Collection The Kennedys and the Arts
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s advocacy for the arts endures as a vital part of their...
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The 18th century uses of Lafayette Square included a family graveyard, an apple orchard, racetrack and a market. The federal government eventually purchased the land as part of the White House grounds and workers, including numerous enslaved African Americans, camped there during its construction. To create a grand avenue in front of the White House, President Thomas Jefferson ordered Pennsylvania Avenue cut through “President’s Park” in 1803. Twenty years later, the Marquis de Lafayette toured the country and officials renamed the park in his honor.
In 1815, St. John’s Church constructed their sanctuary and in 1818, Commodore Stephen Decatur and his wife Susan began building their home, with both structures designed by B. Henry Latrobe. It was during these early years that the Square became one of the city’s most fashionable and prominent neighborhoods, its location near the White House attracting numerous residents of note, including members of the Cabinet, Congress, and the diplomatic corps.
In 1851 President Millard Fillmore commissioned landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing to develop new plans for the city’s park spaces, including Lafayette Square. Two years later, sculptor Clark Mill added the first equestrian statue in the United States – Andrew Jackson on horseback – in the center of the Square.
An engraving of Washington in 1800. West end of capitol grounds and Pennsylvania Avenue are shown.
Architect of the Capitol Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of CongressDramatic growth on Lafayette Square peaked after the Civil War and the neighborhood became home to more of Washington’s elite, including banker William Wilson Corcoran, diplomat John Hay, and historian and author Henry Adams, who expressed the enormous significance of the Square, writing that, “Beyond the Square, the country began.”
In addition to being a significant residential neighborhood, various governmental, private and cultural entities also established their presence in buildings on the Square. From the Freedman’s Savings Bank to the Cosmos Club and from the Belasco Theater to the Treasury Building, Lafayette Square drew citizens from all walks of life well into the early 20th century.
By 1954, Decatur House was the last private residence on the Square and it took the Kennedy administration’s intervention several years later to preserve the remaining architectural character of the neighborhood. The efforts of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy resulted in the first-ever protection of an entire neighborhood, and set the stage for the 1966 signing of the National Historic Preservation Act.
Though no longer a residential area, a stroll around Lafayette Square today still calls to mind its compelling past.
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s advocacy for the arts endures as a vital part of their...
It's hard to imagine that it was something as casual as a lunch conversation between a newly elected president and...
From its construction in 1792, until the 1902 renovation that shaped the modern identity and functions of the interior of the White...
Biographies & Portraits
Biographies & Portraits
Since the White House was first occupied by President John Adams in 1800, influential people and organizations—or those who hoped to...
On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot to death...
Millard Fillmore became president upon the death of Zachary Taylor in July 1850. Born in the Finger Lakes country of New...
First of the first ladies to hold a job after marriage, Abigail Fillmore was helping her husband's career. She was...
Only about 5 feet, 6 inches tall, but trim and erect, Martin Van Buren dressed fastidiously. His impeccable appearance belied his amiability...
Son of a president, John Quincy Adams in many respects paralleled the career as well as the temperament and viewpoints...
Martin Van Buren never remarried after his wife, Hannah, died on February 5, 1819. He entered the White House in 1837 as a...