Why Trump’s 250 Grand Prix Is a Really Bad Idea

President Donald Trump is a whiz at creating problems out of things that you never, ever worried about before. The latest concerns the Freedom 250 Grand Prix (“Let Freedom Rev!”), an Indy 500 race set for August 22 and 23 around the National Mall. The Grand Prix threatens damage to what may be the densest concentration of historic, scientific, and fine arts treasures anywhere in the United States, from the 76-by-30-foot Calder mobile dangling from the ceiling of the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights at the National Archives to the Wright Brothers plane and Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis hanging in the National Air and Space Museum. These objects, and many more, reside in buildings situated along the Grand Prix route, and the vibrations caused by two days of twin-turbocharged V-6 engine-powered Indy cars tearing past them at 200-plus miles per hour won’t exactly be good for them.If you haven’t heard of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, that’s probably because you’re distracted by the Iran War, or the 60 or so people that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has killed during the past 18 months, or the 33 arrests, prosecutions, and investigations of Trump’s political enemies thus far by the Justice department, or the outrageous self-enrichment that has allowed Trump to increase his net worth by roughly $3.5 billion. Or, if you’ve been following my coverage of the pending sale of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, perhaps you’re worried about the threat to New Deal murals by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, and Seymour Fogel in that building—which also figure in the Freedom 250 Grand Prix story, because the Cohen is on the Grand Prix route, too.It’s hard to imagine a worse place than the National Mall for an Indy 500 race. Apart from the National Gallery, the National Archives, the Air and Space Museum, and the Cohen building, the Freedom 250 Grand Prix route will roar past the National Gallery’s outdoor sculpture garden, the Museum of the American Indian, the Hirschorn, Frank Gehry’s Eisenhower Memorial, and the National Museum of Natural History. The National Museum of American History, which contains Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled banner and the Revolutionary-war era Gunboat Philadelphia, is one block away. The gunboat, an extraordinary thing to see, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, even though it isn’t precisely a “place.”Freedom250GP.comThese facilities are bracing for potential damage from vibrations. At the National Gallery, I’m told certain artworks have already been moved away from the side of the building facing the racetrack. Chris Abanavas, a press officer there, declined to confirm that, but said in a written statement that the museum “has conducted a vibration study and based on those results will take any precautions necessary to ensure the safety of our staff, visitors, art, and facilities during the race.” Oy.The race is the brainchild of Bud Denker, president of the Penske Corporation, which owns the Indianapolis 500 Speedway, and Erik Shanks, chief executive of Fox Sports, which will broadcast it. They sold Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on the idea, but Congress wouldn’t agree to a route that would zip past the Capitol. So in January, Denker shortened the route to keep it off the Capitol grounds and Trump signed an executive order authorizing Duffy to “take steps to ensure that all permits, approvals, and other authorizations as are necessary … are issued and granted as expeditiously as possible.” Lisa Delpy Neirotti, professor of sports management at George Washington University, told CNN: “It’s easy to pull off because they have an executive order that they can basically do what they need to do to get this thing done. If they had to go through public hearings, if they had to go through a lot of other hoops, it would not be enough time.” The big hoop to jump through is Section 106 of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, about which I wrote last week. Section 106 regulations do include protections against vibrations, typically from construction or buses or subways. As expected, the Trump-controlled Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, or ACHP, last week endorsed a drastic curtailment of Section 106 regulation. But that’s a proposed regulation that must be published in the Federal Register, and on which the public must be given 30 days to comment before it can be made final. There’s no way the scaled-back Section 106 rule will be in effect when the race takes place on August 22 and 23. And even the new rule might well require a Section 106 review of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, because the entire Mall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and so, individually, are the National Gallery, the National Archives, the Cohen building, the Hirshorn, the National Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of American