Union Station and the National Postal Museum

The Postal Square Building is a mammoth Beaux-Arts style building that is home to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some Senate Offices, the Capital City Brewery, and the National Postal Museum. This building and the, newer, Thurgood Marshall Judiciary Building, flank Union Station creating an impressive wall of marble just a few blocks north of the Capitol.

Union Station

I almost didn’t make it to the Postal Museum today because I stopped off first at Union Station. I love trains. In college, I took the train from home in Richmond back and forth to school in Connecticut. I also love the ease of travelling by train compared to the hassle of flying Union Station.

Ceiling Detail - Union Station

Union Station Interior

Since moving to the area it has been my gateway to New York. I hadn’t made a trip north since April and ever-so- briefly considered hopping the 1:35 Northeast Regional yesterday. Realizing that I had no one to pet sit and no one to visit in New York right now, I quickly made my way over to the Postal Museum before I had time to change my mind.

Postal Museum viewed through Union Station arcade

Once again, I found myself blown away by the beauty of the architecture so characteristic of old D.C. What is particularly impressive is that this spectacular building was 1) actually used as a post-office from 1914-1986 and 2) that it isn’t even the first spectacular postal building build for the capital. In the late 1800s, the city built a magnificent Post Office building and tower. Unfortunately, by the time it was completed in 1899, its Romanesque architectural style was no longer in vogue. OK, so maybe that is more excessive than impressive, but if buildings were shoes, I could relate.

After passing through the metal detector and having my bag scanned (see again why I prefer trains to planes), I walked into the grand hall of the Old Post Office. Having removed all of the 1960’s era “improvements” (like fluorescent lighting), the hall has been restored to its original glory. Intricate grills and metal work surround the P.O. boxes and attendant windows, beautifully carved marble tables are positioned along the center of the hall, and large scale chandeliers hang from the elaborate, floral plaster ceiling. That isn’t even part of the official museum, but may have been my favorite part of the visit.

Main Hall

Chandelier and Ceiling

The museum itself was opened in 1993. It is not, to my relief, composed of many rooms of stamps. There was one room of stamps and facts about stamps, but most of the museum details the evolution of the postal system including changing means of mail transport, the role of the postal system in civil defense (e.g., crimes associated with the mail – think anthrax and the Unabomber), and the mail through our nation’s history (V-mail used during World War II).

Old Mail Train
Workers had to sort 600 pieces of mail and hour!

My favorite postal fact (actually a stamp fact) is this: a “bisect” is a stamp cut in half to create the right amount of postage. This used to be OK…have a 20 cent stamp and you only need 10? Cut it in half.

Two stamps and a bisect

Model T on Skis

The Model T Ford whose front wheels had been replaced by skis for rural, winter mail delivery in New England was pretty cool too.

Post Office boxes from around the world

The National Building Museum

My day started with several shots of Novocain and an hour in the dentist’s chair. After that, I decided that I wanted to something a little different for my museum experience today. I toyed with the idea of the Sackler and Freer galleries and even thought about walking around the mall to view some of the memorials that I haven’t seen yet (still too hot). After a bit of consideration while trying to drink coffee without dribbling on my shirt, I decided that today was the day for the National Building Museum (www.nbm.org/)

The National Building Museum

I have walked past it numerous times since one of the best coffee shops in the city is around the corner (Chinatown Coffee Co.) and admired the building. The outside, as beautiful as it is, doesn’t compare to the four story columned atrium inside. It is one of the most beautiful spaces I’ve seen in DC. I was absolutely giddy when I walked in and immediately thought of some of the beautiful paintings by Turner showing the sun-soaked columned courtyards in Italy. The National Building Museum is housed in the original National Pension Bureau building, built between 1882 and 1887. The building was actually modeled after two Roman palaces, the Palazzo Farnese and the Palazzo della Cancelleria.

The Great Hall

Earlier this year, the museum had hosted an exhibition on Parking Garages. Sadly (no sarcasm, truly), I had missed that, but I was in time for LEGOs. Yes, LEGOs. There are a very few people in the world who have earned the designation “LEGO certified professional”. These are not LEGO employees, but folks who really love their LEGOs enough to have their work recognized by the LEGO Corporation. Check it out…some of the artwork will blow you away.  (http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=affiliates)

2 World Trade Center

World Trade Center,
Empire State Building
Sears Tower

One of these professionals, Adam Reed Tucker, created replicas of approximately a dozen planned or real life buildings from around the world. Each piece is a scale model of the subject building and each took dozens of hours plan and complete. At the end of the exhibit is a large room filled with LEGOs and, more importantly, filled with kids and grown-ups, playing with them. I think the kids are really just there as beards for the adults who want to dive on in to some LEGO action.

