National Academy of Sciences

Made up of approximately 2100 members, including almost 200 Nobel Prize winners, these are the guys the government hits up for scientific advice (whether the government listens to them or not is, as you may have guessed, entirely up to the government). The NAS hosts scientific and art exhibitions and symposiums, and concerts are often held on Sunday afternoons. The nicely landscaped grounds along Constitution Ave feature DC’s most huggable monument (well, besides the Kitten and Puppy Memorial – kidding) : the Albert Einstein statue. The larger-than-life, sandal-shod, chubby bronze reclines on a bench, while little kids crawl all over him and frolic on a ‘star map, ’ which depicts the heavens that his theories reshaped for humanity.