A two mile lawn between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, lined with Smithsonian facades, elm allees and reflecting pools at both ends.
What National Mall looks like
A rectangular lawn runs for nearly two miles between the and the , split lengthwise by gravel paths with an unbroken sightline the whole distance. The stands at the lawn's midpoint, visible from almost anywhere along the corridor. Four rows of American elms line each side of the central panels, close to six hundred trees in all.
Smithsonian and National Gallery buildings face the lawn on both sides, limestone and marble facades two to four storeys tall in a shared Beaux Arts style. The breaks up that run of pale stone on the south side, red sandstone with towers and a turreted roofline. The and the sit roughly across from each other farther east.
Madison and Jefferson Drives run along the outer edges and carry vehicle traffic. The inner boulevards parallel to them are gravel paths closed to cars. Both ends of the Mall open onto long reflecting pools. The 's bronze horses stand at the eastern one, just below the Capitol steps.
The open lawn is wide enough to hold a rally or a parade route, with a monument in frame from nearly any angle. The grass gets covered in temporary matting ahead of major events to protect it, and filming anywhere on Mall grounds needs a National Park Service permit. A production working here also coordinates street closures on the paved avenues boxing in each block.
Shot in National Mall
Both ends of the Mall have played themselves on screen without needing a double. National Treasure: Book of Secrets used the Capitol Reflecting Pool for a conversation away from witnesses, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier opened with a jog around the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial end. Forrest Gump and Wedding Crashers also used the steps and the water at that end for scenes of their own.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets, 2007
By the Capitol Reflecting Pool, away from anyone who might overhear, Sadusky admits to Ben that the book really exists. The Capitol dome sits directly behind the water, the same view the film uses for the scene. Street View
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2014
Steve Rogers meets Sam Wilson here, running laps around the Reflecting Pool before the two fall into step together. Most of the film's other Washington scenes were shot in Cleveland, Ohio standing in for the city, so this stretch of water and lawn is one of the few real Washington locations the film used. Street View
Kartavya Path runs from Rashtrapati Bhavan through India Gate on an axis as deliberate as the Mall's own, lawns and canals flanking the avenue the whole distance. The central canals and the India Gate arch read clearly in a wide shot. Delhi's crowds, auto rickshaws and tour buses give the location away outside a tight frame. Try searching lawns flanking the avenue now.
Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Parkway runs on a diagonal from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Free Library, the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Rodin Museum lined up along its tree-lined boulevard in the same Beaux Arts spirit as the Mall's own museums. Active traffic lanes run through the median itself. The Mall's lawns never carry anything like it, so a wide shot needs the cars cleared or cropped out. Try searching tree lined museum boulevard now.
Anzac Parade in Canberra, Australia
Anzac Parade runs about a kilometre from the Australian War Memorial down toward Lake Burley Griffin, military memorials lined up on both sides the way monuments line the Mall. Its centre is topped with granulated rock rather than grass, flanked by three lane roads, so the ground itself reads differently underfoot. The parade is shorter and narrower than the Mall and ends at a lake rather than a domed building, so it holds up better in a tight memorial shot than in a wide establishing one. Try searching memorial lined parade ground now.
