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A hulking 250-foot triumphal arch embellished in gold. A reflecting pool now tinted dark blue. Decorative fountains scattered across the capital that cost tens of millions of dollars to renovate.<\/p>\n
President Trump, who has long leaned into his roots as a real estate developer, has started renovation projects around Washington as he looks to remake the capital in his own image. To address criticisms of ballooning costs and preservation concerns, Mr. Trump has insisted that the initiatives have historic precedent and represent his prowess at deal-making and instinct to take action.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a fact-check.<\/p>\n
What Was Said<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
False. <\/strong>Mr. Trump has proposed building a 250-foot-tall arch<\/a> at one end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which links the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to the Robert E. Lee Memorial in Arlington, Va. But the bridge was designed and built to commemorate<\/a> the reunification of the North and South after the Civil War, so Mr. Trump\u2019s claim that efforts to build an arch at the site were interrupted by the Civil War is anachronistic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A White House spokesman argued that the triumphal arch would be built in the classical tradition in keeping with other prominent Washington landmarks, but did not provide evidence for historical attempts to erect an arch.<\/p>\n The claim that there was a push to build an arch that began before the Civil War may originate from \u2014 and distort \u2014 a Fourth of July speech in 1851 by Daniel Webster, who was the secretary of state. He claimed<\/a> that President Andrew Jackson had \u201cdesired to span\u201d the Potomac River \u201cwith arches of ever-enduring granite, symbolical of the firmly established union of the North and the South.\u201d<\/p>\n Webster\u2019s description of granite arches appeared to refer to the arched structures supporting the bridge, according to Bob Dover, a geologist who wrote a recent book on the history of bridges in Washington.<\/p>\n And the bridge Webster and Jackson had in mind might have been the Long Bridge, another bridge connecting Washington to Virginia that is south of the Memorial Bridge, closer to the Jefferson Memorial, according to the Federal Highway Administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Treasury Department in 1832<\/a> under Jackson invited proposals for a new bridge there after its wood structure was damaged by floods. Jackson and members of his cabinet were present at the reopening in 1835.<\/a> And a 1839 newspaper dispatch<\/a> criticized a Virginia lawmaker for favoring the cheaper option of wood rather than Jackson\u2019s apparently unused vision of a bridge supported by \u201ceternal arches of massive stone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Whatever bridge Jackson might have envisioned, the Congressional Research Service was unable to find statements from any president or his staff advocating the construction of a triumphal arch in Washington before Mr. Trump\u2019s second term, the office said in response to a request from Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee.<\/p>\n Efforts to erect a commemorative bridge did not begin in earnest until 1886. Congress held a design contest, and the winning proposal did include two Roman triumphal arches, but that design was ultimately scrapped<\/a>.<\/p>\n When a congressional commission unveiled the McMillan Plan in 1902<\/a>, it called for the reconstruction of the National Mall and a bridge to span from the proposed Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery. Under the plan, the bridge\u2019s \u201clow-level design was essential\u201d to not eclipse the Lincoln Memorial and other monuments, according to a report about the Memorial Bridge<\/a> by the Historic American Engineering Record. No other designs after the plan included a triumphal arch.<\/p>\n What Was Said<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n