DC Trawler

Washington Monument Now Officially 10 Inches Shorter

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Well, these things happen when you get older…

FoxNews.com:

Government surveyors will announce on Monday that the official height of the Washington Monument on the capital’s National Mall has been revised downward by nearly ten inches.

The new measurement puts the obelisk’s height at 554 feet, 7 and 11/32 inches, as measured from the floor of the main entrance to the top. Since the monument’s completion in 1884, however, the official height has been recorded as 555 feet, 5 and 1/8 inches…

Dru Smith, chief geodesist with the National Geodetic Survey, tells the Associated Press that modern international standards from the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat call for a different base point than what was likely used in the 1880s. The new standards call for measurements to be taken from the lowest open-air pedestrian entrance to the building.

So the monument hasn’t really gotten any shorter. They just changed where the measurement started from, for some boring reason.

Besides, who cares? It ain’t the size of the monument, it’s the gamut of the granite!

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Jim Treacher