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The National Mall is the heart of the nation’s capital. It serves several roles: a home to many of our most important memorials and museums; a place to learn about, commemorate, and celebrate the nation’s cultural heritage; a location to exercise first amendment rights and gather for presidential inaugurations; and a park where people walk, run, and play.
As this iconic space continues to evolve, NCPC seeks to preserve the role and character of the National Mall to ensure that it remains a beautiful destination for all to enjoy.
Highlight: U.S. Park Police Stables
While visitors often see U.S. Park Police on horseback at events around the National Mall, many people are not aware that their station and horse stables are also on the Mall. Built as temporary structures for the Bicentennial—located west of the DC War Memorial and across Independence Avenue from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial—the structures are in poor condition. Working in concert with the non-profit Trust for the National Mall, the National Park Service proposes to replace the existing, dilapidated structures with new offices, stables, a visitor center, and paddocks (where the horses exercise). These will provide a better environment for the horses and park police while creating a new point of interest for visitors and residents.
NCPC Key Guidance
Comprehensive Plan
The Comprehensive Plan provides important guidance for the National Mall as a blueprint for the long-term development of the national capital and the decision-making framework for Commission actions.
Commemorative Works Act
This federal law directs NCPC to review and approve the site and design for commemorative works on federal lands in Washington, DC, or its environs. Originally passed in 1986, the law has been amended several times; in 2003 Congress established the “Reserve,” an area on the National Mall where no new memorials are permitted.
The Reserve
NCPC's 2001 Memorials and Museums Master Plan (2M) calls for the creation of a Reserve, or “No-Build Zone,” on the National Mall. Congress amended the Commemorative Works Act in 2003 to establish an expanded Reserve. Projects that were underway when the legislation was enacted included the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Related Plans and Documents
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National Mall Historic Designation Update
The National Mall was originally listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966 as a historic site. In 2016, the National Park Service submitted an amendment that "redefines the National Mall as a historic district with extended boundaries, reevaluates the historic context of the National Mall, and reassesses the significance of its resources."
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SW Ecodistrict Plan
The SW Ecodistrict Plan: A Vision for a More Sustainable Future is a long-range and innovative approach to transform an isolated office precinct into a vibrant mixed-use destination and cultural corridor that links the National Mall with the Southwest Waterfront.
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National Mall Plan
The National Park Service's plan “sets a practical, ambitious but achievable vision for a sustainable National Mall.” Implementation efforts began after NCPC approved the Park Service’s plans to increase the non-turf areas to make more room for public events and replace the lawn, improve soil and drainage, construct new curbs and gutters, and install below-grade irrigation and water storage system on green panels between 3rd and 14th Streets, NW.
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Monumental Core Framework Plan
The Framework Plan, building on the foundation of the Legacy Plan’s vision, seeks to protect the National Mall from overuse by creating new distinctive settings for future memorials, museums, and events; providing more vibrant and sustainable places to visit, work, and live in areas around and near the Mall. It also recommends how to and improve physical and visual connections among the National Mall, downtown, and the waterfront.
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Memorials and Museums Master Plan (2M Plan)
To implement the Legacy Plan, the 2M plan identifies 100 sites for new memorials in all quadrants of Washington, DC to protect the monumental core from overbuilding and to extend the benefits of tourism to neighborhoods throughout the city.
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Extending the Legacy: Planning America’s Capital for the 21st Century
To protect the National Mall from overbuilding, address increasing pressure to locate new memorials and museums in the nation’s capital, and help stimulate economic development, one of the Legacy Plan’s guiding themes is to encourage federal development and new memorials and museums to locate beyond the axis of the National Mall within the city’s four quadrants.
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McMillan Plan
Senator James McMillan established the Senate Park Commission to bring order to Washington’s parks and open spaces, including the National Mall. Developed by leading artists, landscape architects, and architects, the plan restored L’Enfant’s vision for the Mall that included straight lines, sweeping vistas, and a border of classical architecture. The plan called for the removal of unsightly trees and an existing train station, the dredging of the Tidal Basin, and created the National Mall as we know it today.
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Downing Plan
Landscape Architect Andrew Jackson Downing proposed a comprehensive plan for the Mall’s future development that aimed to create a romantic setting. His plan included a series of curvilinear walks and drives, along with new trees and shrubs, that sought to create a national park with a "natural style of landscape gardening."
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L’Enfant Plan
Pierre L’Enfant’s plan established Washington, DC’s physical framework and created the National Mall as a "vast esplanade" that would be used for ceremonial purposes. He called for a "grand Avenue 400 feet in breath, and about mile in length, bordered with gardens ending in a slope from the houses on each side."
Recent Projects
