National Park Service report admits Trump’s arch will have ‘adverse effects’ on existing monuments but not enough to stop it A new National Park Service report on Donald Trump’s vast monumental arch acknowledges but downplays the importance of the fact that the 250ft-high structure will have adverse effects on a series of existing monuments, including views of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.
The 133-page report released on Friday says the memorial arch is likely to disrupt the historical significance of dozens of sites near its planned location at the Arlington Memorial Bridge, near what the service calls National Historic Landmarks (NHLs), but describes those impacts as manageable.
The adverse-effect findings for NHLs are driven primarily by “visual, spatial, and night-time effects, rather than direct physical alteration”, the report says. “The affected NHLs are generally those with identified contributing views toward the Monumental Core, the Potomac River corridor, Arlington National Cemetery, or Washington, D.C.’s symbolic landscape. The analysis treats the Arch’s height, visibility, and illumination as the basis for adverse effects where those changes would alter contributing views, vistas, setting, feeling, or association.”
Artist renderings and diagrams for Donald Trump’s new triumphal arch released by the US Commission on Fine Arts that is planned to be built in Washington between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, photographed in April. Photograph: Jon Elswick/AP While the parks service says that it “acknowledges that the proposed undertaking would result in adverse effects to certain” landmarks, the law “does not require that all harm be eliminated where avoidance would defeat the purpose of the undertaking”.
Instead, the parks service argues, the law just “requires the agency to undertake planning and actions necessary to minimize harm to the maximum extent possible”.
The report also notes that the height of the planned arch, “an approximately 250-foot-tall reinforced concrete structure clad in granite and ornamented by a central winged figure and two eagles, positioned above each Arch leg”, creates problems, but was deemed essential to its “purpose and need”.
double quotation mark During and prior to the design process, various smaller Arch heights were evaluated to avoid, minimize, or mitigate impacts on historic properties, including NHLs. The smaller Arch heights were ultimately dismissed because they would have had greater impact on the cultural landscapes, specifically the views between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. The smaller designs fully obstructed this view, instead of framing it, and did not create any new viewing opportunities, by contrast to the proposed Arch, which would allow a less obstructed view through its central opening and provide new viewing opportunities. In addition, because the Arch is intended to celebrate 250 years of American independence, the smaller heights were not considered representative of this milestone, unlike the 250-foot Arch proposed in the undertaking.