around the Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom neighborhoods, and fences were erected on monuments once freely accessible, such as the Capitol. Tours of the White House were limited to those arranged by members of Congress. Screening devices for biological agents, metal detectors, and vehicle barriers became more common at office buildings as well as government buildings and in transportation facilities. This ultra-tight security was referred to as "Fortress Washington"; many people objected to "walling off Washington" based on information several years old. The vehicle inspections set up around the U.S. Capitol were removed in November 2004.
[edit]Changing
demographics
New migration patterns have appeared. Washington has a steadily declining black population, due to many African Americans' leaving the city for suburbs. At the same time, the city's Caucasian and Hispanic populations have steadily increased. [91] Since 2000 there has been a 7.3% decrease in the African-American population, and a 17.8% increase in the European-American population.[92] In addition, many African Americans are going to the South in a New Great Migration, because of family ties, increased opportunities and lower cost of living.[93] They still are a majority in the city, comprising 55 percent of the population.
Radburn, New Jersey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A diagram showing the street network structure of Radburn and its nested hierarchy. Separate pedestrian paths run through the green spaces between the culs-de-sac and through the central green spine (Note: the shaded area was not built)
Radburn
U.S. National Register of Historic Places U.S. National Historic Landmark District New Jersey Register of Historic Places
A Radburn cul-de-sac
Location:
Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Built:
1928
Architect:
Clarence Stein, Henry Wright
Architectural style:
Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival
Governing body:
Private
NRHP Reference#:
75001118[1]
NJRHP #:
482
Significant dates
Added to NRHP:
April 16, 1975
Designated NHLD:
April 5, 2005[2]
Designated NJRHP:
October 15, 1974
Radburn is an unincorporated planned community located within Fair Lawn, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. Radburn was founded in 1929 as "a town for the motor age". [3] Its planners, Clarence Steinand Henry Wright, and its landscape architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley[4] aimed to incorporate modern planning principles, which were then being introduced into England'sGarden Cities, following ideas advocated by urban planners Ebenezer Howard, Sir Patrick Geddes[5] and Clarence Perry. Perry’s Neighbourhood unit concept was well-formulated by the time Radburn was planned, being informed by Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, New York (1909-1914), a garden-city development of the Russell Sage Foundation. Radburn was explicitly designed to separate traffic by mode,[5] with a pedestrian path system that does not cross any major roads at grade. Radburn introduced the largely residential "superblock" and is credited with incorporating some of the earliest culs-de-sac in the United States.[6]
Contents
[hide]
• •
1 Statistics 2 A community within a community
• • • • • •
3 Governance 4 Facilities 5 Radburn as a model 6 See also 7 References 8 External links
[edit]Statistics
There are approximately 3,100 people in 670 families residing in Radburn. [5] They live in 469 single family homes, 48 townhouses, 30 two-family houses and a 93-unit apartmentcomplex.[5] Radburn's 149 acres (0.60 km2) include 23 acres (93,000 m2) of interior parks, four tennis courts, three hardball fields, two softball fields, two swimming pools and an archery plaza. Young children and their parents can make use of two toddler playgroup areas, two playgrounds and a toddler bathing pool.[5] There is also a community center which houses administrative offices, library, gymnasium, clubroom, pre-school and maintenance shops. For census purposes, Radburn is mostly a subset of Census Tract 171 in Bergen County, New Jersey.
[7]
[edit]A
community within a community
The Radburn Community enjoys much autonomy within the Borough of Fair Lawn. Pursuant to enabling laws passed in the 1920s and covenants included in the original deeds for the development, the Radburn Association is a private association which is empowered to administer Radburn's common properties and to collect from the owners of properties quarterly association fees to cover the Association's maintenance and operation of communal facilities. The Association is also empowered to restrict development and decoration of Radburn properties in order to maintain a consistent "look" to the community. Use of Radburn Association facilities is limited to residents (though the parks themselves are ungated and the walkways are public property of the Borough.)
[edit]Governance
Radburn residents vote for a board of trustees to govern the Association. Nominees to six of the nine board seats are chosen by the sitting trustees. Two other seats are appointed by former trustees and not subject to the residents' vote. The ninth seat is filled by the President of the Radburn Citizens' Association ex-officio.