The other current exhibit details the history of the development of Washington from the historical act that designated Washington the capitol to L’Enfant’s plan for the city to the remodeling of the city over the years. One of the stories detailed in the exhibit was the moving of the city’s first synagogue in the 1960’s. The Adas Israel Synagogue was first built in 1876 and was moved, for the first time, in 1969. It has since become the Lillian and Albert Small Jewish Museum, on the list for this year. I went to check out the museum after my visit to the building museum, but found the gates locked. I hadn’t realized until sitting down to write this evening, why it was closed, but after researching, I discovered that the synagogue is slated to be moved again.

Lillian and Albert Small Jewish Museum

More on the Small Jewish Museum later (I hope). Until then, make haste to go visit the Building Museum even if all you chose to do is take a little trip to Italy by sipping espresso in the courtyard.

LEGO model of the courtyard

The International Spy Museum

The International Spy Museum (http://www.spymuseum.org/) has been, from the beginning of this project, one of the museums that I was most excited to see. Opened in July 2002, it is a privately owned museum dedicated to espionage throughout the ages.  They even have a former CIA agent as museum director.

Brandon and I went on a Monday to avoid the throngs of tourists who descend upon the museum every weekend. Before entering the museum you are asked to assume a secret identity, memorizing facts that you will be quizzed on later in the visit. Oddly, Brandon and I both, independently chose Greta, a 33 year old astronomer from Germany. The top floor of the museum was hands down my favorite. It contained interactive exhibits where you learn what makes a good blind drop site (e.g. a hole under a tree root, an empty coke can), how to pick up on suspicious behavior and what innocent looking things in your environment could actually be signals from a spy. This is also the floor with all of the James Bond-esque spy gear that you never believed could actually exist….buttonhole camera on a trench coat, lipstick gun, umbrella poison dart shooter. It took me back to 6th grade, wanting to be Agent 99 on Get Smart. They even have James Bond’s Aston Martin.

From spy gear, the exhibits turn to real life spies spanning the centuries. From Mata Hari (more legend than real spy) to the spies you never knew (Josephine Baker smuggled important documents for the US out of Europe in her sheet music!), the museum walks you through famous spies from the ancient world to the present day (Aldrich Ames..Robert Hanssen).

Josephine Baker

The bulk of the bottom two floors covers espionage during World War II and the Cold War after. The artifacts and period photographs were wonderful. My only complaint is that the amount of information provided was overwhelming. As confused as I was just reading about the spy rings post hoc, I can’t imagine how anyone could have pieced together who was on what side at the time.

The museum is well worth the price of admission, especially for history buffs. My only advice - eat your Wheaties.

GaGa Ooh La La

the shoes

Before this weekend, I was marginally GaGa obsessed.  Seeing her in concert this Friday cemented the obsession.  I flew out to Vegas to rendez vous with my Aunt Bev, Uncle Pat and various members of the Hooper clan for Lady Gaga's concert at the MGM grand.   Preparation for the weekend involved purchase of a spectacular pair of shoes and non-stop listening to GaGa CDs during my work commute this week.

with Bev and Jennie pre GaGa

I do have an actual museum visit to write about, but, if I didn't, the concert itself should have qualified based on the costumes in the crowd alone.  My shoes, lovely as they were, paled in comparison.  The concert itself with its elaborate stage show was amazing.   Best of all was the omnipresent message to be true to yourself...a message embraced by her fans if personal expression through dress is any indication.  Pictures from the show including some of the best costumes that we saw can be found at

http://ladyvirgin.com/gallery.php    under the Las Vegas (8/13) show date.

Fittingly, the current exhibit at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art is 'Figuratively Speaking: A survey of the human fom'.  The exhibit explores how artists of different periods using various media show the individuality of their subjects.   Pieces ranged from more the more traditional - Degas' studies of dancers - to the unexpected - Yasumasa Morimura's Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo.  In the latter, the artist,  who is male and Japanese,  reconstructed one of Kahlo's self portraits using himself as the subject.   The whole show, since it focused on individuals, had a voyeuristic feel to me.  One of the best and most disturbing examples of this was Tony Oursler's video of a human eye showing the subject's reaction to a movie through the movement of his eye.  

Some favorites at the exhibit including Picasso's Woman with Beret, Vik Muniz's Boy with a Pipe and Nick Cave's Soundsuit, left me smiling and visually sated (at least until next weekend).  Vegas Baby, not just for gambling anymore.

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum

A couple of months ago, I got a coupon offer for Madame Tussaud’s. Knowing that it was on the museum list and that I had to go and figuring that Brandon would be the perfect person to go with, I bought two. Madame Tussaud’s ranked just above the Air and Space Museum on my list of museums that I was excited to see (to be clear, I am not looking forward to the Air and Space Museum). As often happens in life, when expectations are set exceedingly low, surprising things can happen.

http://www.madametussauds.com/washington/


Brandon was very excited to see the Spy Museum (see later posting re: bar being set too high), so we planned to go into the city and make a museum day of it. The building itself is striking against the more modern backdrop of the surrounding buildings, but pop music blaring onto the street at the entrance didn’t do a lot to get us more excited for the visit.

