{"id":239697,"date":"2026-05-21T20:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T20:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239697\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T20:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T20:18:14","slug":"federal-panel-approves-trumps-plans-for-a-250-foot-arch-in-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239697\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Panel Approves Trump\u2019s Plans for a 250-Foot Arch in Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Commission of Fine Arts on Thursday approved President Trump\u2019s plan to build a 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington, even after the president rejected the panel\u2019s suggestion to make the structure smaller by removing a towering, winged angel and two golden eagles.<\/p>\n

The arts panel, which is filled with Mr. Trump\u2019s appointees, has an advisory role on the design of the project but no enforcement power. The same panel also fast-tracked approval of Mr. Trump\u2019s $400 million ballroom<\/a>, bypassing the normal review process on a project that would transform the profile of the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cWashington is not a static city,\u201d the panel\u2019s chairman, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., said. \u201cIt must grow to allow the next 250 years of Americans to celebrate their accomplishments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump did agree to accommodate some of the panel\u2019s suggested changes, including removing the statues of gold lions that were positioned lower on the arch.<\/p>\n

Speaking from the White House soon after the vote, Mr. Trump promised that his triumphal arch would be even bigger and more beautiful than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.<\/p>\n

He said triumphal arches are a hallmark of a world-class city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the only important and major city that doesn\u2019t have one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The future of the arch is still uncertain, however.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration is reviewing whether the arch could pose an aerial hazard, an evaluation that it requires for all structures more than 200 feet tall. The arch would sit about a mile from a Pentagon heliport and about two miles from Reagan National Airport, one of the country\u2019s busiest flight hubs.<\/p>\n

A group of Vietnam War veterans has sued to stop<\/a> construction of the arch, citing a lack of congressional authority and arguing that the arch would obstruct the view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Many critics of the plan have contended that the grandeur of the arch detracts from the solemnity that should be observed at the cemetery nearby.<\/p>\n

The National Capital Planning Commission, which is also controlled by allies of Mr. Trump, will take up consideration of the arch next month.<\/p>\n

The architect designing the monument, Nicolas Leo Charbonneau, said Mr. Trump had rejected the suggestion to remove the large statues atop the structure because the arch is a monument for the living, not the dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intent of the arch is a celebration in America of 250 years of greatness, freedom, and posterity, for which we can only thank the wisdom of our founders and God\u2019s providence,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile it may celebrate the victories of America in various theories of war and the sacrifice of our fallen heroes, it is not primarily monument dedicated to the dead, but to the living.\u201d<\/p>\n

The structure will allow 80 visitors per hour to go inside the arch, Mr. Charbonneau said.<\/p>\n

The president has sought to overhaul any entities that might normally stand in the way of his plans to remake Washington, including firing the entire Commission of Fine Arts board and replacing its members with his appointees.<\/a><\/p>\n

Thomas Luebke, the panel\u2019s secretary, said to the board members before the motion that a project such as the arch would normally undergo an additional review.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a final design that would normally come after this with more documentation of the issues of details, structure, everything else about it,\u201d Mr. Luebke said. But, he added, the panel could also \u201cchoose, just like you did with the ballroom, to say, \u2018We\u2019re done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He informed members that they had received about 600 new messages about the project. Only one letter writer was in favor of the project without major changes, he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Luebke said about half of those writing letters raised concerns about the arch\u2019s closeness to Arlington Cemetery, \u201cthat this in fact disrespects the cemetery and military sacrifice,\u201d he said. \u201cThe other ones have to do with misuse of public funds, that it\u2019s a gaudy or synthetically incompatible design, that is authoritarian,\u201d among other concerns.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Merritt, deputy general counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, testified that her organization \u201cremains extremely concerned about the location, the height, the scale, and the design of the proposed arch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cArlington National Cemetery is a living memorial that hosts hundreds of funeral services every month,\u201d she said. \u201cThe arch, as proposed, would dominate the national cemetery.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit seeking to block construction of the arch, Vietnam War veterans maintain that Mr. Trump cannot build it without the authorization of Congress. They cite the Commemorative Works Act of 1986, which details a multistep process for authorizing and designing commemorative works in the District of Columbia and says any such work must be \u201cspecifically authorized\u201d by Congress.<\/p>\n

But in legal documents, the Trump administration has argued that congressional actions in the 1920s connected to the design of the Arlington Memorial Bridge already give it the legal right to build the arch.<\/p>\n

Tyler Pager and Anushka Patil contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Commission of Fine Arts on Thursday approved President Trump\u2019s plan to build a 250-foot triumphal arch in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21598,93675,53594,1452,1183,79267,93676,3702,9,11,10,93677,11771,1069,1876,1979,8093],"class_list":["post-239697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-arlington-national-cemetery","tag-commission-of-fine-arts","tag-cook","tag-donald-j","tag-federal-aviation-administration","tag-monuments-and-memorials-structures","tag-national-capital-planning-commission","tag-national-trust-for-historic-preservation","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-rodney-mims-jr","tag-suits-and-litigation-civil","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government","tag-veterans","tag-washington-dc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}