WHERE IT'S HIP TO BE A SQUARE

LAFAYETTE PARK, DEFINED ONCE AND FOR ALL

The Chronicler, along with all right-thinking citizens (a k a nitpickers), cares deeply about drawing boundaries and naming names in the great City of Washington. Therefore today's dissertation on Lafayette Park and Lafayette Square:

Some misguided people (including The Washington Post Deskbook on Style) lump the two together, ruling, for instance, that Decatur House sits on Lafayette Square and Gen. Andrew Jackson rides his rearing horse likewise.

The Chronicler holds that Lafayette Square comprises the blocks of buildings and streets: Madison Place on the east; H Street on the north; Jackson Place on the west; and, of course, Pennsylvania Avenue on the south.

However, the inner core of grass, flowers, trees, squirrels, demonstrators, homeless people and monuments is Lafayette Park.

To bolster her view, the Chronicler consulted 15 books on Washington. Here are but a few flowers from Lafayette Park's history, citing the usage of "square" and "park."

In the beginning was Pierre Charles L'Enfant, planning his great design for the new nation's capital. He called the grounds around the Executive Mansion "the President's Park." If L'Enfant had wanted it to be called "square" he would have named it and drawn it that way.

In 1792, architect Francis Donald Lethbridge wrote, in a plan for Decatur House, that the west and east blocks were originally planned to be part of "the President's Park." But the land's owner, Samuel Davidson, persuaded the federal commissioners to divide the property into lots. Commodore Stephen Decatur, a naval hero of the War of 1812 and the Tripolitan Wars, bought 19 of the lots.

When Benjamin Ogle Tayloe came to town in 1801, the Executive Mansion and its grounds "remained in an unfinished and neglected state," he wrote, "enclosed only by a post and rail fence of wood, which assimilated with the democratic simplicity of the day." He went on to add (in "Our Neighbors on La Fayette Square," compiled from his papers by the Junior League) that "there is a legend that in the plan of the city the whole square, from Fifteenth to Seventeenth Street, as far as H Street, was embraced in the Presidential grounds, but under the direction of Mr. Jefferson, as consistent with his notions of republican simplicity, and of the abode of a President of the Republic, it was ordered that the Presidential grounds be reduced to their present dimensions."

No drives went through the muddy lump of land until 1818 when Richard Cutts, brother-in-law of Dolley Madison, bought land to build a house on the east side. To accommodate him, Congress appropriated the money to build a gravel-topped, 40-foot-wide carriage drive. Dolley Madison lived in the house still standing on Madison Place at H Street in her old age.

The Jackson Place drive came in January 1819, when Decatur completed his house, designed by Benjamin Latrobe, on what now is the corner of Jackson Place and H Street. Pennsylvania Avenue was not cut through until 1840.

The Commission of Fine Arts in its monumental work "Sixteenth Street" calls the whole area Lafayette Square, but it carefully writes that "the park" was not developed until 1851, when W.W. Corcoran, the philanthropist and financier, donated a large collection of exotic plantings.

The White House neighborhood map in "Washington, D.C., Walking Tours" shows the area bounded by the four streets as Lafayette Park. The paperback was published by no less an authority than the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in conjunction with the Parks and History Association of the National Park Service.

The National Park Service is even more specific in its "National Historic Landmarks." Therein, it designates as the Lafayette Square Historic District the area across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, composed of Lafayette Park and the buildings on the facing blocks.

"The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C.," by James Goode, comes out flatly on the side of Lafayette Park: "Lafayette Park is located on Pennsylvania Avenue between Jackson and Madison Places, directly across from the White House. Rectangular in shape, it has an area of approximately seven acres." Goode goes on to say that workmen's shacks stood in the park when the White House was being built. A market flourished there until the War of 1812, when soldiers camped there. In 1824, when the Marquis de Lafayette made his triumphant tour, the "area was named Lafayette Square, plantings were made, and the walks laid."

"Washington Itself: An Informal Guide to the Capital of the United States," by E.J. Applewhite, has a chapter on "Lafayette Square." In it the author makes a clear distinction: "The square itself and the park that fills it are even named for an adopted citizen, the marquis de Lafayette. For half a century the statue of Andrew Jackson ... stood alone in the seven-acre park ..." Lafayette didn't mount his pedestal in the park until 1890.

Park or square, perhaps the funniest remark about the territory is quoted in Constance McLaughlin Green's definitive "Washington, a History of the Capital, 1800-1950." Lafayette's statue is dressed, not in a battered old uniform like some statues we know, but in high 19th-century French swashbuckler style. Over his arm, carelessly thrown, is a dashing cape.

At his feet, an imploring naked female figure (Jesse Helms, avert your eyes) kneels. She clutches a sword. Green alleges that a certain tourist guide was fond of saying that the undraped nymph is offering the marquis a deal:

"You give me back my clothes and I'll give you back your sword."

The Chronicler, as readers know, believes in straightening the skewed picture. The photographs with last week's Chronicles were miscaptioned. The room with the crepe-draped columns was used as President Andrew Johnson's office. The room with the desk was retained by the treasury secretary. When Johnson finally moved into the White House, the secretary reclaimed the second room.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.