Unbuilt Washington

摘要

It's hard to imagine a different Capitol sitting atop Jenkins Hill, an elevated site selected by Pierre-Charles L'Enfant, who described it to President George Washington in June 1791 as "a pedestal waiting for a monument." Washington had directed the three-man board of commissioners brought on to manage the development of the new capital city to hire L'Enfant to design the city and its public buildings. But settling on a design for the Capitol Building wasn't the most difficult decision of the time. For not only could the Capitol have looked much different than it does today, it might not have been located in the new city named for the father of our country in the first place.