discover DC.....  M - Z
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MARTIN LUTHER KING JR MEMORIAL
Martin Luther King Jr was a civil rights leader killed by an assasins bullet in 1968. He was honored, on the 48th anniversary of his I HAVE A DREAM speech on the National Mall, with a memorial because of his fight for equal rights for black Americans. STONE OF HOPE a 30 foot 8 inch tall granite sculpture of Kingby Chinese granite sculptor Lei Yixin carved  stands near the Tidal Basin next to the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial across from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Lei Yixin chose the theme of his sculpture from a line in King's I HAVE A DREAM speech, " With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope." Plans for the memorial include a bookstore, an information center, 185 cherry trees and night time illumination.

MASONS:
2B1 ASK1. Not so secret
The Lodges of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia: Federal No. 1 : Justice - Columbia No. 3 : Naval No. 4 : Potomac No. 5 : William R Singelton - Hope - Lebanon No. 7 : Hiram - Takoma No. 10 : St Johns No. 11 : National-Stansbury - Dawson No. 12 : Washington Daylight No. 14 : Benjamin B French No. 15 : Harmony No. 17 : Lafayette - Dupont No. 19 : Anacostia No. 21 : Osiris - Pentalpha No. 23 : Arminius No. 25 : Temple - Noyes - Cathedral No. 32 : East Gate No. 34 : Joppa No. 35 : Samuel Gompers - Benjamin Franklin No. 45 : Petowrth No. 47 : Magnolia No. 53 : Fraternity No. 54 : Cincinnatus No. 76 : Mehr No. 90 : Alianza Fraternal Americana No. 92 : LaFrance No. 93 : Hayastan No. 94 :  Phoeniz No. 1001 : Fiat Luz No. 1717 : Freedom Military No. 1775 : Lodge of Nine Muses No. 1776 : Sojourner Kilwinning No. 1798 : Compass No. 1811 : The Colonial No. 1821 : Nur No. 2000 : Italia No. 2001 : Jerusalem No. 3000 : Maynilad UD : Convass B Dean Memorial : Pythagoras Lodge of Research

BACK IN MOUNT VERNON AGAIN: Marquis de Lafayette gave George Washington his Masonic apron in 1784. 4 decades the historians & curators @ Mount Vernon thought GWs apron was lost EXCEPT it was hiding in plain sight since 1820 a wall decoration @ Sheperdstown W Vas Mount Lebo Lodge No 91. GW gave a different item of his 2 different lodges. Georges apron will be kept in an environmentally appropriate case @ Mount Vernon

MAYFLOWER HOTEL:
 FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover spent a lot of time in the Mayflower Hotel's bar.

MEMORIAL BRIDGE:
In 1887, Smithmeyer & Pelz submitted a proposal for a Gothic style bridge located around where Memorial Bridge stands today. The wondrously dramatic turreted bridge was proposed to be named “The Memorial Bridge In Honor of General US Grant.”

MERIDIAN HILL PARK also known as MALCOM X PARK:
By three neighborhoods- U Street, Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan, in MERIDIAN HILL PARK, drummers are drawn to gather and play. Some have been coming for years. Drumming has a history in the African American community. Drumming in MERIDIAN HILL PARK is to honor that masters, in the South, banned slaves from banging drums, fearing slaves were communicating to flee to freedom. Slaves in DC were emancipated in 1862. With their African clothing, religious artifacts and drums returned to them, the freed slaves went to the heights of  Meridian Hill and Fort Reno to drum and dance and give thanks to God for answering their prayers to be free. Drumming revived during the civil rights movement. The park was unofficially renamed to Malcolm X Park, in 1970, by activist Stokely Carmichael. The Malcolm X Drummers and Dancers, a performance group, were formed in 1975. The National Park Service would be called by neighbors about “the noise” , the drumming sounds coming from djembes, timbales and bongos in the Drum Circle in the park.

