National Mall

The National Mall is the strip of parkland running the length of downtown Washington, lined with Smithsonian museums and capped by the Lincoln Memorial and Capital Building. Today "mall" typically refers to a shopping center, but historically it referred to any large, open public space for gathering and walking. Designed to emulate the tree-lined promenades in European cities, the National Mall also contains memorials, sculptures, and statues.

In The Hesperus Prophecy, the National Mall plays a prominent role.

In 1938, the Navy and Munitions Building stretched from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, today replaced by the reflecting pool and several monuments. In the novel, the buildings contain the Continental Army’s office and the secret entrance to Clypeate Headquarters.

The northern boundary of the National Mall is Consitution Avenue, under which flows a sewage drain, the last remnants of Tiber Creek. This creek played prominently in a Hesperus prophecy about George Washington.

The central point of the National Mall is the Washington Monument, and on the obelisk’s slope is the oft-overlooked Jefferson Pier Marker. The Jefferson Pier marks an original meridian of Washington, but also secures the original entrance to Clypeate headquarters. Beneath the Washington Monument resides the Clypeate’s greatest secret, the Epistolith.