The Story of Washington - The National Capital by Charles Burr Todd

Author:Charles Burr Todd [Todd, Charles Burr]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2019-05-23T22:00:00+00:00

PART II. THE MODERN CITY.

CHAPTER XIV. THE CAPITOL.

In modern Washington the science and art of government is almost the only pursuit. There is very little commerce or manufacture. Here are situated the Capitol, the seat of legislative and judicial power; the White House, the center of executive authority; the Departments, with their bureaus and offices, constituting ganglia of nerves whose influence extends to the farthest corners of the nation.

The Capitol is the Mecca of most visitors. The best approach to it is from the Treasury by way of Pennsylvania Avenue, which gives a fine view of the structure through the mile-long vista of that noble thoroughfare.

Few public buildings have the advantage of so open and commanding a situation, and of so noble an approach. There, surmounting its grassy terraces in the midst of beautiful gardens rises the noble edifice, beautiful in its outlines, massive and grand in its proportions, — dome, statue, column, pilaster, capital, niche, pediment, cornice, entablature, balustrade, contributing each its quota to the harmony and proportion of the whole. The dome is the most conspicuous and beautiful feature. As a work of art it is unsurpassed and unsurpassable. It springs into the heavens, and rests there as lightly as a cloud. One finds it almost impossible to believe that there are four thousand tons of iron in so airy and ethereal a creation.

One can scarce comprehend at first glance the titanic proportions of the Capitol. It is in three portions, — representing three distinct epochs of time, — a central body and two wings. The length of all is seven hundred and fifty-one feet — nearly a fifth of a mile, — and the width three hundred and twenty feet. The dome rises three hundred and seven feet above the foundation, and two hundred and eighteen feet above the balustrade of the roof, and is surmounted by Crawford's colossal statue of Freedom. The old Capitol — the center of the modern edifice — is three hundred and fifty-two feet four inches in length, with wings, each one hundred and twenty-one feet wide, and including the portico two hundred and ninety feet deep. The extensions, each three hundred and twenty-four feet long, and one hundred and fifty-two feet wide, are joined to the old Capitol by fine marble corridors, each forty-four feet in length and twenty-six feet in width, with outside colonnades of four columns, making a total width of fifty-six feet. The whole edifice rests upon a rustic basement, which supports an ordonnance of Corinthian pilasters. Adorning the center on the east front is a noble portico one hundred and sixty feet in length, supported by a double row of columns, each thirty feet high — the forum in which most of the Presidents of the Republic have been inaugurated. This is really the main entrance to the Capitol, although the city, growing in a different direction from what the founders expected, lies mainly to the westward, in the rear of the edifice, — an anomaly that will be remedied when the improvements now being made on the western front are completed.

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