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The National Park Service (NPS) found that President Trump’s proposed Triumphal Arch would adversely affect dozens of historic sites around Washington, D.C.
The NPS listed nearly 40 locations across the city after the agency asked outside groups to comment by last Thursday after reopening its public comment for its assessment. The list includes several major buildings, districts and landscapes.
Several Arlington historic sites, including the Robert E. Lee Memorial, along with the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Grove, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Pentagon, the George Mason Memorial, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, the U.S. Capitol and the National Mall Site and National Mall Historic District, are among the 37 sites “adversely affected” by the arch.
For example, the arch’s indirect effects on the Lady Bird Johnson Park Cultural Landscape include physically obstructing “contributing views within the landscape and along Arlington Memorial Bridge, and it would alter views to resources such as Arlington House, Lincoln Memorial, the Potomac River, and Arlington Memorial Bridge,” according to the NPS.
The NPS’s assessment is part of what’s called a Section 106 review that requires federal agencies to consider the range of “undertakings” that would affect sites that are on or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under preservation law.
This assessment was held June 5-15 before the NPS opened public comment again before closing it July 30.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment about the assessment.
The proposed arch would become the largest in the world, towering over the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City, measured at 220 feet, and the 164-foot Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It would be located along Arlington Memorial Bridge, which symbolically represents the reunified U.S., connecting the North and South following the Union victory that closed the Civil War in 1865.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, made up primarily of Trump appointees, on Friday voted to propose rewriting requirements to consult with the public if a project affects historic sites. If finalized, the changes to the review process could impact infrastructure projects near historic sites around the country. The council is widely expected to attempt to speed up projects.
The arch, among other beautification projects spearheaded by the president over the past year, has faced a wave of criticism. Veterans who fought in the Vietnam War sued the Trump administration in February over the arch, arguing that it would obstruct views of the Arlington House and the Lincoln Memorial.
Retired Army officer Gary Langston, an opponent of the arch plan, told The New York Times that officials should imagine veterans visiting the gravesites of their fallen fellow service members.
“And you’re going to look up and you’re going to see this thing looming over you,” he told the outlet. “And then it’s going to have a viewing stand with tourists looking down at you.”
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