Zeckendorf

by William Zeckendorf

  Our agreement with the Redevelopment Land Agency, however, was perfectly clear: no mall, no Webb & Knapp. Webb & Knapp could live without the Southwest, but without us the now popular and much-needed development could not exist. We were anxious to cooperate with the city, but could also walk away from the situation with honor. There things stood, at another Washington impasse, and it took President Eisenhower to break the deadlock.

  The President's chief interest, actually, was not primarily in the redevelopment of the Southwest. What he wanted was a good relocation point for the tempos, the temporary office buildings put up on the greensward of the great Washington Mall during World War I, when Ike was a shavetail. These eyesores had survived World War I, World War II, and the Korean conflict. With the everpresent office shortage, they threatened to continue in perpetuity, and this irritated Eisenhower. Our plan for the Southwest provided for office space to which the tempos' occupants could move. But, before anything could be done about the tempos, something would have to be done about our plan. The President appointed George A. Garrett, a prominent Washington businessman, a former ambassador to Ireland, and the president of the Federal City Council, as his special representative, "to get the project moving again."

  Henceforth Garrett sat in on all meetings of the Redevelopment Land Agency, of the Planning Commission, and of the Wirth subcommittee on urban renewal. Garrett had no power or authority as such; he was an observer. But if he lacked direct power, he had something else. Only in the harems of the ancient Turkish court, I am told, were the nuances of place, position, and current favor more carefully gauged than in modern Washington. Garrett, through a combination of personality, social position, and recent Presidential anointment, possessed all the above. His personal standing was such that he could offset the influence of Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was chancellor of the Smithsonian. Garrett's job was to prod and cajole enough members of the Planning Commission, and their friends and adherents around town, into a change in stance. Like some genial papal nuncio dealing with quarrels among local bishops, Garrett first persuaded people not to take an inflexible public position. Then he would gradually bring them to a change in stance. This gentle process of turning in place while maintaining "face" took time. Not till the end of 1955, after a last-ditch effort by the Wirth committee to relocate our mall all the way over to Eighth Street, did the Planning Commission give way. They then advised the Smithsonian to look elsewhere for an air-museum site. In April, 1956, our general plan, with the mall narrowed to 250 feet, was formally approved. We were now ready to go to work.

  As per our agreement with the Redevelopment Land Agency, we were granted negotiating rights to the Town Center shopping and apartment complex for the Southwest, the L'Enfant Plaza site, and the waterfront, these to be developed in that order of priority. These three areas represented fifty percent of the Southwest.

  Meanwhile on the political front, with particular assistance from Representative James C. Auchincloss of New Jersey and senators Stuart Symington and Barry Goldwater, we had piloted a special government office lease-purchase bill through Congress. Given such a bill, the budget-conscious government, with a minimum outlay of cash, or delay in time, could move into and own much-needed office space in the Southwest triangle. This lease-purchase bill, Public Law 150, specified that four federal office buildings be lease-purchased by the General Services Administration in the Southwest.

  All was going well with these plans until the next election shifted the balance of power in Congress from Republican to Democratic. Public Law 150 was on the books, and the General Services Administration could make use of it, but no such thing was about to happen now. The great Washington agencies are like placid herds that spend their time quietly grazing on and in turn fertilizing particular parts of the national economy. They count on their size and the milk they give to shield them from attack. They are fearful of very few creatures—except the Big Bear of Congress.

  Though it never was mentioned in the debates, I suspected a lease-purchase arrangement, in that it would permit agencies to slip ever so slightly away from congressional control, would be looked upon askance by some politicians.

  In the case of the Southwest, at the sound of the first angry snorts from the now powerful opposition congressmen, the General Services Administration took one frightened breath and froze. The Redevelopment Land Agency might appropriate all the land it wished, but the General Services Administration was not about to take possession or build on it until each building had been duly scrutinized, certified, and directly funded by Congress. As a result the high-priority government land acquired by the Redevelopment Land Agency for offices stayed bare for years, and when the Area B and our Town Center apartments were first erected, they rose up from the cleared landscape like lonely mesas on the Arizona desert.

  In order to get some government offices to go into the Southwest, we needed congressional assistance. To help us find it, Garrett and his assistant, Yates Cooke, along with John Searles of the Redevelopment Land Agency, called on Congressman Albert Thomas of eastern Texas, who headed the House Appropriations subcommittee dealing with independent government offices. They had an introduction to Thomas from a friend of Eisenhower's, but for all their fine Washington and home-town references, my friends got a frosty reception. Thomas told his visitors that he resented Washington Chamber of Commerce types pressuring him. A desultory conversation nonetheless got under way. Somehow it came out that Thomas had an interest in the grain-futures market. Garrett allowed as to how he was a partner in the firm of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane. Thomas began to ask technical questions which my friend Garrett fielded with all the aplomb and jargon of an insider's insider. Nothing more was said about the Southwest. It was clear, however, that Thomas had begun to look upon Garrett as a friend to be cultivated. The visitors finally got up and said their good-byes. As they were leaving, Thomas called out, "I think maybe I can do something for you." He did. In due time the Space Agency building was authorized for the Southwest, and after that, others followed.

