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The Exorcist Steps Are Now A Historical Landmark ... But Not Because Of 'The Exorcist'
JAN 30, 10:04 AM
The Exorcist Steps Are Now A Historical Landmark … But Not Because Of ‘The Exorcist’
Lori McCue
The set of 97 steps between M Street NW and Prospect Street in Georgetown—better known as the Exorcist Steps—is now a historical landmark. But don’t queue up the 1973 movie in celebration yet: We don’t exactly have The Exorcist to thank.
The Historical Preservation Review Board on Thursday granted historical landmark status to the steps, the retaining wall on one side of them, and the old Capitol Traction Station building on the other side, and also recommended that the site be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. The board voted to adopt a report written by the Historic Preservation Office, which broke down the reasons for the site’s significance. The steps’ history as the site of a pivotal death scene in The Exorcist received some of the harshest words in the report.
“[The Exorcist] has stood the test of time (even if its special effects now look a bit cruder to our eyes),” the report reads. “But this does not necessarily rub off on the 36th Street stairway as a participant in the ‘artistry’ of ‘creative masters’ of cinema.”
The report lists several reasons why filming a horror movie alone isn’t enough of a reason to declare a place a historic landmark. For one, the application doesn’t include the house where most of the movie takes place, 3600 Prospect Street NW, and splitting up the sites “diminishes the significance of the parts.” (The HPO apparently ain’t afraid of no ghosts either, pointing out that because the house and the steps are separated by a lot, filmmakers actually added a false wing to make the house appear closer, for the scene in which a priest is thrown out the window and down the stairs to his death. “It was deemed implausible for even a supernatural force to hurl a body clear over an intervening lot,” the report quips.)
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The Exorcist Steps Are Now A Historical Landmark … But Not Because Of ‘The Exorcist’
Lori McCue
The set of 97 steps between M Street NW and Prospect Street in Georgetown—better known as the Exorcist Steps—is now a historical landmark. But don’t queue up the 1973 movie in celebration yet: We don’t exactly have The Exorcist to thank.
The Historical Preservation Review Board on Thursday granted historical landmark status to the steps, the retaining wall on one side of them, and the old Capitol Traction Station building on the other side, and also recommended that the site be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. The board voted to adopt a report written by the Historic Preservation Office, which broke down the reasons for the site’s significance. The steps’ history as the site of a pivotal death scene in The Exorcist received some of the harshest words in the report.
“[The Exorcist] has stood the test of time (even if its special effects now look a bit cruder to our eyes),” the report reads. “But this does not necessarily rub off on the 36th Street stairway as a participant in the ‘artistry’ of ‘creative masters’ of cinema.”
The report lists several reasons why filming a horror movie alone isn’t enough of a reason to declare a place a historic landmark. For one, the application doesn’t include the house where most of the movie takes place, 3600 Prospect Street NW, and splitting up the sites “diminishes the significance of the parts.” (The HPO apparently ain’t afraid of no ghosts either, pointing out that because the house and the steps are separated by a lot, filmmakers actually added a false wing to make the house appear closer, for the scene in which a priest is thrown out the window and down the stairs to his death. “It was deemed implausible for even a supernatural force to hurl a body clear over an intervening lot,” the report quips.)
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