American Magazine: August 2014

BY ADRIENNE FRANK
Did you know that D.C. boasts one lawyer for every 12 residents or that
more wine is consumed in the District—26 liters per person, per year—than
any U.S. state?
Did you know that the average annual rainfall for Washington is three
inches more than that of Seattle? (The difference: it drizzles in the Emerald
City and pours in the Capital City.) And did you know—despite D.C.’s
infamously muggy summers—that the city wasn’t built on a swamp?
Washington is home to 646,449 people, more than the populations of
Wyoming and Vermont, and more Labrador retrievers than any other breed.
Seventeen million tourists per year clog the sidewalks; 106 miles of Metrorail
track crisscross the city; and 167,000 seats dot four sports venues.
This great city and its suburbs are also home base for more than 40
percent of AU alumni, which means the trivia below will come in handy
at your next cocktail party—where wine will undoubtedly be served.
Statue of limitations
Heard of the “hoof code”—the legend
that the number of hooves in the air on
equestrian statues indicates how the rider
died? Well, it’s a bunch of horse hooey. Of
the 30 equestrian statues in Washington,
only 10 follow the code (one hoof raised,
rider was wounded; two hoofs raised,
rider died; all hoofs on the ground, rider
was unharmed).
A sticky situation
While it’s true that D.C. is the third worst
city in America for mosquitoes (according
to a 2013 report from pest control
company Orkin), the Federal City wasn’t
built on a swamp. When architect Pierre
L’Enfant surveyed the city 200 years
ago, he did discover wetlands near the
rivers—however the majority of presentday
D.C. was crop land, wooded slopes,
and bluffs. In fact, historian Don Hawkins
estimates that swamp lands covered only
about 1 percent of the total area L’Enfant
was tasked with designing. You can chalk
up the muggy, swamp-like summers to
Washington’s humid subtropical climate.
Record highs
Red Line to the record book: Washingtonians
needn’t travel far to traverse the longest
set of single-span escalators in the Western
Hemisphere. The Wheaton Metro station’s
escalators are 230 feet long, with a vertical
rise of 115 feet. From platform to street level,
the trip takes 2 minutes and 45 seconds—
longer, of course, if the escalator is out
of service.
Ward’s last stand
Although AU students have feted their
neighbor, Artemas Ward, with barbecues,
concerts, and game shows, the
Massachusetts general wasn’t always
so welcome on Mass Ave. Members of
the AU community and the surrounding
neighborhood objected to Ward’s
representation of military power—a
distasteful image in the pacifist era of the
1930s, when the statue was erected. The
Revolutionary War general wasn’t wellknown
in D.C., causing the Eagle editor to
write in 1937, “At least so little is known
about the man that his statue can have no
evil effects on the minds of the young.”
Can you spare a hand?
Even sculptor Felix de Weldon, the artist
behind the Marine Corps War Memorial,
disputes the long-held myth that the statue,
based on Joe Rosenthal’s iconic, Pulitzer
Prize–winning photograph, Raising the Flag
on Iwo Jima, features a 13th hand among the
jumble of mitts gripping the flagpole. (Some
speculate the extra hand symbolizes the
hand of God—or the Corps.) “Who needed
13 hands? Twelve were enough,” said the
exasperated artist.
A tall tale
When it was completed in 1883, the
Washington Monument was the tallest
structure in the world, but it was eclipsed
by the Eiffel Tower six years later. At
555 feet, it’s the tallest structure in D.C.
but not the highest point (Washington
National Cathedral, while only 301 feet
tall, is perched on a hill, 676 feet above
sea level). Despite popular belief, there’s
no law that prohibits structures taller
than the Washington Monument. While
an 1899 cap was based on the height of
the Capitol dome (289 feet), the Height of
Buildings Act was amended in 1910 to limit
a building’s height to 20 feet more than the
width of the street that it faces—stunting
the District’s skyline at about 13 stories.
Monumental myth
The Washington Monument, the
tallest all-stone structure in
the world (and the tallest
obelisk), is two different
colors—not because
of a great flood but because the Civil War
caused an 18-year construction delay. When
construction commenced, stone from the
original quarry was no longer available.
The dark side
A grotesque of Darth Vader looms over
the most unlikely of places. Washington
National Cathedral held a decorative
sculpture competition for children in
the 1980s, in the midst of construction
on the west towers. Nebraska native
Christopher Rader took home third place
with a drawing of the Star Wars villain
who was to kids in 1983 what Frozen’s
Elsa is to youngsters today. Sculpted by
Jay Hall Carpenter, Darth Vader is located
on the east face of the cathedral’s
northwest tower along with other
winning entries: a raccoon, a
girl with ponytails and braces,
and a man with an umbrella.
That’s what
autocorrect
is for
An engraver inadvertently
carved an “E” instead of an “F”
in Honest Abe’s second inaugural
address, depicted on the Lincoln
Memorial’s north wall. The typo
was fixed by filling in a portion
of the letter.
12 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST 2014