Trump Unveils Plan to Build Promenade at Lincoln Memorial

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he plans to build a promenade connecting the Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac River.

“We’re going [to call it] the promenade. They want to call it the ‌Trump Promenade, but I don’t know if I want to do that, but it’s going to be beautiful,” Trump told reporters at the White House on June 4.

“It’s a beautiful project, and it’s going to take the Lincoln Memorial right down to the Potomac, which it was always scheduled to do, but when they built the roads, that was the end of that.”

Trump said the original vision for the Lincoln Memorial did not materialize after two roadways were built behind it.

He noted that his administration has “a way of beautifully going over those two roads” to allow pedestrians to walk from the Lincoln Memorial to the Potomac River.

“At the Lincoln Memorial, the front was supposed to be the back. The back was supposed to be the front,” the president said.

“That never got built because they built two roadways behind it after it was built, and it shut off the gateway to the water. That was really going to be the main entry, and we’re going to be doing that.”

The Lincoln Memorial honors Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president, who led the ​United States through the Civil War. It sits at the western end of ⁠the National Mall overlooking the Reflecting Pool, which the Trump administration has also refurbished.

The announcement came ​on the same ⁠day that water began flowing into the Reflecting Pool. In a Truth Social post, Trump said that a final protective coating would be completed at 4 p.m. on June 3, after which the water would start flowing into the pool.

“The walking paths outside of the Pool will, likewise, be cleaned, sandblasted, and finished soon,” he wrote. “This will be the first time since the day it was built, 1922, that it has worked, and worked wonderfully, indeed.”

Trump announced in April that the Reflecting Pool would be coated in “American flag blue.” The Reflecting Pool is “in terrible shape,” he said, noting that it had been leaking “like a sieve for many years.”

The project is expected to be completed ahead of July 4, when the United States commemorates the 250th anniversary of its independence, according to the president.

“So, it’s being done now,” he told reporters on April 23. “You’re going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool, the way it’s supposed to be. Much better than it ever was, actually.”

The National Capital Planning Commission also voted on Thursday to advance Trump’s proposed 250-foot “Triumphal Arch” that would be built at the base of the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Trump announced the commission’s approval in a post on Truth Social, saying it would be “the greatest arch” when completed.

In addition, the Interior Department on June 4 announced plans to regild the four gold-plated “Arts of War” and “Arts of Peace” equestrian statues near the Lincoln Memorial.

The $5.1 million project is part of a broader effort to refurbish monuments and public spaces in Washington as preparations ramp up for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration. The statues, gifted to the United States by Italy roughly 75 years ago, were last regilded in 1971.

Jackson Richman and Reuters contributed to this report.