In November, 2006 a group of Radburn residents opposed to the current system of governance filed a lawsuit against the Radburn Association. The plaintiffs claim that Radburn's governance violates New Jersey state law and the New Jersey State Constitution. The residents are represented by two public interest legal organizations: the New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center and The Community Law Clinic of The Rutgers School of Law-Newark. On April 1, 2008, the New Jersey Superior Court awarded summary judgements for both sides in the democracy lawsuit. Judge Contillo found that Radburn's governance was legal as well as its membership. The Court ordered the Association to comply with the law by providing full financial disclosure to residents and amending its bylaws to support open trustee meetings four times each year. Respected New Jersey Constitutional expert Frank Askin of the Rutgers University School of Law at Newark, and his Clinic on Constitutional Law, have now joined the plaintiffs' pro bono legal team for the appeals process, intending to affirm through the courts that the PREDFDA statute guarantees free elections in planned community government On June 17, 2010, the Moore V Radburn litigation was finally put to rest by the NJ Supreme Court. The petition for certification filed by the 16 litigants was denied.
[edit]Facilities
The Radburn Plaza Building.
The Radburn School, an elementary school located on the edge of the "B" park, is operated by the Fair Lawn Public Schools. While many of its students are Radburn residents, it serves a larger district. The school, built in 1929, was designed by the architecture firm of Guilbert & Betelle. The building was expanded in 1955 and again in 2005.
Several prominent Fair Lawn businesses exist in Radburn's business district, which is at the intersection of Fair Lawn Avenue and Plaza Road, two important arteries in Fair Lawn. Many of these businesses are within the Radburn Plaza (clock tower) building, a signature landmark of Radburn and Fair Lawn itself. (The building suffered a severe fire several years ago and was recently restored in its prior image.) Nearby stands the Old Dutch House, a tavern built during the time of Dutch colonization of the Americas. Facing the Plaza Building is the Radburn railroad station, built by the Radburn developers along the Erie Railroad line (later Conrail) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Passenger service operates there today on the New Jersey Transit Bergen County Line.
[edit]Radburn
as a model
The same design choices seen as impediments to a lifestyle centered around the automobile led to perceptions that Radburn can serve as precedent both for New Pedestrianism and for the car-free movement. The impact of Radburn's urban form on energy consumption for short local trips was considered in a 1970 study by John Lansing of theUniversity of Michigan.[8] The study found Radburn's design to have important implications for energy conservation, recording that 47% of its residents shopped for groceries on foot, while comparable figures were 23% for Reston, Virginia (another Radburn-type development, but more car oriented) and only 8% for a nearby unplanned community. Other findings, such as low figures for weekend trips and low average numbers of miles traveled by car per resident, bore out this claim. (See reference, below.) In Canada, the Radburn concept was used in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the late 1940s and early 1950s in three communities: Wildwood Park in Fort Garry, consisting of ten bays (loop streets), Norwood Flats in St. Boniface, consisting of four bays, and Gaboury Place, a single bay in St. Boniface – totalling several hundred single family houses, all facing sidewalks and green spaces and backing onto short bays. Today, they are considered to be desirable middle to upper-middle class Winnipeg neighbourhoods to reside in. Clarence Stein incorporated Radburn design principles into the plan of Alcan company town Kitimat, British Columbia in the 1950s. The developers of Varsity Village and Braeside, subdivisions in Calgary, Alberta used the Radburn model in the late 1960s. In Australia, the Radburn model was used in the planning of some Canberra, Australia suburbs developed in the 1960s, in particularCharnwood, Curtin and Garran. It was also used in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster East in an area known as the Milgate Park Estate.In New South Wales the then Housing Commission used the Radburn concept in numerous new estates built in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the medium density dwellings are being 'turned around' by
lowering the road side 'rear' fence and fencing off the 'front yards that share a communal space. The lane ways have long been a problem giving local youth a place to hide and evade motorized police patrols while launching raids into homes virtually unobserved. One benefit of this plan not often mentioned is that it allows for narrower streets in the cul-de-sacs that serve the backs of the houses. This means lower costs as less bitumen, piping and cabling is needed to service the homes. In major Radburn areas such as Mt Druitt in Sydney the current Housing NSW are selling off many of their properties as they pass their economical maintenance life and begin to cost more than they are worth. Other properties, particularly the blocks of flats often housing the less affluent and educated are being demolished and new medium density developments built in their place. These are being given to the aged and (specifically migrant) families rather than the former residents, many of whom were on parole or being reintroduced to the general community after treatment for various psychiatric disorders. In the United Kingdom, Grove Hill, one of the seven planned neighbourhoods in the Hertfordshire new town of Hemel Hempstead, was also partially designed using the Radburn model. A part of Yate in South Gloucestershire in England was developed using the Radburn model. Elsewhere in England the model was employed in an extension to Letchworth Garden City. In The Meadows, Nottingham the model has been less successful: Nottingham City Council has stated that "the problems associated with the layout of the New Meadows Radburn style layout... contribute to the antisocial behaviour and crime in the area."[1] Many other towns in the UK contain areas or estates of Radburn-style housing; often on council estates and seen as a less-than-desirable place to live. The Radburn model also inspired the American Radburn design for public housing.
