McMillan Fountain | |
---|---|
Artist | Herbert Adams |
Year | 1912 |
Dimensions | 3.7 m(12 ft) |
Location | Washington, D.C. |
Owner | Reservoir District DC [1] |
The McMillan Fountain is a public artwork by American artist Herbert Adams located on the McMillan Reservoir grounds. The fountain, completed in 1912, [2] emplaced in 1913 [3] and dedicated after October 1919, [2] consists of a sculptural group of the Three Graces placed upon a pink granite base. Cast by Roman Bronze Works, the fountain was originally part of a large landscape setting designed by Charles A. Platt. [2] [3] It was dismantled in 1941 and moved to storage. [3] The partially reconstructed fountain currently resides near its original location at McMillan Reservoir in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C. [2] [3]
A tribute to James McMillan, the fountain was paid for by citizens of Michigan, who raised $25,000 by way of pennies, nickels and dimes donated by public school children. Congress also funded totaling $15,000 towards the completion. [3]
In 1913 Charles Moore, a former aide to Senator McMillan and eventual chairman of the United States Commission of Fine Arts, described the fountain as "...a beautiful fountain is the one which seems most suitable to the memory of Senator McMillan, who was by nature quiet and modest in all personal matters. And its location, also, is most fortunate, for through his labors the water supply of Washington was perfected and a filtration plant was provided. The use of The Three Graces are meant to provide the viewer of the fountain with a feeling of honor, allegorical generosity, grave, serenity and virtue – metaphorical reflections of McMillan's contributions and "civil morality." [3]
Unlike many other fountains in Washington, which were often left dry during the city's extremely hot summers, the McMillan Fountain provided a constant source of water throughout the year, providing a restful and cooling spot for residents of the Bloomingdale. [3]
In 1941 the fountain was dismantled and moved for a reservoir expansion to prepare for World War II. First the fountain was stored temporarily on the edge of McMillan Park (First & Douglas Streets, N.W.). The bronzes were crated, and the stones, benches, steps and pavements were stacked and protected by a wooden fence. The Commission of Fine Arts proceeded to research new locations for the fountain, considering The National Mall and West Potomac Park. In late June 1941 the installation of the fountain, several hundred feet from the District of Columbia War Memorial. The National Park Service estimated a cost of $17,500 to move the fountain. However, with the attack on Pearl Harbor the plans were dismissed due to cost. [3]
In 1945 the Arts Commission revisited the re-installation of the fountain. The fountain had since been moved to an open-air storage space at West Potomac Park. National Mall and Memorial Parks started to seek a proper location while the funding for the move was raised to $25,000. In November of that year it was agreed that the fountain would be moved to the soon-to-be moved National Rose Garden. In November 1947 the plans were approved for the site and location in the garden and senate approved the funding for the installation. [3]
Another year passed and no action took place regarding the move or the garden. The Department of the Navy decided against tearing down the dorms that were needed for the garden building to take place, choosing to leave the buildings up another year. The fountain continued to remain "stored" on the National Mall grounds exposed to the environment and park visitors. The building process never proceeded and sometime between 1957 and 1974 the fountain's approximately 80 pieces were moved to an off-site park service storage facility in Fort Washington, Maryland. [3]
In the late 1970s, community leaders in Bloomingdale organized to bring the McMillan Fountain back to their neighborhood. Rick Sowell, a D.C. Recreation Department leader, led teenagers working in the city's summer jobs programs to uncover the fountain's 77 pieces, then covered in mud and blackberry brambles in Fort Washington. The fountain parts were collected over several summers, but the pink marble was beyond repair and the Department of the Interior had lost the directions on how to piece the fountain together. Sowell received authorization to take the nymphs, basin, pedestal and two benches for exhibit in Bloomingdale's Crispus Attucks Park, which he had turned into a makeshift museum. [3] [4]
In July 1983 the Hyman Construction Company moved five major pieces of the fountain to the museum in Crispus Attucks Park, mere blocks from where it originally stood. The fountain was dedicated by Mayor Marion S. Barry on July 29, 1983. At the unveiling, Bloomingdale local Robert Brannum described the return of the fountain as "having a cherished family heirloom back on the mantle." Richard Sowell, Jr., then executive director of the Crispus Attucks Museum (now Park) believed that "McMillan emphasized that as citizens in the nation's capital all Washingtonians should be curators of this living museum." [3] [4]
Due to funding problems and a major fire at the museum, park expansion and the fountain's full restoration were cut short by 1991. In 1992 pieces from the fountain that needed conservation work were cleaned and polished by National Park Service conservators and the fountain was placed back at McMillan Reservoir, about 50 yards from where it originally stood. [3] [4]
The McMillan Fountain was relocated to and fully reconstructed at McMillan Park with its official opening on June 15, 2024. [5] Some media referred to it as "The Three Graces Fountain". [5]
Crispus Attucks was an American whaler, sailor, and stevedore of African and Native American descent who is traditionally regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre, and as a result the first American killed in the American Revolution.
The National Mall is a landscaped park near the downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institution, art galleries, cultural institutions, and various memorials, sculptures, and statues. It is administered by the National Park Service (NPS) of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit of the National Park System. The park receives approximately 24 million visitors each year.
