NewMexiKen, Jill, and her three Sweeties ventured to the top of the Washington Monument last week. The observation area (inside) is 500 feet above the National Mall and offers splendid views even on a hazy summer day (through dirty windows). Click each photo for a larger version.
| Looking south. That’s the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin. Across the Potomac the flat area is National Airport. On the left are the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Holocaust Museum. |  |
| Looking west. The Lincoln Memorial in the distance (Virginia beyond). That’s the World War II Memorial in the foreground. On the right are the Federal Reserve, the Department of State and the Kennedy Center. |  |
| Looking north. That’s the White House and the Ellipse. The Eisenhower Building (formerly the Executive Office Building) in left of the White House, the Treasury Department right of it (one of the oldest public buildings). The Commerce Department is in the right foreground (along 15th Street). | 
|
| Looking east. The National Mall with the Capitol. On the left the American History and Natural History musuems and National Gallery. On the right, working back, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian Castle. The round building is the Hirshorn Museum. The tents are left from the folklife festival. | 
|
been to dc twice. once for a march on washington in 79, the second merely for pleasure and gawking. but i never went up in the monument. thanx for these overlooking outward shots; one sees there are in any direxion no skyscrapers obstructing your panorama.
did you attend the folklife festival?
NewMexiKen worked within a few blocks of the National Mall in 1973, 1985-1998 and much of 2001-2002. Along the way I attended the Smithsonian Folklife Festival many times — always enjoyable and always unbearably hot and humid. They really ought to hold it in the fall.
I should add that I took a quick tour of the refurbished National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum last week. This has long been one of my favorite haunts (my office was four short blocks away 1985-1991). The building now sparkles again. It’s worth the visit, if only to see one of Washington’s most magnificent and earliest public buildings. And the portraits always fascinate me.
I also sat in Ford’s Theater’s balcony last week during a lecture by a ranger. Though that building has been reconstructed since Lincoln’s assassination, it still gives me chills to sit there and stare at that stage and the presidential box.
Every American, and especially every American school child, should visit Washington (sometimes the crowds make it seem as if they all are that very day).