Sights in Washington, DC
-
A
Rock Creek Park
At 1700 acres, Rock Creek is twice the size of New York’s Central Park and feels a hell of a lot more wild. You can be out here and feel utterly removed from the city. Even coyotes have settled into the wilderness (they’re not dangerous, by the way). Rock Creek Park begins at the Potomac’s east bank near Georgetown and extends to and beyond the northern city boundaries. Narrow in its southern stretches, where it hews to the winding course of the waterway it’s named for, it broadens into wide, peaceful parklands in Upper Northwest DC. Terrific trails extend the entire length, and the boundaries enclose Civil War forts, dense forest and wildflower-strewn fields. Cell phone …
reviewed
-
B
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Both grim summation of human nature and fierce confirmation of basic goodness, the Holocaust Museum is unlike any other museum in Washington, DC. In remembering the millions murdered by the Nazis, it is brutal, direct and impassioned. Visitors are given the identity card of a single Holocaust victim, narrowing the scope of suffering to the individual level while paying thorough, overarching tribute to its powerful subject. Many visitors leave in tears, and few are unmoved. James Ingo Freed designed the extraordinary building in 1993 and its stark facade and steel-and-glass interior echo the death camps themselves.
Apart from the permanent exhibits, the candlelit Hall of R…
reviewed
-
C
Washington Monument
Oldest joke in DC: ‘So, what part of Washington is his monument modeled on?’ Yeah, that’s right, America has a bigger…obelisk than you. At 555ft the monument is not only the tallest building in DC (by federal law no structure can reach above it), it is also the tallest masonry structure in the world. Construction began in 1848 but a lack of funds during the Civil War kept building in a quagmire and the 90,854-ton, brick-and-marble structure was not completed until 1888. The original marble was drawn from Maryland, but the source dried up about a third of the way through construction and contractors had to turn to Massachusetts for marble. If you look closely there is a vi…
reviewed
-
D
National Building Museum
Devoted to the architectural arts, this museum is appropriately housed in an architectural jewel: the 1887 Old Pension Building. Four stories of ornamented balconies flank the dramatic 316ft-wide atrium, and the Corinthian columns are among the largest in the world, rising 75ft high. An inventive system of windows and archways keeps the so-called Great Hall constantly glimmering in natural light, and this space has hosted 17 inaugural balls – from Grover Cleveland’s in 1885 to Barack Obama’s in 2009. The showy space easily overshadows the exhibits, but they’re worthwhile nonetheless – ‘Washington: City and Symbol’ examines the deeper symbolism of DC architecture; and ‘Too…
reviewed
-
E
Ellipse
That elliptical road that circles the expansive park on the south side of the White House? It’s imaginatively known as the Ellipse. The park is studded with a random collection of monuments, such as the Zero Milestone (the marker for highway distances all across the country) and the Second Division Memorial. But the more important function of the Ellipse is hosting sporting events, parades and festivals – from lighting the national Christmas tree, to military drill performances to Lance Armstrong’s final ride.
reviewed
-
F
Mt Zion United Methodist Church
One of the sites that recall the history of Georgetown’s 19th-century free black community, who lived in an area known as Herring Hill is this church, founded in 1816 and DC’s oldest black congregation. Its original site, on 27th St NW, was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
reviewed
-
G
Capitol
The political center of the US government and geographic heart of the District, the Capitol sits atop a high hill overlooking the National Mall and the wide avenues flaring out to the city beyond. The towering 285ft cast-iron dome topped by the bronze Statue of Freedom, ornate fountains and marble Roman pillars set on sweeping lawns and flowering gardens scream: ‘This is DC.’
Since 1800, this is where the legislative branch of American government – ie Congress – has met to write the country’s laws. The lower House of Representatives (438 members) and upper Senate (100) meet respectively in the south and north wings of the building.
The visitor center (202-225-68…
reviewed
-
H
National Air & Space Museum
The most popular Smithsonian museum is one of the best for kids and kids at heart, full of interactivity and things that go fast/boom/swoosh/etc. When you visit, don’t forget to touch the moon. No, really, there’s an actual chunk of lunar love here, its well-worn surface pressed by millions of curious fingers over the years. Other must-sees include Chuck Yeager’s sound-barrier-breaking Bell X-1, Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis, the Lunar Lander and the Wright Brothers’ original airplane. They all hang from wires off the enormous ceiling, directing your gaze ever upwards to the eternal vault of the endless sk – ow – watch it kid!