  At this time I was flying into Washington four or five times a month in order to testify, plead, or prod for our cause. This was a complex, pioneering project. At one time Webb & Knapp was dealing with no fewer than twenty-seven separate Washington agencies, departments, or subdepartments. Most federal bureaucrats tend to deal with time as sedately as Chinese mandarins, and there were all manner of important distractions before them. For instance:

  Should the Redevelopment Land Agency (which owned properties) or the Federal Housing Authority (which insured properties) determine the value of the land? This was a question of policy about which bureaucratic power revolved, and only after a tussle was it settled in favor of the Redevelopment Land Agency (though the Federal Housing Authority kept the option of second-guessing and in effect vetoing such Redevelopment Land Agency decisions).

  There were legal points to be settled. Could the Redevelopment Land Agency expropriate land? Yes, said the Supreme Court.

  Should the Redevelopment Land Agency have to pay full taxes to the District on properties it acquired? (It did.)

  There were questions of philosophy: should the Redevelopment Land Agency be authorized to hire an architect to design the Tenth Street mall? The Federal Housing Authority did not think so and held up such authorization for five years before coming around to a more enlightened view.

  It was agreed that the Redevelopment Land Agency would build the actual mall, but should the Redevelopment Land Agency or the Parks Service maintain pools, fountains, and shrubbery that the architects called for? This one was settled, after a period of time, in favor of the Redevelopment Land Agency.

  A proposal that parking garages be built under the mall, operated by the City Parking Authority, was, after lobbying by city garage operators, stricken from the plan by special action in Congress. Instead, private parking facilities were organized under L'Enfant Plaza.

  Each of these and dozens of other interagency questions had
to be resolved and re-resolved. There were moments during these Washington years when I felt we were part of some mad surrealist's real-life Monopoly set: every time we were about to acquire a key property or pass "Go," the "Chance" card turned up reading "Go back three paces."

  Our general plan had been approved in April, 1956. Five months later, in September, we presented the formal proposal for our first project, the Town Center shopping and apartment complex. Only nine months after this did the Redevelopment Land Agency approve our plan. For nine more months we bargained over land prices. Their appraisers reduced the per-square-foot figure from four dollars to two-fifty. It then took twelve months for the Housing and Home Finance Agency to approve this lease. Two more months passed before we had public hearings on the matter. There, difficulties raised by a local builder led to three more months' delay and an increase in price to three dollars per foot. It took seven more months before we started on construction. A hectic twelve months later, the first units in the Town Center were completed. By then, almost six years had somehow vanished down the drain, and we were still prisoners in the wonderful Washington time machine.

  By 1960, though we had invested over half a million dollars in the Southwest, there was absolutely nothing on the ground to show for this investment. As previously, with Denver's Court House Square, we were beginning to get some crossfire from special critics, but the Southwest was too great a moral and emotional commitment for me to consider, even for a moment, pulling out. Besides, I knew we were making great progress. I could tell by the opposition we were meeting.

  Curiously, the more progress we made, the more Webb & Knapp's position in the Southwest became subject to erosion. By this negative but sensitive barometer, things had begun to get stormy in 1958. This is when we discovered a number of special forays being launched against our position on the waterfront. Partly because of some of the difficulties we foresaw for this section, I had given it a low priority in the chain of development. Nevertheless, the owners of Hogate's, a riverside seafood restaurant that would be demolished and therefore have first rights for leasing space in the refurbished area, generously proposed to build a million-dollar planetarium near the overlook of the Tenth Street mall. All they asked, in return, was that this planetarium lie near the great, new Hogate's. This new restaurant (like the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysées) would be located at the end of the overlook itself. Roy Chalk, head of the D.C. Transit Company, similarly volunteered to build a grandiose colonial village, plus a boatel, convention hall, and other "attractions" for the waterfront. Along with a later, modified version of these plans, Chalk also requested permission to submit plans for developing L'Enfant Plaza. He could draw up such plans, he said, in ninety days.

  In due time the Planning Commission, which does have its uses, formally rejected the Hogate proposal as "not fitting." Chalk's colonial-village and boatel schemes were similarly allowed to founder on their own weight. Chalk eventually did get a development site in the "open" area to the south of our own projects. Since his bus company had some car barns down there, this did give them a certain claim to preference in choice of developers in that area. The first we knew of his interest in the Southwest, however, was when we approached the bus company to arrange for service in the Southwest. We were given to understand that not much in the way of service would be forthcoming unless Mr. Chalk was allowed in for part of the action in our developments. When we countered that the D.C. Transit Company was a public utility and we could sue for service, we were invited to go ahead and do so; the case would take years —and in the meantime, just wait and see what kind of service we would get.