History. There are also some outdoor items on the Grand Prix route that are listed independently on the National Register, including “Man Controlling Trade,” a 1942 statue by Michael Lantz outside the Federal Trade Commission; the 1882 Temperance Fountain; and a statue of Civil War General Winfield Scott Hancock.Sara Bronin, who chaired the ACHP under President Joe Biden, told me: “You wouldn’t want to see some of these things topple over because of the rumblings and the vibrations.” In the case of the Ben Shahn frescoes in the Cohen building, already there are cracks in the plaster. David Olin, a GSA preservation contractor, told a GSA tour group in March, “There is active cracking in the wall substrate and there is active cracking in the plaster”—just from everyday wear and tear—“slowly and systematically undermining the aggregate within the plaster.” Did the Trump administration go through the required Section 106 process? Only half-assedly. The National Park Service consulted in March with the DC State Historic Preservation Office, describing the route (1.7 miles), the number of turns (7), and the necessary installation of barriers, grandstands, pedestrian bridges, and so on. The National Parks Service saw “no adverse effects” under Section 106. It made no mention of the museums along the route and what’s contained inside them. Neither was there any consultation with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That isn’t required in every case, but it’s expected when there are obvious complications, as there are here.In an April 21 letter, the DC State Historic Preservation Office more or less said godspeed with all your semiquincentennial plans, just make sure to secure the necessary permits and clean up afterwards. For its part, the General Services Administration said in a written statement: “Out of an abundance of caution, GSA reviewed the proposed route for potential impact to our nearby assets and identified no areas of concern. Like millions of other Americans, we fully support the patriotic celebrations happening in our Nation’s capital, including the Freedom250 Grand Prix.”There’s zero evidence that the National Park Service or any other government agency considered the possible impact of vibrations. That fell to Mary Okin, assistant director of the Living New Deal, who raised it with specific reference to the Cohen building. “It has become clear to us,” Okin wrote in a July 27 letter to the National Park Service and other agencies, “that this event would include substantial potential for adverse effects due to vibratory impacts likely with sound waves in excess of 130 [decibels] during the race.” That level of vibrations, she wrote, is “well above normal street traffic and even go beyond those of jackhammers, pile drivers, and even freight trains.” “Like many others,” Okin continued, “we question the necessity and cost of this event.” But if it must take place, Okin urged the installation of temporary sound barriers and monitoring of the frescoes by a conservator during the event. “I’m very concerned not only about the buildings but the collections [and] the outdoor sculpture,” Michelle Arcari Rose, a former associate general counsel at the National Trust, told me. “Why would we risk any of that just for a Grand Prix at a place that is just patently not appropriate?” An email I sent to the Freedom 250 press office went unanswered.Ordinarily, when construction work takes place near a protected historic property, consideration of vibrations’ effect precedes the groundbreaking. If damage is detected, the work comes to a halt while mitigation methods are applied. But there is, of course, no chance that the Freedom 250 Grand Prix will be brought to a half if there’s damage to the Shahn murals, the Wright Brothers plane, General Winfield Scott Hancock, or anything else along the route. Look, I’m no expert on the impact of vibrations on museums. But I do know that museums keep track of vibrations created by mere footfalls. According to one study, a noise level above 80 decibels can cause damage to certain historic artifacts. The noise level at an Indy 500 race is closer to 140 decibels, which is roughly equivalent to standing next to a jet engine. The usual standard for measuring vibrations is “peak particle velocity,” or PPV, which is the maximum speed at which ground vibrations move molecules. A 2012 memorandum of agreement among the ACHP, the National Highway Administration, and state historic preservation officers for Kentucky and Indiana, concerning a bridge built over the Ohio River, stipulated that the maximum PPV during construction should be 0.20 inches per second. That same level was required in 2009 when the Coast Guard was building a new headquarters at the former site of St. Elizabeths mental hospital in Washington, D.C. No such requirement is imposed on Trump’s Indy 500 car race.The Freedom 250 Grand Prix is supposed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Let’s hope it doesn’t end up smashing the case that contains it in the National Archives’s Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.