BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Lafayette Square (by White House) area

DC -- Lafayette Square (by White House) area:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. LAFAY_970305_01.JPG: Lafayette Square; Lafayette statue; blossoms The area just to the north of the White House was where the nation's leaders-- bankers, politicians, lawyers--all lived in the early days of the republic. Houses ringing the park were inhabited by Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Henry Adams, Dolley Madison, James Blaine, Stephen Decatur, etc. In 1824, Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette was honored in the park and it was renamed in his honor. There are five major statues in the park. The big one in the center--the Andrew Jackson statue--was the first created and it was constructed in 1853 and it was the only statue there for nearly forty years. The Lafayette statue is in the corner of the park closest to the Treasury Building. A quick map: (A)--St John's Church ----+-------+--------+------ (I) | (a) (b)| | (c) | /--- US Treasury Annex (B)(C)..| (d) (e)| (D) (E)--Riggs National Bank ----+----------------+------ Pennsylvania Ave (F) (G) (H) (a) = General Frederick Von Steuben (Prussian Baron who got the troops into shape at Valley Forge) (b) = Thadeus Kosciuszko (Polish general who defended Saratoga and West Point) (c) = Andrew Jackson (president, first equestrian statue to be cast in the United States by an American) (d) = Comte Jean de Rochambeau (head of the French Expeditionary Force) (e) = Marquis de Lafayette (A) = St John's Church; the President's church and used by most of the elite in the area in the beginning (B) = Renwick Gallery (art gallery) (C) = Blair House (house for visiting world leaders; site where Puerto Rican nationalists tried to break in and assassinate Harry Truman) (D) = US Treasury Annex (once the site of the Freedman's Savings Bank, whose last leader was Frederick Douglass) (E) = Riggs National Bank (completed in 1901, this building has housed the prestigious "bank of official Washington"; most presidents have a bank account or two here; the bank's history goes way back, lending $500,000 to US Army contractors in the first year of the Civil War; if you look on the back of the $10 bill [Hamilton on the front], you have a picture of the Department of Treasury building; the building just past the Treasury is the Riggs National Bank building which leads to their advertising slogan "right on the money") (F) = Old Executive Office Building (G) = White House (H) = Department of Treasury building (I) = Decatur House Now... if you look behind the statue (the top of which--Lafayette himself-- is chopped off), you'll see the US Treasury Annex. The Treasury Building and the White House would be to the right of the picture.
2. LAFAY_970305_02.JPG: Lafayette Square; Lafayette statue; blossoms This is the full statue. St John's Church would be behind and to the right of it. The Andrew Jackson statue is totally obscured but it's behind it.
3. LAFAY_970808_01.JPG: Lafayette Square; Jackson This is picture of the Stonewall Jackson statue in the middle of Lafayette Square. Installed in 1853, this was the only statue in the square for nearly forty years. It was also the first equestrian statue to be cast in the United States by an American. People were amazed that sculptor Clark Mills managed to balance the weight of the statue on the hind legs of Jackson's rearing horse. The four cannon at the base were from Jackson's capture of the Spanish at Pensacola, Florida.
4. LAFAY_970808_02.JPG: Lafayette Square; Jackson Statue Here is the statue to Andrew Jackson, at the center of Lafayette Square, for which the square was initially named. The statue was installed in 1853, honoring Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.. It was the first equestrian statue to be cast in the United States by an American. The sculptor, Clark Mills, attained instant fame by managing to balance the entire statue on the hind legs of the rearing horse.
5. LAFAY_970808_03.JPG: Lafayette Square; Jackson Statue Another view of the Jackson Statue.
6. LAFAY_970808_04.JPG: Lafayette Square; White House View A view of the White House through Lafayette Square. Note the mist above the flowers in the foreground. The sprinklers were on when the picture was taken. There's also a tour group in the background.
7. LAFAY_970906_01.JPG: Decatur House The Decatur House was designed by Benjamin Latrobe who had also worked on a number of other structures (like the Capitol) in Washington DC. It was completed in 1818. The house was built for Commodore Stephen Decatur and his bride Susan. Decatur had made a name for himself in battling the British Navy and the Barbary Coast pirates. In 1820, Decatur was mortally wounded in a duel by an aggrieved naval officer, Commodore James Barron, who had been passed over for a post because of opposition from a number of commanders including Decatur. Others who lived in the house afterward included US President Martin Van Buren and Henry Clay. The Decatur House borders Lafayette Square and the statue in front of the house is General Frederick Von Steuben, a Prussian Baron who molded American troops at Valley Forge. Another copy of the map of the area (see the discussion of Lafayette Square for more details): (A) ----+-------+--------+------ (I) | (a) (b)| | (c) | (B)(C)..| (d) (e)| (D) (E) ----+----------------+------ Pennsylvania Ave (F) (G) (H) (a) = General Frederick Von Steuben (b) = Thadeus Kosciuszko (c) = Andrew Jackson (d) = Comte Jean de Rochambeau (e) = Marquis de Lafayette (A) = St John's Church (B) = Renwick Gallery (art gallery) (C) = Blair House (D) = US Treasury Annex (E) = Riggs National Bank (F) = Old Executive Office Building (G) = White House (H) = Department of Treasury building (I) = Decatur House
8. LAFAY_970906_02.JPG: Lafayette Square; Rochambeau Statue This is the statue of Comte Jean de Rochambeau, the head of the French Expeditionary Forces during the American Revolution.
9. LAFAY_970906_03.JPG: St John's Episcopal Church Built in 1816, this is the second oldest building in Lafayette Square after the White House. Pew 54 bears the plaque "President's Pew" and the church has become the "Church of Presidents" since so many have attended here. Since it opened, every US President has attended at least once. Windows honor several presidents and another window was a gift from President Chester Arthur who met his wife Ellen Lewis Preston here while she was a choir member. He could see the window from the White House and remember his courtship. The building was designed by Benjamin Latrobe (who was the chief architect of the Capitol) and it was enlarged by James Renwick in 1883. The bronze bell in the tower was made by Paul Revere's son in 1822.
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AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lafayette Square is a seven-acre (30,000 m�) public park located within President's Park, Washington, D.C. directly north of the White House on H Street, bounded by Jackson Place on the west, Madison Place on the east, and Pennsylvania Avenue. The square and the surrounding structures were designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1970.