  This, of course, was merely a kind of bargaining that some kinds of people feel it necessary to use. Webb & Knapp had been in successful deals with far stranger co-venturers than Mr. Chalk. We were always ready to welcome outside capital (under the proper circumstances). We did seriously discuss Chalk's joining with us in some portions of L'Enfant Plaza. In one instance his buses might have used part of the space under the plaza, but nothing came of these explorations.

  But late in 1958 the Redevelopment Land Agency, suddenly a little frightened, and anxious now to get something moving in the area, turned over development rights in this section to a nonprofit corporation backed by the Federal City Council and headed by an ever so slightly embarrassed old ally of mine, George Garrett.

  The rationale was that this "prestige" group would well defend and quickly develop the waterfront. As things turned out, neither this "new" effort nor others that followed could get off the ground. At this writing the waterfront has yet to be developed.

  As partial compensation for losing the waterfront rights, we were granted two and one-half acres alongside the Tenth Street mall and opposite L'Enfant Plaza, but the important thing was that a precedent for altering our Memorandum of Understanding had now been set.

  Not long after this, at the March, 1959, public hearing to consider our Town Center bid, another Washington stalwart strode out from behind the scenes to strike a blow for home-town interests. In a headline making pronunciamento, Morris Cafritz, a prominent Washington builder, denounced our $2.50-per-square-foot bid as a giveaway. From the floor he made a counter offer of three dollars per square foot. Since Cafritz had previously spurned several efforts by the Redevelopment Land Agency to interest him in the Southwest, had refused a partnership with us in the very Town Center project which he was now attacking, and had no plans in hand for his own Town Center, his offer was rejected.

  Cafritz' proposal was never a serious one, but his spoiling maneuver did have one typical Washington effect. The Redevelopment Land Agency, made nervous by the publicity given the Cafritz offer, asked us to go along with a new, conditional arrangement. This was that if later the Federal Housing Authority, for its mortgage insurance purposes, were to place a three-dollar-per-square-foot value on the land, we would agree to pay this higher price and thus save the Redevelopment Land Agency the embarrassment of a discrepancy between the land value assigned by the Federal Housing Authority and that received by the Redevelopment Land Agency.

  We reluctantly agreed to this. But then the Housing and Home Finance Agency, which supplies the Redevelopment Land Agency with its money, stepped in. Such a contingent agreement, they said, would be a de facto permitting of the Federal Housing Authority to set the Redevelopment Land Agency's land valuations. This should never be allowed. The contract, therefore, should be for two-fifty per foot as first agreed upon or for three dollars per foot but it should not be contingent upon decisions of some other agency. Predictably, price for the supermarket sections of the land was finally compromised at three dollars per square foot.

  Joining what was beginning to look like a general assault, the General Accounting Office of the General Services Administration in June, 1957, issued a statement attacking the negotiation aspects of our Memorandum of Understanding with the Redevelopment Land Agency and suggesting that only competitive bidding should be allowed for redevelopment projects.

  These general activities signaled a most important change. In 1954–1955, when the idea of a Southwest project seemed dangerously visionary, our Memorandum of Understanding with the Redevelopment Land Agency was seen as an instrument of advantage to Washington and as almost quixotic investment on the part of Webb & Knapp. Now, after years of pioneering effort, we had yet to make any money, but our special position and Memorandum of Understanding were subject to widespread attack.

  What was happening was almost obvious. There might not be much showing on the Southwest grounds in the way of buildings, and this was leading to public criticism, but those who were sophisticated in these matters recognized that great values could now be created in the area. Local builders and financiers in Washington who had spurned the Southwest as too big or too speculative were eager now (and ready to knock off the originators, if necessary) to clamber aboard the Good Ship Lollipop.

  While fending off the various assaults launched on our flanks and around the waterfront,
we continued working hard on the central problem of making the whole of the Southwest viable. We encouraged local baseball promoters in their attempts to get a new stadium in the Southwest. When it seemed the CIA might build a headquarters in Washington, we did our best to get this cloak-and-dagger—and white-collar—employer into the Southwest, but we worked longest and hardest of all to attract the Washington Cultural Center. In combination with our proposed hotel and other public places, the Cultural Center would make the L'Enfant Plaza a sparkling, day-and-night people-magnet. Our keenest supporter and ally in these efforts was Phil Graham. In fact, it was he, working behind the scenes, who got his mother-in-law, Mrs. Agnes E. Meyer, owner of The Washington Post, appointed chairwoman of the commission to find a site for the Cultural Center. This idea was tactically brilliant but strategically disastrous. Mrs. Meyer was a splendidly self-assured American mother, with an all too conventional attitude toward the opinions of a mere son-in-law. Instead, she and her friends favored a proposed site in Foggy Bottom, alongside the Potomac and conveniently near, though not too near, fashionable Georgetown. In June, 1959, when we unveiled our formal proposal for L'Enfant Plaza, it was without the Cultural Center.