9 Fig. 14 (above) The classic geometry of a perfect circle and three rings of trees is shown in this photo of Sheridan Circle with the date “c. 1915.” Fig. 13 (below)This early photo shows the double rows of lindens marching west from Sheridan Circle; some of these lived more than 100 years. The designed forest The engineers’ plan of 1886 for extending Mass Ave designed a new “pause,” a perfect circle, as the visual focus from up and down the avenue The statue of General Philip Sheridan on his horse Rienzi by Gutzon Borghlum was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 15 The circle was landscaped as a lawn-covered park American lindens were spaced evenly around the perimeter Across the street at curbside, a second ring of ginkgo trees was planted Facing the ginkgos across the sidewalk was planted a third ring of tulip poplars, forming curved allées How do we know? By looking around! A few of these elderly giants still stand—witnesses to history For more than a century, trees had been planted in the circles and squares and odd-shaped lots along L’Enfant’s avenues In the late 19th century, Washington was known as a “city in a forest ” But the City Beautiful planners used trees to suggest classical architecture The rings of trees around the dome of Sheridan Circle echo the Jefferson Memorial, an exemplary City Beautiful structure The Roman notion that country, or rus in Latin, was separate from the city, urbe, now changed Wrote City Beautiful advocate Charles Mulford Robinson in his best-selling Improvement of Towns and Cities in 1901: “Rus in urbe is no more an island It becomes a river flowing through all the streets and by ways and forming in squares and parks little ponds and lakes of country”16 On the odd-shaped edges of Sheridan Circle were grown little woods, or bosques, of conifers, understory and big deciduous trees As for the forested slopes of Rock Creek valley, the 1902 McMillan report recommended it remain as wilderness with only a narrow road by the stream Farther west, where the Naval Observatory had opened in 1893, Mass Ave made a perfect arc around the observatory hill and was lined with rows of American lindens But the forest backdrop was kept when a large, privately owned wilderness parcel was exempted by Congress from the city street grid in 1910 17 Planners of the day sited tree rows and parks in the belief that these they could relieve the crowding, disease, and social problems of fast-growing cities 18 Along Mass Ave, building lots were more valuable due to the sloping, wooded terrain Owners and their guests, as they came and went from the “little palaces” or gazed from high, main floor windows, could imagine they were in a vast country estate
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