Mall

History

A public walk or promenade, the mall was part of the public appropriations of land in most major cities along the East Coast during the colonial and early Republic periods. The feature became such a constant part of the civic identity of American urban settlements that when the federal capital city was planned in the 1790s, a mall served as the ceremonial and geometrical center of the design [Figs. 1–3]. The choice of the term “mall” for the new public appropriation in Washington, D.C., may have derived from the naming of the State House Yard in Philadelphia, which was also known as a mall. The association of the founding site of the new republic at Philadelphia with the new permanent capital city in Washington, D.C., may be understood in this connection.

A mall referred not simply to open ground made available to the populace; but the term was also used to describe space that had been “improved” (see Common and Public ground). Most of the examples gathered for this study, both textual and visual, include references to improvement either by leveling or by the planting of an alley. Rev. Manasseh Cutler in 1787 described the mall in Middletown, Conn., as having been planted with buttonwoods. Images of the mall in Boston [Fig. 4] depict stylized trees demarcating it from the rest of the Boston Common, which until the 1830s was open ground used for assemblies and military exercises. The mall was used for more “civilized” activities, such as promenading. The national Mall in Washington, D.C., was the preferred site for “gainful recreation”; as a result, it was the site of Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s proposed National University and, throughout the nineteenth century, a succession of botanic gardens and museums.

The mall also served to link elements in the landscape. For example, Cutler described the mall at the State House Yard as an aisle leading from the street to the public building. Mall designs were generally linear, with an alley of trees demarcating the edges of the pathway or walk (see Promenade and Walk). A mall could also serve to enhance a view, as noted by Henry Wansey in 1794, in his description of the mall in Boston, where the canopy of the alley framed a view of the sea.

Records suggest that the specific plant material chosen for the planting of malls was frequently chosen for its cultural or political significance. After the American Revolution, Samuel Vaughan intended the State House Yard to be planted with trees from each of the states, presumably for symbolic purposes. The buttonwood tree used for the mall in Middletown was a popular American export that was in high demand in England. In Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. [Fig. 5], the Pride of India, an exotic, non-native tree was selected to border the towns’ malls. It may not be a coincidence that from their founding, both of these southern port cities were important sites for the importation of and experimentation with non-native trees in the colonies. If the selection of trees was also a statement of pride, then the civic expression was even more clearly associated with the creation and maintenance of a mall.

From Brunswick, Maine [Fig. 6], to Savannah, Ga., malls were made to distinguish unimproved space and private land from that which was designed specifically for the use of the citizenry in an urban setting [Fig. 7]. Although it was a feature that appeared ubiquitously, it was not discussed in garden treatises. Perhaps, like the common or green, it was understood as a public and not individual construct, while the literature generally addressed the interests of the private gardener.

-- Therese O'Malley

Texts

Usage

• Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 2 July 1787, describing Middletown, Conn. (1987: 1:215–16)

“At the northern end of the city is a walk of two rows of buttonwood trees, from the front gate of a gentleman’s house down to a summer-house on the bank of the river, by far the most beautiful I ever saw. He permits the people of the city to improve it as a mall.”

• Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 13 July 1787, describing State House Yard, Philadelphia, Pa. (1987: 1:262–63)

“We passed through this broad aisle [of the State House] into the Mall. It is small, nearly square, and I believe does not contain more than one acre. As you enter the Mall through the State House, which is the only avenue to it, it appears to be nothing more than a large inner Court-yard to the State House, ornamented with trees and walks. But here is a fine display of rural fancy and elegance. It was so lately laid out in its present form that it has not assumed that air of grandeur which time will give it. The trees are yet small, but most judiciously arranged. The artificial mounds of earth, and depressions, and small groves in the squares have a most delightful effect. The numerous walks are well graveled and rolled hard; they are all in a serpentine direction, which heightens the beauty, and affords constant variety. That painful sameness, commonly to be met with in garden-alleys, and others works of this kind, is happily avoided here, for there are no two parts of the Mall that are alike. Hogarth’s ‘Line of Beauty’ is here completely verified. The public are indebted to the fertile fancy and taste of Mr. Sam’l Vaughan, Esq., for the elegance of this plan. It was laid out and executed under his direction about three years ago. The Mall is at present nearly surrounded with buildings, which stand near to the board fence that incloses it, and the parts now vacant will, in a short time, be filled up.” [Fig. 8]

• Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 28 July 1787, describing New York, N.Y. (1987: 1:308)

“At the southern end of the city on the point of the Island, where North and East Rivers meet, is an old fort, now much out of repair. . . . This fort is built on a prodigious mound of earth raised for that purpose, which makes the walls next the harbor near forty feet high, and seems to be well situated for commanding the entrance into both rivers. . . . Around this fort is the Mall, where a vast concourse of gentlemen and ladies are constantly walking a little before sunset and in the evening. On the part of the Mall next the water, which is of considerable extent, is a broad and most beautiful glacis (built up with free-stone from the water), on which they walk. This is a cool and most delightful walk in an evening, having the sea open as far as Staten Island and Redhook, but in the day-time it greatly wants the shade of trees.”