NATIONAL MALL THREATENED BY WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL

WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL WILL DEFACE THE
NATIONAL MALL, www.savethemall.org SAYS

(Washington, DC -- April 25, 2000) A new website -- www.savethemall.org -- has been launched that documents the disastrous impact the proposed World War II memorial would have on the heart of the National Mall in Washington, DC. The memorial -- larger in area than the Lincoln Memorial -- will divide the Mall and block open access to this national meeting place and national treasure.

The website, www.savethemall.org was developed by a group of concerned citizens headed by Dr. Judy Scott Feldman, an art and architectural historian in Washington, DC. The group .supports the plan to build a World War II Memorial but opposes the present design and location.

Dr. Feldman said this memorial plan will deface the National Mall while failing to do justice to the World War II generation. She said that www.savethemall.org spells out why planning for this memorial should be halted and a new site location and design competition be initiated.

The American people have been kept in the dark about the simple fact that this memorial would change drastically the character of this great historic national landscape and irrevocably alter its public uses and powerful symbols. I do not believe that World War II veterans will support this plan when they learn that this planned memorial will drive a wedge between two of our nations most famous memorials," she said.

The www.savethemall.org website exposes the backroom decision-making process that denied the public a meaningful opportunity to comment on the proposed site, the tranquil Rainbow Pool between the Washington Monument an Lincoln Memorial.

Editorial comments opposing the location of the proposed memorial from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other major media are included on the www.savethemall.org website.

The project director for the American Battle Monuments Commission that oversees the proposed monuments construction, Ambassador F. Haydn Williams, gloated in a national magazine that they won approval for the location before the public even knew the center of the Mall was being considered as the site for the Memorial.

They knew that a public outcry would result if the people only knew. The website sponsors hope that concerned Americans will visit www.savethermall.org then demand that Congress act to save the National Mall," Dr. Feldman said.

Dr. Feldman said that architects and planners have agreed for more than 80 years that the completion of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 was the logical conclusion to the historical development of the Mall, with the Capitol symbolic of American government, the Washington Monument dedicated to the founder of our government, and the Lincoln Memorial to its savior.

The www.savethemall.org website spells out how this memorial plan deviates from the LEnfants and McMillan plans, the guide for Washington, DC planners for almost 200 years, and how it would sever the open vista between the two great monuments and the United States Capitol as well as the open spaces between the White House and Jefferson Memorial and the National Mall.