Existing comment:
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. |