Reopening Pennsylvania Avenue: Time to Take Down the Barriers

As the D.C. appropriations bill sluggishly makes its way through the congressional gantlet, the media has appropriately focused on attempts to cut the D.C. budget, along with the proposed school voucher program, one of many questionable riders tacked onto the bill.

But one little-noticed rider deserves attention. It is a provision calling for the reopening of Pennsylvania Avenue north of the White House.

Here is one attempt at "micromanagement" of the District by Congress that should be applauded enthusiastically.

Recall what a sorry, ill-conceived piece of executive branch policy the closing of Pennsylvania Avenue represents.

One of Maj. Pierre L'Enfant's great urban design gestures, Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington is the national Main Street and the capital's greatest ceremonial right-of-way. It was intended to link the Capitol and the White House both visually and symbolically, an intention realized geometrically on the ground but compromised visually by the Treasury Department building. Nevertheless, the connection is there.

Until the 1930s, the development of Pennsylvania Avenue was governed only by zoning ordinances and marketplace economics. Cheap hotels and rooming houses, dimly lit bars and aging office buildings lined the street.

Finally, after decades of planning and building, after many billions of dollars invested both privately and publicly, the avenue has been totally revitalized. Now it is the grand route L'Enfant might have envisioned.

The stately neoclassical buildings of the Federal Triangle and the National Gallery of Art line its south side, along with the Gallery's modern East Building designed by I. M. Pei. On the north it is flanked by an architecturally eclectic mixture of federal and private office buildings, elegant hotels and residences, theaters, the federal courthouse and the Canadian Embassy. Three distinctive urban spaces -- Pershing Park, Freedom Plaza and Market Square -- expand and animate the streetscape.

Yet Pennsylvania Avenue doesn't end at 15th Street. Easily forgotten is the 12-block-long portion of the avenue extending west of the White House toward Georgetown, from 17th Street to Rock Creek Park, where it terminates at M and 29th streets.

This stretch of the avenue, long a work in progress, is close to being fully realized. Developed almost exclusively by private investors and institutions, it is Main Street for a vital blend of commercial, financial, academic, health care and residential buildings. Here is where parades are not held and tourists rarely explore, but where city life thrives and some provocative modern architecture has appeared recently.

This stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue serves the new World Bank headquarters, designed largely by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, and the recently completed headquarters of the International Finance Corp., designed by architect Michael Graves.

South of the avenue is the George Washington University campus and, next to Washington Circle, the GWU Hospital. West of the circle, at the seam between Foggy Bottom and the West End, apartment and office buildings intermingle.

Severing Pennsylvania Avenue -- all in the name of enhancing security -- between 15th and 17th streets is a gesture of disconnection in the city at a time when connection has become most needed, at a place where connection has become most meaningful.

The Clinton administration has cut apart physically these two parts of a diversely developed but singular avenue, making discontinuous what should be continuous.

And this disconnection is symbolic. It distances American citizens and tourists from the White House, not only a residence for presidents, but also one of the preeminent architectural landmarks of American history and government. It also is emblematic of the disconnection between branches of the federal government and between the federal and city governments. The Secret Service, part of the Treasury Department, closed the avenue with neither the advice nor consent of Congress or the District.

Functionally, the Pennsylvania Avenue disconnection has exacerbated traffic in the heart of downtown and adversely affected nearby retailers. Today both Washingtonians and many visitors avoid the congested streets near the White House, hurting businesses whose sales depend on public visibility.

The avenue was closed to vehicle traffic with "Jersey barricades" in May 1995 in the wake of a number of terrorist incidents, in particular a pedestrian's assault rifle attack on the White House in November 1994 and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995.

Security specialists feared that someone could transport and detonate explosives in a car or truck near the White House, the north facade of which is more than 200 feet from Pennsylvania Avenue If powerful enough, it was speculated, such an explosion could seriously damage the building and harm its occupants.

But I and many others have argued strongly against closure by questioning the efficacy of the gesture, in addition to pointing out the negative symbolic, functional and economic consequences. We do not suggest that there are no risks or that the car-bomb scenario couldn't happen. Rather we believe that the costs of closing the street are not justified by the marginal reduction of risk and mitigation of conceivable or potential threats.

Indeed, we argue that closing the avenue, while doing great harm to the city, adds relatively little protection to the White House. Given the distance between the building and the street, and the building's mass, geometrical configuration and structural strength, its vulnerability to an explosion 200 feet away already is greatly diminished.

Whatever vulnerability to an explosion's shock wave does exist could be reduced even further simply by increased "hardening" of the building itself. Street-facing walls could be reinforced and strengthened internally, and windows could be modified with state-of-the-art, shatter-proof glazing.

Moreover, closing the street contributes nothing to preventing other forms of attack -- such as from the air -- by a dedicated, technically sophisticated terrorist.

Perhaps the ultimate argument against closing Pennsylvania Avenue in the name of security is philosophical. Where do you draw the line? Why not isolate the White House even more by closing off even more of the city? Why don't we offer equal protection to other important government officials and buildings, such as the Treasury or the House and Senate office buildings, by closing off streets around them?

All of us, including the president, tolerate risks that cannot be completely eliminated: riding in cars and airplanes, igniting ovens, using gas furnaces, eating and drinking, ingesting medications, walking down stairways, and exercising. Just being in the heart of a city is a risk, but that's where our government is and where it should be.

The president deserves a reasonable amount of security, but closing Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House is unreasonable. Congress has it right on this one. It's time to reconnect.

Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect and a professor of architecture at the University of Maryland.

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