No Building Can in DC Can Be Taller Than the Washington Monument
Now that’s a huge misconception in Washington, DC. The Washington Monument measures 555 feet high, while the tallest residential and commercial structures are only 200 feet high.
A building the height of the Washington Monument would be about 50 stories tall, and some say that it would diminish the emblematic building’s grandeur. But this has nothing to do with the Washington Monument, but with the Height of Building Act of 1910.
It was the Cairo apartment building that made this law come into being. In the 1890s, the tall structure opened as a 16-foot-high hotel. However, the nearby neighbors weren’t happy that this new, huge building had emerged close to their residences.
So they went to Congress, demanding a law that would prohibit additional tall construction.
