Kathrine Frich
The symbolism is undeniable.
Building a massive monument takes more than stone and steel. Every towering structure changes the sky around it and alters how sunlight hits the ground below.
In one historic city, a planned landmark is drawing heat for the dark path it will trace across sacred turf.
A long morning shadow
A 3D model constructed by The Washington Post shows that US President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch would cast a vast shadow across nearby Arlington National Cemetery.
The findings have sparked outrage among historians and preservation groups.
According to The Washington Post, the shadow hits “one of its longest stretches” on May 12 at 5:28 a.m.
Within minutes, darkness would sweep over the John F. Kennedy Memorial, covering its eternal flame for nine minutes before shading the Military Women’s Memorial for 22 minutes and passing over the graves of Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Thurgood Marshall, and William H. Rehnquist.
By 6:12 a.m. on that day, the shade would cover 2,000 graves, including white marble markers from both World Wars.
Across the entire year, the newspaper’s model found the arch would cast its shadow over 75,000 graves in total, touching the headstones of formerly enslaved people and veterans from the Civil War through the Vietnam War.
White House pushes back
The administration dismissed the complaints. White House spokesman Davis Ingle told The Washington Post that the shade would “enhance the visitor experience.”
“The Triumphal Arch in Memorial Circle is going to be one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world,” Ingle added.
Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior stated that its own models showed only a small corner of the cemetery would be affected after the gates open at 8 a.m. on fewer than two weeks a year, though The Washington Post noted the agency’s simulations left out its methods and predicted the shadow would actually linger past opening time on 26 days.
Deeper symbolic concerns
Even when the sun sets, the shade moves east toward the Lincoln Memorial and parts of the Martin Luther King Memorial, touching a monument to an assassinated president 110 days a year, according to The Washington Post.
For critics, the timing matters less than the meaning. University of Connecticut history professor Micki McElya told the paper the symbolism was “undeniable”, adding, “It’s not about people in the cemetery seeing shadows so much as it is about the fact of the shadows themselves.”
Architect and historian Neil Flanagan agreed that the project disrupts the capital’s layout. “The original designers understood that the open space between significant structures was as important as the landmarks themselves,” he told The Washington Post.
