National Capital Planning Commission1 File: 6321February 6, 2020 | File: 6321

United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

Approval of Preliminary and Final Site Development Plans

444 E Street, NW, Washington, DC

National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Modification

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Project Summary:NCPC File Number:

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Project Summary

In 1987 the Memorial Fund commissioned Davis Buckley Architects and Planners (DBA) to complete the site selection process, design the Memorialand obtain all required jurisdictional design approvals from the Secretary of the Interior, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National CapitalPlanning Commission. The Memorial Fund raised the necessary funds to construct the Memorial and selected the George Hyman ConstructionCompany as the General Contractor. Construction commenced in October of 1990 and the Memorial was dedicated on October 15, 1991.

The Memorial site is a 3-acre parcel at the center of historic Judiciary Square, located between E and F Streets, NW and 4th and 5th Streets, NW. In1791 Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s plan for the Federal City originally designated this space as the site for the Federal Judiciary. Judiciary Square has beenthe site of important historical events and structures including presidential inaugurals, D,C.’s first City Hall, D.C.’s first jail, a civil war hospital, theemancipation of slaves and assassination and sedition trials. The Memorial site is defined by the National Building Museum to the north, and theNational Law Enforcement Museum and the DC Superior Court to the south, with DC Court Buildings bordering the east and west sides. When thesite was originally selected it was a seldom used park, with parking lots on each side and featuring two Metro elevators and an escalator entryserving the Judiciary Square Metro Station, which was constructed below the site in the mid-1970’s.

6321

Carlton Hart

Consent Calendar/Open

Approval of Preliminary and Final Site Development Plans

40 U.S.C. § 8905

November 7, 2019

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Project Summary

When the Memorial was dedicated, it displayed the names of the 12,561 officers who had died in the line of duty through the endof 1990. The FBI has been keeping track of fallen officer deaths since 1960. Prior to the Memorial being constructed the MemorialFund contacted every police department in the nation to confirm line of duty deaths prior to 1960. Since the Memorial wasdedicated, every year before National Police Week in May, the names of the fallen officers from the previous calendar year, as wellas any newly discovered pre-1960 historical names, are added. When the Memorial was originally designed enough space wasprovided on the name walls to add names annually through the year 2100, based on an average of 153 line of duty deaths eachyear. Over the past ten years an average of 158 officers have died in the line of duty each year. However, the Memorial Fund couldnot have anticipated when the Memorial was designed that an average of 184 historical names would continue to be discoveredeach year. This continues now, 28 years after the Memorial was dedicated. Additionally, the tragic events of September 11, 2001resulted in 72 added names that year, and continues to add the names of the officers who die from illnesses resulting from theirresponse to that catastrophe. As a result, an average 337 names are added to the Memorial each year. The walls currently displaythe names of 21,183 fallen officers. If names continue to be added at this rate, the Memorial will run out of room to add newnames by the year 2029.The proposal is to add 15 inches to the height of the existing curved Walls of Remembrance to increase space available for names.This project will allow approximately 9,000 new names to be added to the memorial to extend the number of years to 2057. Thismodification would maintain the current look of the Memorial when viewed from E and F Streets and would only becomeapparent as one moved down the Pathway of Remembrance. The raised portions of the wall start one panel in on each side of thelong, central portion of the name walls, where the new panels are set back ½”, and the profiles of the bull-nosed cap are crafted tojoin seamlessly with the caps on the existing lower panels.

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Location Map

Site Location

Location Map

National Law Enforcement Officers

Memorial Site

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Judiciary Square

National

Building

Museum

National Law Enforcement

Officers Memorial

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Law Enforcement Officers Memorial

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Existing Conditions

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Preliminary and Final Proposal

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Preliminary and Final Proposal

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Night Lighting

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Typical Site Section