Breaking Presidents’ Day news: Government surveyors have determined that, as of this morning, the Washington Monument’s official height is now 554 feet, 7 and 11/32 inches — almost 10 inches shorter than the height recorded upon its completion in 1884, 555 feet, 5 and 1/8 inches, when it held the world record for tallest structure (until the Eiffel Tower came along in 1889). It’s not a question of shrinkage or sinkage, earthquake damage, or even the bolts of lightning that have over the years melted a fraction of an inch off of the top. Officials are just measuring from a different starting point, according to the Associated Press.
via Wikimedia Commons
Surveyors took to the site during its repairs following a 2011 earthquake, the AP reports. In compliance with guidelines set by the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (the same organization that made the controversial call that One WTC’s spire makes it officially taller than the Willis Tower), the new measurement starts at “the lowest open-air pedestrian entrance to the building” rather than the four brass markers on the corner of the monument’s base. Those currently sit nine inches below grade, although that may be a result of changing ground levels.
What isn’t changing are any of the National Park Service’s literature on the monument.
“For our purposes we’ll still use the historic height rather than the architectural height, since they’re measured from different places,” spokeswoman Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles told the AP, assuring that no one’s messing with the brochures. Not on Presidents Day. Not ever.