METRO:
METRO decided to rebrand Station Names more chic debuting with the new METRO map in 2012. North of Massachussetts is rebranded NoMa-Gallaudent U. Other name changes include Navy Yard to Navy Yard-Ballpark; King Street will become King St -Old Town. Waterfront-SEU will now be called Waterfront. Primary names will no longer be more than 19 characters. Transfer stations will have no more than 13 characters in their primary name. Stations with two names will have the second name written under the first name after the slash - Addison Road/ Seat Pleasant: Archives/ Navy Memorial- Penn Quarter: Dunn Loring/ Merrifield: Gallery Place/ China Town: Mt Vernon Sq/ 7th Street-Convention Center: U Street/ African Civil War Memorial/Cardozo: Vienna/Fairfax-GMU: West Falls Church/VT/UVA: Woodley Park Zoo/Adams Morgan. Three names with more than the 19 letter limit were grandfathered in because of commuters affinity for the names Grosvenor-Strathmore: Georgia Ave-Petworth and Franconia-Springfield. The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport name remains as it was. New York City designer Lance Wyman designed METROs new map.  

METROPOLITAN POLICE OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA   MPDC:
The METROPOLITAN POLICE OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA celebrated their 150th anniversary in 2011. MPDC began through an Act of Congress in 1861 only then the force was known as the METROPOLITAN POLICE DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON which included the City of Washington, Georgetown an entity on to its own with its own Mayor, Washington County  and Washington as still yet to be developed. President Abraham Lincoln sat on the first Board of Police Commissioners. President Lincoln sent a handwritten note directing Zenas Robbins to travel to New York to study New York's Police Department. Robbins invented "a new and improved insulating supporter for Telegraph Wires" US Patent Number 8419 dated October 14, 1951.

MPDC have played roles in major cases. MPDC worked on the Chilean Embassy bombing, the assasination of a German official during WWII, and 1970's bombings of the US Capitol. MPDC made the arrest at the Watergate only to discover what they had come upon was more than a simple office burglary. MPDC was asked by the 1978 House Committee to rephotograph and represent all the evidence in the Kennedy assasination according to MPDC historican Homeland Security Bureau Lt. Nicholas Breul a DC police historian. DC was chosen because DC is an independent Federal entity not to be influenced by outside agencies. 

 
MOUNT PLEASANT LIBRARY:
MOUNT PLEASANT LIBRARY, located on 16th Street within the Mount Pleasant Historic district, was built in 1923 as a neighborhood library in Beaux Arts Style. The library was designed by New York architect Edward Lippincott Tilton. The MOUNT PLEASANT LIBRARY was the last of three neighborhood libraries built with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie.

MOUNT ZION CEMETERY:
MOUNT ZION CEMETERY is under the care of the National Park Service, today. Mount Zion Cemetery, located at 27th and Q Street in Foggy Bottom, is a reminder of evolving free black culture and African American life in the District of Columbia from the earliest days of the city to the present.

Two separate side-by-side cemeteries, without a fence or other separation between them, make up Mount Zion Cemetery equally sharing three acres of land - the old Methodist Burying Ground and the Female Union Band Society Graveyard. Mount Zion Cemetery offered free burials to African-Americans. The Female Union Band Society, created in 1842, was a cooperative benevolent society of free black women. Their bought their burial ground that year. Their members were sworn to help each other in sickness and in death. Old Methodist Episcopal’s Burying Ground was bought in 1808 by Dumbarton Street Methodist Episcopal Church. Dumbarton Street M.E. Church membership was fifty percent black, both free blacks and slaves, and fifty percent white. Georgetown itself was about thirty percent African American.

Slave trading in Georgetown dates as far back as 1760 until the mid 19th Century when Congress abolished slavery in Georgetown and Washington. That date was April 16, 1862. John Beattie set up his slave trading business on O Street as well as trading at pens, slave markets, on Wisconsin Avenue and other sites such as McCandless’ Tavern down near M Street. Slave labor was used in constructing Georgetown along with working in plantations in Maryland and Virginia. The 1800 census reported a Georgetown population of 5,150 people including 1,449 slaves and 227 free blacks. Mount Zion Church became their legacy, the oldest African American congregation in Washington, too, only the slaves were restricted to the upper, hot balcony in the small meetinghouse down on 27th Street. The Church was burned down. Mount Zion Church was rebuilt where it stands today.

The black members of Dumbarton Street M.E. Church formed the Mount Zion Methodist Church in 1816. In 1879, Mount Zion Methodist Church took over what became called Mount Zion cemetery. Over the years, care of Mount Zion Cemetery fell by the wayside. The last person buried in Georgetown was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in 1950. Georgetown has since forbidden burials allegedly because the Cemetery was neglected. In 1960, permission was granted to a developer to build atop the cemetery. Historical proponents and members of the African American community cried out against the desecration of the cemetery for development to take place over the bones of slaves. In 1976, the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation organized volunteers to clean the cemetery’s neglect and disrepair.

