Capitol Idea

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 2, 2001 | by John Godfrey

The U.S. Capitol lacks adequate facilities to handle the 4 million people who walk its halls each year, but critics question what a new visitors center will accomplish -- and what it will cost.

On a cold, drizzly spring day, tourists standing in a two-hour line to enter the U.S. Capitol had come to a rough consensus: There must be a better way. The visitors from Denmark and Switzerland, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, all agreed that waiting inside would be better. And that is what Congress wants them to do, having voted to build a $265 million visitors center.

"The Capitol is one of the top 10 destinations in the United States, but we are among the worst in how we treat our visitors," says Alan M. Hantman, the Capitol's 10th architect.

The project, which could be completed as early as the presidential inauguration in 2005, is intended to provide visitors with a more comfortable and informative experience while increasing security for the building and its occupants. But so far, only $135 million in funds has been raised, $100 million of that appropriated by Congress. And like every other construction project attempted in the building's 200-year history, this one comes with its own set of controversies.

The current system for tourists wanting to see the Capitol or sit in on a session of the House of Representatives or the Senate is a simple one. Tourists queue up just inside the Capitol plaza on either side of East Capitol Street -- one line for guided tours, One for unguided tours. When they get to the head of the queue, they walk across an asphalt parking lot that forms the immediate eastern approach to the building, up a staircase, pass through a security checkpoint and -- finally -- enter the Rotunda. While waiting, however, they often endure snow and bitter winds in the winter, rain in the spring and fall. Summer is even worse. Hardly a day goes by in July and August when someone doesn't faint from heat.

Once inside the Capitol, visitors fare no better. There are few places to sit, bathrooms are hard to find and overcrowded, and the three small restaurants open to the public are hidden in the building's labyrinthine corridors.

Making matters worse, the number of tourists is expected to increase. Nearly 4 million will visit the building this year. During the peak season from March to August, as many as 20,000 people a day will enter the building. Beyond the lawmakers and staff, the building safely holds just 2,200 guests. "We just had a record wait of three-and-one-half hours," Hantman says. "Fortunately, the weather was fine, but people will wait for hours in the snow, the rain and the heat" to get in.

The idea of a visitors center has been under consideration for decades. In 1960, the Capitol's architect considered an underground parking lot for the eastern plaza, with the hope of landscaping the asphalt lot above. That idea was reiterated in the 1970s and 1980s in a "master plan" projecting foreseeable changes to the Capitol and surrounding buildings.

Then in 1991, Congress commissioned a specific plan for a visitors center, the final design completed in 1995. Opposition to the cost -- then estimated at $71 million -- killed legislation to build what would have been a three-level, 446,000-square-foot tourist center underneath the eastern plaza. The plan sat on the shelf until July 1998, when a deranged man walked into a staff entrance at the Capitol's East Front, killed two U.S. Capitol Police officers and barged his way into the offices of one of the House's most powerful leaders.

The incident left the Capitol stunned. Within days, senators began pressuring their counterparts in the House to resurrect the visitors center plan. Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the House Administration Committee, was one of the few willing to buck the tide, refusing to endorse the plan until it was proven needed. House and Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle sidestepped Thomas by transferring jurisdiction over the project to the newly created Capitol Preservation Commission. Congress appropriated the seed money to redesign the visitors center with safety in mind. And, a year later, it appropriated $100 million to help defray costs.

When completed, the center will contain 588,000 square feet on three levels -- underground to minimize its visual impact on the Capitol building itself. The space will include exhibits, restaurants, rest rooms and theaters, and accommodate about 4,000 visitors at any given time. This will allow about 1,500 people per hour to tour the central Capitol and another 700 per hour to visit the House and Senate galleries. Following the example of the White House and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, visitors likely will be issued a timed ticket for entrance to the Capitol itself. "What we're trying to do is solve the same problem the French had at the Louvre," Hantman says, referring to architect I.M. Pei's now-famous underground visitors center.

Clarence Brown, a former congressman from Ohio, is less than enthusiastic about the project. Brown agrees that the Capitol is too crowded, but he disagrees with the solution. He thinks a visitors center only will exacerbate the problem of crowding. "They are going to attract more people to the Capitol with this Disney-like visitors center," says Brown, former president of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.