Phallic architecture
The Washington Monument in Washington D.C. is often seen as a prime example of phallic architecture and American masculinity. The towering monument, made of marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss, it is both the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk, standing according to the National Park Service. Construction of the monument began in 1848, was halted from 1854 to 1877, and was completed in 1884. In a "Journal" review, dated 17 October 1911, Arnold Bennett said of the monument, "Saw Washington monument. Phallic. Appalling. A national catastrophe – only equalled by the Albert Memorial. Tiny doll-like people waiting to go into it." Dan Burstein says of it, "Speaking of sex symbols, there is no more phallic symbol in existence than the Washington Monument, and the Capitol dome can be viewed as breastlike." James Webb used a metaphor to praise the "uplift[ing]" power of the Washington Monument as a white phallus, "piercing the air like a bayonet". In the futuristic film "Hardwired", set in the United States where everything noteworthy is commercialized, the Washington Monument is used as a giant Trojan condoms billboard.
George Washington Memorial Parkway
The George Washington Memorial Parkway was built in stages between 1929 and 1970. The first segment, the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, stretches from Arlington Memorial Bridge to Mount Vernon and was completed in 1932. The northern sections of the Parkway were mostly completed in the 1950s-1960s. The portion of the parkway from Glebe Road to I-495, was built primarily to provide access for workers at the new Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in 1959. The portion of the parkway just north of the Key Bridge was considered a model of modern highway design, and it was featured in many scholarly papers, engineering journals, and textbooks of the day. The Capper-Cramton Act received significant amendments in 1946, 1952, and 1958, both funding and terminating significant portions of the unbuilt parkway. The most significant changes came when Congress declined to fund construction of the segments from Fort Washington to the District of Columbia, from I-495 in Virginia to the Great Falls, and from MacArthur Boulevard/Carderock north to the Great Falls. Significant opposition to these segments emerged from the Izaak Walton League, the Wilderness Society, and other groups, which argued that the environmental damage caused by these segments would be too severe to justify their construction.