We worked our way down into the basement of the museum where the tour started with a video of the making of Beyonce…one of the newer additions to the museum. I have to say it was fascinating. The eyes are eerily lifelike and there are hundreds of colors that are chosen from to match the subject’s eyes perfectly. Another fact that I hadn’t known? Only the head of the statues is actually wax. MT’s encourages people to pose with the statues and get up close and personal so the bodies are a more durable plastic while the heads themselves are poured wax. Both are painstakingly painted, matching skin tone, makeup, even fingernails to the subject. Even the hair is real human hair hand threaded into the wax skull (I don’t think that it is actually the subjects’ hair, but I can’t confirm this either way).

Mask of Lincoln's Face

Madame Tussaud herself with wax head

From the video, we went to Madame Tussaud’s hall of Presidents. All of the presidents and a few first ladies posed in period clothing. What fascinated me about the Presidents and the other historical figures is how much seeing them in the flesh, so to speak, brought them to life…the height, build, and even postures of these famous men and women is so lost in most paintings and sculptures. The artists putting these statues together do a remarkable job of conveying how it might have felt to stand in the same room with these people. Lyndon Johnson scared the crap out of me three different times in the same room…he is a tall man with an uncanny resemblance to my father at first glance.

LBJ Closeup

After the Presidents, there are rooms paying homage to civil rights leaders (Rosa Parks is one of the only subjects portrayed sitting), historical figures, and sports legends. Despite the kitschy reputation of the wax museums, MTs provided a history lesson on par with many of the Smithsonian museum.

Next came the stars…what Madame Tussaud’s is best known for. It was an eclectic mix from Brittany Spears literally hanging upside down on a pole to creepy Tom Cruise to, my personal favorite, Johnny Depp. I didn’t want to invade Johnny’s space (I’ve heard he’s very private) so chose Larry King and Marion Barry for photo ops. Not the sexiest men in the place, but very lifelike nonetheless.

Mr. Depp

Hangin' with Larry

Viva Las Vegas

Reeds and Logs - Dale Chihuly - 2009

I love everything about Las Vegas - the glitz, the food, the outstanding people watching. The casinos themselves are an exercise in excess.  That turns some people off, but I am fascinated by what people create when imagination and the laws of physics, rather than finances, are the limiting factors. 

"Family Friendly" may not be what comes to mind when I mention Vegas, but for my Mom's side of the  family it is THE spot for family get-togethers, birthdays and general celebrations.   So last weekend I headed out to meet my Aunts and Uncles (and, unbeknownst to me, my Mom) at the MGM Grand for a belated birthday get together. 

Clockwise from center, Teri, Joe, Bev, Mom

As much as I love Las Vegas, I'm not a gambler.  If I'm parting with $50, I expect there to be a shoebox waiting at the other end of the exchange.   Most of the shopping there can get dangerous (see the Louis Vuitton shoes below that I covet, but did not purchase), so Mom, Aunt Bev, 

Uncle Joe and I went over to CityCenter, the newly opened casino complex on the strip to see the CityCenter Fine Art Collection.

Bev, Joe, and Mom     "Veer", one of two leaning towers in CityCenter

Spread out around the grounds of CityCenter, viewing the collection is akin to going on a really hot scavenger hunt.  Some of the pieces are inside, in hotel lobbies or in the shopping center, but others are out in the baking 100 degree desert heat.   Given the effort involved in seeing each work, some of them were a bit of a let down leaving us with a "that's all there is" feeling (or worse yet...in the case of one of the paintings, not being sure that it whether it was part of the fine art or a piece of generic hotel art).   For the most part, the sculptures were worth the trek. 

The group favorites were a large stone rendition of Mother and Child by Henry Moore, a gravity defying sculpture by Nancy Rubins composed entirely of canoes, and an abstract stone piece with a center of basalt polished to a mirror-like sheen.  

Reclining Connected Forms

Henry Moore 1969-74

Overview (L) and Interior Look (R) at Masatoshi Izumi's Untitled Basalt Sculpture

Big Edge - Nancy Rubins - 2009

The buildings of CityCenter were beautiful in and of themselves making it a destination even if you aren't interested in the art scattered throughout. Incidentally, viewing the art doesn't remove the temptation to shop. Did I mention the Dale Chihuly store?  Reeds and Logs - Price Available Upon Request...

