L’Enfant Map, originally uploaded by plemeljr

Monumental Failure – Why we should commercialize the National Mall:

Trekking on toward the Capitol, I noticed that no one else was enjoying themselves either. Overheated parents pushed catatonic youngsters in strollers. Seniors staggered through the heat and dust. With no relief from the beating sun, tourists fanned themselves with brochures and wrapped T-shirts around their heads. Like me, most were sunburned, thirsty, and exhausted, possibly experiencing the late stages of heat stroke. Instead of the nourishing patriotic uplift that the Mall should provide, their weary stares betrayed a sober realization that they had encountered not the joyous public sanctuary they imagined, but a civic burden–in a metaphor for the way Washington works, one that cruelly ignores the needs of the very Americans whose taxes enable it.
This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. Pierre Charles L’Enfant, whom George Washington commissioned to design the capital in 1791, envisioned the Mall as a “place of general resort” that would be “attractive to the learned and afford diversion to the idle.” L’Enfant had in mind the great places of France: the parks and avenues of Paris, the stately precincts of Versailles. According to the architectural historian Pamela Scott, “The Mall was to be the center of the intellectual and artistic life of Washington.”
…
These days, the experience of visiting the National Mall is a lot like a junior high school civics class–there’s lots of history and statesmanship in the air, but it’s more pedantic than enjoyable, and going to the bathroom is all but out of the question. This is partly because bluenose historic preservationists wish to preserve the Mall in amber, partly because Congress’s interest in it is limited to appeasing whichever ominous-looking interest group happens to be demanding public tribute. Today’s Mall is completely isolated from the life of the city, a far cry from the intended civic gathering place. Save for the odd march or protest, it is ignored (so much so that it’s a popular place to dispose of corpses, which surface every now and then in the Tidal Basin).