Tysons Corner Center is a shopping mall in the unincorporated area of Tysons in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. It opened to the public in 1968, becoming one of the first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping malls in the Washington metropolitan area. The mall's anchor department stores are Macy's, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale's. The mall also features prominent specialty retailers including Everlane, Fabletics, Untuckit, Oak + Fort, Intimissimi, Aesop, and Warby Parker.
The City Beautiful movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of the progressive social reform movement in North America under the leadership of the upper-middle class, which was concerned with poor living conditions in all major cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City and Washington, D.C., promoted beauty not only for its own sake, but also to create moral and civic virtue among urban populations.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years.
Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain founded in 1861 by Joseph Bloomingdale and Lyman Bloomingdale. It was acquired by Federated Department Stores in 1930, which acquired the Macy’s department store chain in 1994, when they became sister brands. Ultimately, Federated itself was renamed Macy’s, Inc. in 2007.
Meridian Hill Park is an urban park in Washington, D.C., located in the Meridian Hill neighborhood that straddles the border between Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights, in Northwest D.C. The park was built between 1912-40 and covers 12-acre (49,000 m2). Meridian Hill Park is bordered by 15th, 16th, W, and Euclid streets NW, and sits on a prominent hill 1.5 miles (2.4 km) directly north of the White House. Since 1969, the name Malcolm X Park is used by some in honor of Malcolm X.
Bloomingdale is a neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., less than two miles (3 km) north of the United States Capitol building. It is a primarily residential neighborhood, with a small commercial center near the intersection of Rhode Island Avenue and First Street NW featuring bars, restaurants, and food markets.
The Washington Aqueduct is an aqueduct that provides the public water supply system serving Washington, D.C., and parts of its suburbs, using water from the Potomac River. One of the first major aqueduct projects in the United States, it was commissioned by the U.S. Congress in 1852, and construction began in 1853 under the supervision of Montgomery C. Meigs and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Portions of the aqueduct went online on January 3, 1859, and the full pipeline began operating in 1864.
Isidore Konti was a Vienna-born sculptor. He began formal art studies at the age of 16 when he entered the Imperial Academy in Vienna, where he studied under Edmund von Hellmer. In 1886, he won a scholarship that allowed him to study in Rome for two years. While there he developed a love of Renaissance art that was to affect the nature of his mature sculpture. Upon returning to Austria, Konti worked as an architectural modeler.
The McMillan Reservoir is a reservoir in Washington, D.C., that supplies the majority of the city's municipal water. It was originally called the Howard University Reservoir or the Washington City Reservoir, and was completed in 1902 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Crispus Attucks High School is a public high school of Indianapolis Public Schools in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. Its namesake, Crispus Attucks, was an African American patriot killed during the Boston Massacre. The school was built northwest of downtown Indianapolis near Indiana Avenue and opened on September 12, 1927, when it was the only public high school in the city designated specifically for African Americans.
The McMillan Plan is a comprehensive planning document for the development of the monumental core and the park system of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was written in 1902 by the Senate Park Commission. The commission is popularly known as the McMillan Commission after its chairman, Senator James McMillan of Michigan.
White Flint Mall was a shopping mall, located along Rockville Pike, in Montgomery County, Maryland, that closed in early 2015 and demolished thereafter. Its former anchors were Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale's, Dave & Buster's, H&M, Loews Theatre and Borders Books and Music, the last four of which acted as junior anchors for the mall. Lord & Taylor, the mall's final anchor, operated until 2020, five years after the mall's initial closure and demolition.
The Bartholdi Fountain is a monumental public fountain, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who later created the Statue of Liberty. The fountain was originally made for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is now located at the corner of Independence Avenue and First Street, SW, in the United States Botanic Garden, on the grounds of the United States Capitol, in Washington D.C.
McMillan Sand Filtration Site is a twenty-five acre decommissioned water treatment plant in northwest Washington, D.C., built as part of the historic McMillan Reservoir Park. It is bound on the north by Michigan Avenue, on the east by North Capitol Street, on the south by Channing Street and on the west by McMillan Drive; which runs along the edge of the reservoir, to which it was formerly attached. Two paved courts lined by regulator houses, tower-like sand bins, sand washers and the gated entrances to the underground filter cells provided a promenade for citizens taking the air in the park before it was fenced off in WWII.
The Shipstead-Luce Act, is an American statute which extended the authority of the United States Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) as a statutory independent agency within the United States federal government and allowed it to regulate the height, exterior design, and construction of private and semi-public buildings in parts of the District of Columbia.
The U.S. government constructed a number of temporary buildings on the National Mall during World War I and II which stood from 1918 until 1971. They were built due to the urgent need for office space during wartime, but they remained in use during peacetime even though they disrupted the intended layout of the mall according to the McMillan Plan for over half a century.
Crispus Attucks Museum is a museum inside Crispus Attucks High School located in Indianapolis, Indiana. The museum is operated by the Indianapolis Public School (IPS) system and features exhibitions on local, state, national, and international African American history.
{{cite web}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(help)