Mount Zion Cemetery is a park today with life above the dead.

MOUNT VERNON CHRISTMAS:
Since 1860, more than 80 million visitors have made George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens the most popular historic home in America.  Mount Vernon is located just 16 miles from the nation’s capital to the southern end of the scenic George Washington Memorial Parkway. Mount Vernon is owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association founded in 1853 is America’s oldest national preservation organization.  Mount Vernon’s mission is to preserve George Washington’s place in history as “First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of His Countrymen.” Holiday time MOUNT VERNON presents Historic Mount Vernon Holiday Cheer traditional Christmas evening Candlelight Tours With Martha And George at Mount Vernon with “Mrs. Washington” hosting an enchanting evening of candlelight tours, fireside caroling, and hot cider and ginger cookies accompanied with merry music and ‘friends’ from the Washingtons’ world. Guests are told in the kitchen about Martha Washington’s 18th-century holiday cooking Great Cake and given a complimentary copy of the recipe to try at home. The Mount Vernon Inn Restaurant colonial servers serve early-American fare.   www.MountVernon.org 


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NATIONAL CAPITOL COLUMNS:
The NATIONAL CAPITOL COLUMS are Corinthian columns placed carefully on a knoll in Ellipse Meadow. The columns look like they have been there a very long time. The Corinthian columns have only been in the Meadows in NW DC for about a decade.

The first NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE, a 48-foot Balsam fir donated by the President of Middlebury College in Vermont, was placed on the Ellipse south of the White House in December 1923. Christmas Eve, the time was 5:00pm, President Calvin Coolidge walked from the White House to the Ellipse to light the tree from his home state decorated with 2,500 electric bulbs in red, white and green, donated by the Electric League of Washington. A local choir provided the musical entertainment along with a US Marine Band quartet. Pretty much the same NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE lighting traditions continue today. The NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE is lit, still, at 5:00pm.

The NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE, renamed the National Community Christmas Tree, between the years 1924 to 1933, was located in Sherman Park, south of the Main Treasury Building, southeast of the White House grounds. Lighting ceremonies were simpler. The people sang along accompanied by the U.S. Marine Band. The NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE ceremony started in 1933. The National Park Service had taken responsibility for Park lands. Between 1934 to 1938, the NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE was placed north side of the White House in Lafayette Park. The NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE was moved again between 1939 and 1940, just south of the center of the Ellipse. 1941 to 1953 NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE was moved to the White House South Lawn.

Only weeks after Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke to the crowds and led the lighting ceremony. 1954, the NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE moved back to the Ellipse. It has been located on the Ellipse ever since, conceived by the Washington Board of Trade and the Washington Citizen’s Committee to be renamed the Christmas Pageant of Peace, from its traditional Christmas Eve date to earlier in December then followed by three weeks of presentations by community organizations and groups on the stage at the Ellipse, with the message remaining constant- a time for local and national communities coming together to celebrate the season and to share the message of peace.



NATIONAL HARBOR:
J Seward Johnson Jrs bronze creation THE AWAKENING was moved from SW DC to National Harbor. Its gigantic arm rises out form the sand stretching skyward.

NATIONAL MALL EASTER:
Easter Morning in DC begins with sunrise Church Services all over the District including the Plaza in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Pastor Amos Dodge annual Easter Sunrise service tradition at the Reflecting Pool started over 33 years ago.

NATIONAL MALL:
The National Mall was grounds and buildings and institutions in the 19th Century. To locals, the National Mall was DC's Central Park. The National Mall's purpose changed in the 20th Century. It became a go to point for tours, schools, protest and culture, and, of course National Monuments. Originally, Americans were not on board with the notion of National Monuments. National Monuments were a grand idea, post Revolution, the people associated with the bourgois, the rich and royals. Popular thought was to question the value and merit of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on stones, albeit stones in tribute to a person, a concept or a culture. Earlier on, Americans believed the citizenry of the United States was how and who America would be remembered. Times have changed. 

In the mid 19th Century and early 18th Century, Americans sought to honor the Great Man, heroes who led the Civil and other wars. Eventually wars, the Korean War, WWII and the Vietnam War, were honored featuring ordinary common faceless and nameless soldiers in the public memorials. 

