Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Project365: Day 261 - Washington DC - Day 2

Newseum

Our first full day in DC started with a visit to the Newseum (well, first to the Starbucks in the hotel lobby, THEN to the Newseum). Brittany was very excited to go to this museum, what with her being a journalism major and all. I didn't really know what to expect. Galleries full of bunches of old newspapers probably wasn't going to be my thing. Fortunately, the Newseum was far more than that. This turned out to be one of my favorite museums in DC. The lowest level had a large exhibit on the history of the FBI and the role that the news media played in establishing the public image of that organization. It detailed the coverage and stories of famous FBI cases including the take-down of organized crime bosses, the Oklahoma City bomber, and the Unabomber.

The main level has a large gallery featuring the images and storied behind all of the famous photographs that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Many of these were very inspiring to see as an amateur photographer.

My favorite gallery, however, was the 9/11 tribute installation on the top floor. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a large, twisted portion of the radio broadcast tower that once sat atop one of the World Trade Center buildings. On the large wall to the north of the tower segment are the front pages of dozens of newspapers from all over the country--all dated September 12, 2001.

Headlines of Terror

After the Newseum we hopped on the Metro (I keep wanting to call it the Tube) and went up towards DuPont Circle for lunch. One of Brittany's friends who knows the DC area gave her a gift card to Kramerbooks and Afterwords Cafe as a birthday present, so we made use of public transportation to get there.

Metro

After lunch we came back down to the National Mall and walked over to see the Jefferson Monument, which we had skipped the day before.

Jefferson

No long rant this time--I like this one ;)

Bases

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