![]() ![]() ![]() “The hope is that visitors will use the house as a gateway-a visitor’s center, if you will-before touring the rest of the National Mall,” reports Washingtonian Magazine’s Sherri Dalphonse. Per a statement by the Trust for the National Mall and the National Park Service (NPS), the house finally opened its doors on April 23 after sitting “untouched and neglected for more than 40 years.” Per the Trust’s website, the nonprofit raised $6 million in private funds to restore the building, and the NPS invested $1 million to create interactive exhibits and multimedia programming there. After a long and checkered history of its own, the house is now open to the public. Known as the Lockkeeper’s House, the structure was constructed for the canal system that once crisscrossed the area. That dynamic history is encapsulated in an unassuming brick house on the corner of 17th Street NW and Constitution Avenue-the oldest building on the Mall. And in the 19th century, areas of the green space were underwater thanks to the new nation’s growing canal system. The Jefferson Memorial was only completed in 1943, and until the late ‘70s, some sections of the Mall were essentially glorified parking lots. For much of the 20th century, the historic corridor was all but unrecognizable. Think you know the National Mall? Think again.
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