{"exhibit":{"title":"Why is there so little shade on the Mall near the museums?","description":"<p>When Washington was first established as a city, the Mall was an open area dotted with groupings of trees. Between 1800 and 1840, the land was cleared for timber, leaving an open plain. In the mid-1800s, landscape designers proposed planting new groves to form an outdoor museum of American trees. The Mall as we see it today is largely the result of the Senate Park Commission's 1901 plan that called for clearing trees to create an open central space bordered by ordered rows of elm trees. The National Park Service implemented the plan in the 1930s, despite the objections of some Washingtonians.<\/p>","credits":"","featured":0,"public":1,"theme":"","theme_options":null,"slug":"trees","added":"2013-07-08 11:32:41","modified":"2014-09-02 14:46:40","owner_id":5,"use_summary_page":1,"cover_image_file_id":null,"id":38},"item":{"item_type_id":1,"collection_id":null,"featured":0,"public":1,"added":"2013-07-08 11:46:34","modified":"2015-11-02 11:00:04","owner_id":5,"id":363}}