Lincoln's Cottage and the Soldiers' Home

Having visited the Lincoln Memorial, Ford’s Theatre, and Petersen House the weekend before, I wrapped up February’s Lincolnpallooza with Lincoln’s Cottage. Before starting this project, I had never heard of Lincoln’s cottage or the Soldiers' Home, but I took the green line to Petworth / Georgia Avenue and trudged in my rubber snow boots to Church Street NW. The Soldiers' Home is the nation’s first veteran’s home, and cemetery. Established in 1851, the Soldiers' Home provided a much needed sanctuary (it was actually referred to as a soldiers’ asylum) for veterans of American wars. Many of the early residents were actually immigrant soldiers and their families.

Soldiers' Home

Lincoln’s Cottage (http://www.lincolncottage.org/) is located on the grounds of Soldiers' Home and provided a presidential retreat that was used by numerous presidents including Buchanan, Hayes, and, most extensively, Lincoln. The Lincoln family resided there during three of the four summers of Lincoln’s first term in office. Each day, the president walked or rode to the White House, located about 3 miles away. Lincoln’s routine was so established that his advisors became concerned that his daily ride was a security risk. An unsuccessful assassination attempt did, actually, take place one evening in 1864. Despite the danger, the Lincolns continued to reside in this home away from the White House and Lincoln continued his daily commute to the White House alone.

The cottage provided an escape from the heat and humidity of central DC and provided some measure of privacy for the family. Prior to becoming an historic site, it had also served as an Officer’s Club and Infirmary. Painstakingly restored and dedicated as a National Monument in 2000, it stands much as it was during the Civil War. Under the care of the National Park Service, there are daily guided tours of the house and grounds.

Back View of Lincoln's Cottage

After my tour, I decided to take on a little more snow and retrace Lincoln’s daily walk to the White House. Passing through Petworth, down Seventh Street past Howard University, and over to Farragut Square, I made it to the White House in about an hour. I could see how this daily trek, in the midst of the pressures of the Civil War, would provide much needed time for the President to be alone with his thoughts at the start and end of each day. Despite the cold and snow, it was an experience to walk in the footsteps of our Sixteenth President and a fitting end to my investigation of all things Lincoln.

Lincoln, Lincoln, and more Lincoln

The theme for today was Lincoln (and chocolate and keeping warm, but those are lesser themes). I made reservations to visit Ford’s Theatre and Petersen house in honor of President’s Day this weekend. Ford’s Theatre, the site of Lincoln’s assassination, is located in the heart of DC on 511 10th St NW (http://www.fordstheatre.org/). The theatre is actually through a partnership with the National Park Service so at the appointed ticket time, I got in line behind my ranger and was led into the basement of the theatre.

 I really just wanted to see the theatre itself, but, as it turns out, the museum displays in the basement are actually much more interesting. The NPS has packed an enormous amount of historical information about the Civil War, the Lincoln presidency, and timeline of the leading to the President’s assassination into the museum at the Theatre. By contrast, the tour of theatre seems somewhat anticlimactic. I went up to the balcony and sat in a front row seat of the refurbished theatre then headed over to Petersen house, the next stop on my agenda that day.

Petersen house sits directly across the street from Ford’s theatre. This was the house where Lincoln was taken after his being shot on April 14 and where his family sat by his bedside until his death on the morning of April 15, 1865. The façade of the house has recently been restored and the interior is decorated in period style. There are only a few rooms to see, the most interesting of which is the preserved bedroom in the back of the house, where the mortally wounded president lay until his death.

Not having had my fill of Mr. Lincoln, I started to walk to the Lincoln Memorial (http://www.nps.gov/linc/planyourvisit/index.htm). Like the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial was something that I had driven past and seen pictures of, but had never taken the time to visit. In retrospect, I might have picked a day when the mall and the steps of the monument weren’t cocooned in a thick blanket of ice and snow. This thought occurred to me as I tried to avoid a series of very painful face plants on the walk over. Rubber boots…not so good for the traction. Despite the snow, ice and cold, I was awed by the beauty of the monument. The monument was designed by Henry Bacon and the sculpture inside created by Daniel Chester French. Composed of marble and granite, groundbreaking began in 1914 and the monument was dedicated in 1922. Although a secular structure, I had a feeling of reverence, like going into one of the old cathedrals of Europe for the first time, when I walked through the columns into the inner chamber where Lincoln’s Statue is housed. The statue is striking….Lincoln looks imposing, but most of all, kind. The pressures of the presidency come through in his posture and expression; as if he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The memorial also has Lincoln’s Inaugural Addresses carved into the walls on either side of the main room.

I’m the first to admit that I’m a bit of a zealot about proper museum decorum. Loud inane conversations, cell phones, stupid people (no judgment)…make me crazy. I don’t know if it was the cold or the churchy feel of the space, but the LM crowd was reverent. I’d like to go back this summer, but maybe the quiet of the February ice and snow complement the memorial more so than bright sunshine and throngs of tourists ever could.