""It was interrupted by a thing called the Civil War, and so it never got built," Trump said aboard Air Force One as he flew to Florida last weekend. "Then, they almost built something in 1902, but it never happened.""
""For 200 years they've wanted to build an arc," Trump said, meaning an arch. "They have 57 cities throughout the world that have them. We're the only major city - Washington, D.C. - that doesn't.""
""Washington coming into the Civil War was still this unfinished city," Manning said. "There's no push for decorative memorialization in Antebellum Washington because it's still such a place that doesn't even have all the functional buildings it needs yet.""
Assertions claim that Washington long sought an arch near the Lincoln Memorial, including a two-century history and earlier attempts halted by the Civil War and 1902 plans. Historical evidence contradicts those assertions: the eagle statues referenced belong to a later bridge, and the nearest precedent was a temporary 1919 wood-and-plaster arch for World War I. Further assertions tied to a purported 150-year push for a White House ballroom lack supporting records of public demand. Historians note Antebellum Washington was unfinished and lacked the civic appetite or resources for decorative memorialization.
Read at Fast Company
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