History

Planned as part of the pleasure grounds surrounding the Executive Mansion, this square was originally called "President's Park", which is now the name of the larger National Park Service unit. The park was separated from the White House grounds in 1804, when President Thomas Jefferson had Pennsylvania Avenue cut through. In 1824, the park was officially renamed in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

Lafayette Square has been used as a racetrack, a graveyard, a zoo, a slave market, an encampment for soldiers during the War of 1812, and many political protests and celebrations. Andrew Jackson Downing landscaped Lafayette Square in 1851 in the picturesque style.

Today's plan, with its five large statues, dates from the 1930s. In the center stands Clark Mills' equestrian statue of President Andrew Jackson, erected in 1853. In the four corners are statues of foreign Revolutionary War heroes: Major General Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette and Major General Comte Jean de Rochambeau of France, Brigadier General Thaddeus Kosciuszko of Poland, and Major General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben of Prussia.

Thomas and Concepcion Picciotto are founders of the White House Peace Vigil, the longest running anti-nuclear peace vigil in US history, at Lafayette Square.
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Neighborhoods] [Park (National Park Service)]
1997 photos: Since 1984, I've lived in Silver Spring, Maryland. From 1981 to 2002, photos were taken using a Pentax ME Super camera. From 1989 to 2002, I was doing all pictures as prints (instead of slides which I had grown up on). In 1997, at the age of 40, my photo obsession began and I started taking thousands of photos per year. In September, 2002, I switched to digital cameras and the number of photos exploded. Image quality is going to be variable because these are scans of slides and/or prints. The images shown here were scanned in two phases. In the early years of the website, I rescanned a selection of pre-digital images, all at fairly low quality settings. During the COVID pandemic, I launched the Great Rescanning Effort, rescanning ALL of my pre-digital images from various media (prints, slides, negatives, etc) at higher resolution and quality settings. Mutilple versions of images -- some from the initial scannning phase, some from prints, some from slides/negatives -- were posted so there are frequently duplicate images on the same page. At some point, I hope to have time to do a final review and get rid of the duplicates but that'll have to wait until all of the pre-digital images are finally posted. Trips this year: North Carolina (Dad), Florida (Mom), using a time share in Arkansas to visit Civil War sites in Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. The Civil War became my excuse to see places I'd never been to in my life and it was a great motivator for 20 years or so.
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