That’s the drawback of this sp…
reviewed
-
I
Washington National Cathedral
Open to all faiths and creeds, this house of worship, while run by the Episcopal diocese, has conducted services for Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Baha’is. Presidents attend multifaith services following their inauguration, state funerals are hosted inside and this was where Martin Luther King Jr gave his last Sunday sermon. Technically, it took 82 years to build this edifice – Teddy Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in 1908, and construction didn’t technically stop until 1990. The National Cathedral has become such an iconic feature of the city skyline it is hard to imagine a time when its construction was a controversial issue, but there was some str…
reviewed
-
J
White House
Unlike many sites of similar caliber, the White House feels more uplifting than somber. Maybe that’s because this is, at the end of the day, a home as well as a symbol. The White House stuns visitors with its sense of pomp and circumstance, yet it also charms with little left traces of those who have lived here before, which includes every US president since John Adams. Icon of the American presidency? Yeah. But it’s also someone’s front yard.
The Presidential Palace – as it was once known – has changed a great deal over history. It was not originally white, for example. After the British burned the building in the War of 1812, it was restored and painted. Teddy Roo…
reviewed
Advertisement
-
K
Library of Congress
The White House and the Capitol may be more iconic, but for our money (well, none, seeing as admission is free), the LOC, the world’s largest library, is the most impressive structure in DC.
It’s just the sheer scope of the thing: approximately 120 million items, including 22 million books, plus manuscripts, maps, photographs, films and prints shelved along over 500 miles of closed library stacks in the three main library buildings, Adams Building (cnr 2nd St & Independence Ave SE), Jefferson Building (cnr 1st & E Capitol Sts SE) and Madison Building (1st St SE btwn Independence Ave & C St SE). You don’t get to see most of this material, unfortunately, but checking ou…
reviewed
-
L
National Museum of Natural History
Kids: bust out the dinosaur fangs and your best T-Rex shamble. It’s time to drag mom and dad around till they drop. Don’t worry parents, you’re only joining the several other million guests who annually enter the second-most-popular museum in the Smithsonian. Say hello to the famous African elephant dominating the entrance rotunda and the nearby rotting carcass of a giant squid and get ready to explore one of the most eclectic collections of, well, stuff, anywhere. The exhibits are a bit oddly mashed up – what exactly do Javanese shadow puppets have to do with birds of northern Europe? Traipse past the Hall of Dinosaurs to the supposedly cursed Hope Diamond, Easte…
reviewed
-
M
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
This simple memorial is the most powerful in the city, if not the nation. A black granite ‘V’ cuts into the Mall, just as the war it memorializes cut into the national psyche. The memorial eschews mixing conflict with glory. Instead, it quietly records the names of service personnel KIA and MIA (killed in action and missing in action) in Vietnam, honoring those who gave their lives and explaining, in stark architectural language, the true price paid in war.
Originally planned to reconcile a divided nation, the memorial was conceived by Maya Lin, a 21-year-old Yale architecture student, following a nationwide call for proposed designs in 1982. The two walls of Indian g…
reviewed
-
N
Supreme Court
The highest court in the land is also the head of the least prominent branch of government: the United States judiciary. As such, the actual Supreme Court building, one of the last Greek classical structures built in DC, isn’t as iconic as the Capitol or the White House (the respective centers of the legislative and executive branches). This suited a few folks just fine in the past. When the building came up in 1935, some justices felt it was too large, and didn’t properly reflect the subdued influence of the nine justices within. The design scheme was to create, in typically Federal government style, a Greek Temple of Justice. The seated figures in front of the building …
reviewed
-
O
National Zoological Park
As the National Zoo enters its 120th year of existence, it celebrates a birthday attended by some controversy (several animals’ deaths in the last decade and the resignation of a director), hope (two words: giant pandas) and cautious optimism exemplified by the birth of a lowland gorilla. Still one of the best zoos around, the National gently sprawls over 163 acres cut through by a mini-Amazon, the interactive Think Tank, which examines animal intelligence, and the excellent Asia Trail, which winds around aforementioned pandas, clouded leopards and red pandas. The Smithsonian Institution zoo was founded in 1889 and planned by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York’s …
reviewed
-
P
National Museum of the American Indian
The award for most impressive external architecture of any museum on the Mall (and perhaps in the city) goes to the Museum of the American Indian. The curving exterior blobs like an art-house amoeba on the eastern edge of the Mall; fashioned from rough Kasota limestone that blushes honey in the sunset, it manages to look rustic and strong yet liquid and organic all at once. In fact, there are no sharp edges to be found anywhere – the impression is one of nature flowing into the learning space, accentuated by an outside green area of wetlands and micro-biomes meant to simulate the ecosystem of the North American continent. Inside, you’ll find the story of Native Americans …
reviewed
-
Q
National Museum of Asian Art
The dangling sculpture Monkeys Grasping for the Moon, an image of a dozen stylized primates fashioned into the word ‘monkey’ in a like number of languages (including Japanese, Hebrew, braille and Urdu) is perhaps the most impressive piece of introductory art to welcome you to a Smithsonian institution – and a reminder that you have just entered a very special museum. The Arthur M Sackler Gallery (1050 Independence Ave SW) and Freer Gallery of Art (cnr 12 St & Jefferson Dr SW) combine to form the National Museum of Asian Art, one of the most pleasant Smithsonian museums in the capital. Make sure to visit them in tandem.
