99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-24- The Capitol Columns

Episode Date: May 6, 2011

If you were present for any of the presidential inaugurations, from Andrew Jackson to Dwight D. Eisenhower, you saw the solemn oath of office taken between twenty-two smooth, sandstone columns at the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol Building. The … Continue reading →

We get support from UC Davis, a globally ranked university, working to solve the world's most pressing problems in food, energy, health, education, and the environment. UC Davis researchers collaborate and innovate in California and around the globe to find transformational solutions. It's all part of the university's mission to promote quality of life for all living things. Find out more at 21centry.ucdavis.edu. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. If you were standing in the crowd for any of the presidential inaugurations from Andrew Jackson through Dwight D. Eisenhower, you'd have seen the solemn oath of office taken between 24

tall smooth columns at the East Portico of the United States Capitol Building. When the columns were installed in 1824, the sandstone slabs themselves that made up the columns even before they were erected were considered so important that they were transported from the were considered so important that they were transported from the Potomac River to Capitol Hill by human power alone. No lowly mules were deemed fit to move such sacred objects. But they didn't have quite the same standing in 1958.

They had been taken off the east front when the east front was extended. They were stored down along the Potomac and created slowly disintegrating. After the renovation of the capital, the columns all got the boot. The notion was horrifying to Ethel Garrett, and she conscripted her friend Betty Ray. I'm Elizabeth C. Ray known as Betty Ray. And sometime in the 1970s, they made it their mission to get the columns back on their feet. I thought this would be very simple. I mean, who would say, you know, couldn't do this? It turns out plenty of people stood in the way.

Technically, they still belonged to Congress. And after 10 years of meetings, you had to appear before various committees. And more meetings. And then they would have another meeting. Fun raising. I had to appear before the National Capital Planning Commission. And hiring architects and surveyors.

I learned a tremendous amount of bureaucracy. The columns were moved from storage. From the area along the Potomac, they were put on trailers and strapped with bands of steel things on mattresses, old mattresses, and they have then brought to the National Arboretum. The Arboretum is a swath of greenery nestled in among the warehouses and gas stations at the edge of Washington, D.C. It's where the old columns of the U.S. Capitol still are today. When you're walking up to the columns located on a high area in the meadow of the Arboretum,

they're majestic, They're huge columns. They, of course, are freestanding. They are really majestic. And there's only one way to describing it. Majestic. I could see them approaching from the field and they actually are pretty majestic. The consensus seems to be that they look pretty majestic.

It's pretty spectacular. That's radio producer Jess Shribstein checking out the columns at the National Arboretum. So to my right on the crest of this very small hill are I want to guess to me a couple dozen columns. I think it's 22. Withers Chrissie Moore she works at the Arboretum. So they have Corinthian tops on these columns and they're lined up in a few rows, very tall. I understand why people think that they're from Greece or from Rome because it actually looks like

some old Greek ruins sitting on top of a hill. A definite distinct grandeur about it that you won't see much outside of Washington, DC. Independent of their grand presentation, the columns hold a certain power. Even if they don't hold a roof, but not all of the old East Puerto Rico had a champion like Betty Ray. My directions say, go downhill into the woods. Go down towards the bottom of the hill. There

will be no trail. Don't worry. Keep walking. Several miles away from the National Arboretum, where there's no visitor center, there are no commemorative blacks. Then there'll be at the bottom of the hill, there'll be a trail that goes up into a ravine. And you go on that trail, and then at a large concrete bridge, take the lower fork to pass under the bridge, and then there's a clearing on the left.

Are you coming by? And here in the middle of the woods lies the rest of the capital's east portico, the parts that didn't make it to the arboretum. To the right of us are basically stacks and stacks of columns that we almost could have walked right by. I feel like I could have walked right by not even seen them. Yeah.

They're next to some buildings, so it looks like it could just be, you know, part of some building materials, but if you look at it more closely, you see that they are actually kind of moss covered and do look rather ancient. This place is 100 square yards of busted up architecture, mounds of stone and granite and decapitated heads of Corinthian columns weathering in the snow. But its arrangement is oddly intentional, with bits of building carefully stacked 12-15 feet high with wells and chasm spanning between. Is it? They're just going to leave them here?

It seems kind of sad. They are the physical manifestation of the parts of history that didn't make the cut. They do look a bit sad. They look pretty dejective. Wow. Okay. It's kind of cool. history that didn't make the cut. They do look a bit sad. They look pretty dejective. Wow. OK. It's kind of quite a clam up here.

Whoa. This one's wobbly. But even here, without the rolling meadow and historic backdrop, the ruin still managed to be majestic. I think if I discovered this and I or the kid, I would have felt like I discovered the lost world. Yeah, I feel the little like it land is.

This episode of 99% Invisible was produced by me, Roman Mars with Sam Greenspan and Jess Shrikes Roman Mars, with Sam Green's fan and Jess Shrikes' Dine, with help from Melissa Lee and John Asante. Before them have their own fledgling podcasts called Whispersitties, learn more at Whispersitties.org. This program is made possible with support from Lunar, making a difference with creativity. It's a project of KALW, the American Institute of Architect San Francisco in the Center for Architecture and Design. Project of KALW, the American Institute of Architect San Francisco in the Center for Architecture and Design.

More including cool pictures of big columns at 99%invisible.org. you