But the memorial behind him, a majestic work of rock-solid Greek Revival architecture that looks as if it could have been the seat of government, was built in 1842 as the Custom House. Washington had been dead for nearly 43 years and the last surviving member of the first Congress had been four years in the grave.

Image A diorama depicts the original Federal Hall during George Washington's inauguration in 1789. Credit... Todd Heisler/The New York Times

So an easily distracted public is asked to walk up a steep flight of steps to enter a mysterious building that appears from the sidewalk to be sealed shut. Once inside, they find a memorial that has no direct connection to most of the events being memorialized there.

Of the estimated 15 million visitors who pass through the crossroads every year, only 200,000 enter Federal Hall National Memorial, even though it is free and open eight hours each weekday. Its solemn inscrutability is a problem that the memorial’s advocates have wrestled with for as long as I’ve covered landmarks.

“We want to polish it up and make it gleam,” Richard H. Jenrette, the head of Federal Hall Memorial Associates, told me. (In 1984.)

Its admirers are about to make another attempt at engaging the public, beginning with the donation of $300,000 from the American Express Foundation to repair and repoint the front steps, some of which are cracked, spalled and misaligned.