This is simply a lovely spot in which to while …
reviewed
-
R
National Museum Of American Art & National Portrait Gallery
These inseparable Smithsonian museums are looking brilliant these days, thanks to a multi-million-dollar facelift. They share the 19th-century US Patent Office building, a neoclassical quadrangle that hosted Lincoln's second inaugural ball and a Civil War hospital. Walt Whitman based The Wound-Dresser upon his experiences as a volunteer nurse here ('The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand/I sit by the restless all the dark night…').
The Portrait Gallery's permanent collection contains more than 4000 images of known faces from all walks and eras of life. The presidential portraits are particularly notable. Look for Gilbert Stuart's famous Lansdowne portrait of G…
reviewed
-
S
C&O Canal & Towpath
There are all kinds of green escapes from Washington’s urban jungle, but the C&O is one of the more pleasant, if only because of the unexpected way it leaps out at you. There you are, wandering through the Valley Girl paradise that is Georgetown on a sunny day, and all of a sudden: wooden water wheels, a green canal, shaggy horses, flat-bed barges and a cobbled path running alongside, all so bucolic you expect hobbits to emerge from the bushes with fiddles and ale. The canal, one of the civil engineering feats of the 19th century, runs 185 miles from here to Cumberland, MD, and once brought goods and passengers from the capital to the then-beginning of the American West. …
reviewed
-
T
Union Station
How beautiful is Union Station? Well, even commuters who use it to get to work – people who should loathe the sight of it – say the grand entrance hall, meant to resemble a Roman triumphal arch, never fails to impress. This was the first structure built in accordance with the McMillan plan, the 1901 campaign to revitalize DC’s then dead urban core. Union is one of the pinnacles of the beaux arts and city beautiful movements that transformed the American urban landscape in the 20th century. Besides being an architectural gem, Union is also a semi-minimall and serves as Washington’s main rail hub. The main hall, known as the Grand Concourse, is patterned after the Roman Bat…
reviewed
Advertisement
-
U
Lincoln Memorial
In a city of icons, the inspiration for the back of the penny stands out in the crowd. It’s the classicism evoked by the Greek temple design, or the way the memorial so perfectly anchors the Mall’s west end, or maybe just the stony dignity of Lincoln’s gaze and the power of his speeches engraved in the walls. Whatever; a visit here while gazing over the Reflecting Pool is a defining DC moment. These are the steps where lovers kiss and schoolchildren lounge, protestors gather and Martin Luther King Jr’s dream seared itself into the national conscience. To add to the civil rights record, read the words of the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural speech, …
reviewed
-
Ford’s Theatre & Petersen House
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, actor and Confederate sympathizer, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, as president and Mrs Lincoln watched Our American Cousin in the Presidential Box of Ford’s Theatre. The box remains draped with a period flag to this day. The theater is open during the day to visitors (except during rehearsals or matinee performances), but you’ll need to get a (free) ticket with timed entry from the theater box office; you can also reserve a pass from Ticketmaster (202-397-7328; www.ticketmaster.com) – a surcharge may apply. Check out the Lincoln Museum in the basement, which maps out the assassination’s details and displays related artifacts. Aft…
reviewed
-
V
Howard University
The Shaw neighborhood is as defined by Howard University as Georgetown is by her titular school. Founded in 1867, this remains the nation’s most prestigious traditionally African American institute of higher education. Distinguished alumni include the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (who enrolled after he was turned away from the University of Maryland’s then all-white law school), Ralph Bunche, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and former New York City mayor David Dinkins. Today Howard enrolls around 12,000 students in 18 schools. There are campus tours (202-806-2755) and a friendly Welcome Center (1739 7th St NW). The surrounding streets are largely filled w…
reviewed
-
W
Smithsonian American Art Museum
If you only visit one art museum in Washington, DC, make it this one, technically composed of two institutions. There is, simply put, no better collection of American art in the world. Collectively, these museums are known as the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The National Portrait Gallery is, in its way, a portrait of America, seizing and interpreting the nation’s visage by displaying her multiple faces throughout the ages. The Museum of American Art, on the other hand, exhibits the beauty and vision of those figures, the external aesthetic of the humanity so eloquently captured in the Portrait Gallery. Both occupy three floors in the 19th-century US Patent Office bu…
reviewed
-
X
National Archives
The importance of the archives, or more specifically what is contained within them, cannot be overstated; herein lays the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. If the USA has a mission statement, it’s here. Seeing these documents in person is one of those DC experiences that gets even hard-bitten locals to whisper ‘wow.’ The documents are contained in a dimly lit rotunda within a grand neoclassical building. Just before you reach the main event, you’ll see a 1297 version of the Magna Carta, courtesy of Texas billionaire (and former presidential candidate) Ross Perot. Don’t expect to linger over the Big Three (guards make you keep moving) bu…
reviewed