Finalists for the National Mall redesign were selected. The finalists include firms that worked on the Louvre and the Kogod Courtyard at the National Portrait Gallery. The designer of the Kogod Courtyard used blue jean to buffer noise providing quiet to the courtyard people walk through building to building or eat in. New York based Pei Cobb Freed and Hood Design, Seattle Based Gustafson Nichol, Hunt Laudi Studio and Diller Scofidio Renfro. Trust For The National Mall announced in a separate competition, the six firms will design UNION SQUARE a public place near the Capitol. Diller Scofidio Renfro is a finalist competing to redesign the Washington Mounument grounds which will inclulde a performance space and food facility.

The National Mall along with the Lincoln Memorial that sits Mall end closest to Virginian and Arlington Cemetery has direct ties to the Civil Rights movement.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN HISTORY MUSEUM:
The Smithsonian Institution is tweaking its planned designs for the proposed 315,000 square foot NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE on the National Mall. The National Capital Planning Commission concerned over the proposed porch overlooking the building. Congress appropriated $245 million for construction of the Museum. Congress passed legislation in 2003 to create the museum. The Museum will sit cover 5 acres on the Washington Monument grounds near Constitution Avenue and 14th Street. Plans for the Museum, the last museum to be built on the Mall, state it will be dedicated to the collection of black historical and cultural materials. The Commission expressed concern for more refined night lighting and a subdued palette so the museum will not distract from the Mall along with tractor deliveries and traffic interruptions. Visitors will enter the Museum with a walk on a bridge over water, a symbolic act recalling the Tiber Creek, a canal system that ran along what is now Constitution Avenue. Construction is expected to begin 2012 and end 2015.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY:
The Smithsonian Museum until the 1970's was the repository for human remains uncovered during federal projects such as dam building. The museum houses the remains of some 35,000 people. Most bones come from excavations. The manager of the physical anthropology collection says each skull has a story to tell.

NATIONAL PINBALL MUSEUM:
The NATIONAL PINBALL MUSEUM was founded by David Silverman, a collector. He curates the Museum. Silverman has been amassing machines nearly all of his life. Silverman decided to establish a national museum for public view. Pinball was associated in its early days with seediness. Pinball machines were often found in bars with other gambling devices. Pinball machines were games and art forms, paralleling lives. When Clint Eastwood's DIRTY HARRY movie, hit the screens, so did a pinball game to compliment it. Silverman's museum includes the classic THE FLIPPER game, Go-GO, DIsco Fever and Swinger. A yearly National Tournament is held. Pinball players duke it out to be crowned the National Pinball Wizard Champion.

NEW YORK AVENUE CHURCH:

9th STREET POLICE STATION:
ANC6A took over 5 years to turn the former police station at 525 9th Street, NE and the old fire station at 1341 Maryland Avenue from abandoned buildings into developed properties. Three developers submitted proposals including Argos Group, D.B.Lee and Century Associates. Argos Group was unanimously favored by the ANC after the ANC meeting in May, 2008.

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OLD NAVY HOSPITAL:
The OLD NAVY HOSPITAL was built between 1864 and 1866. It was the first purpose built Naval Hospital in Washington DC.  X The Old Naval Hospital located in SE DC is currently the home for the Hill Center. The newly rehabilitated Old Naval Hospital, vacant since 1998, was built between 1864 and 1866. It was restored to become a center for Capitol Hill activities. The Old Naval Hospital was added to the DC Preservation League’s list of Most Endangered Places in 1999. Advocacy and creative financing combined to restore this building to public service.  It was restored to become a center for Capitol Hill activities. 

OLD STONE HOUSE:
OLD STONE HOUSE is the oldest building in Washington. DC. The simple 18th century house is a popular museum showcasing the everyday life of middle class colonists. OLD STONE HOSUE was bought in 195by the federal government in 1953. OLD STONE HOUSE has been open to the American public and visitors

ONTARIO HOUSE:
The ONTARIO THEATER, a late art deco style building designed by architect John Zink, is a landmark located in Adams Morgan. It was an old 1400 seat neighborhood theater operated from 1951 by K-B Theatres chain. The ONTARIO THEATER is currently a mom and pop retail shop. After the riots that broke out when Rev M artin Luther King Jr was assassinated, Adams Morgan shifted demographics becoming pretty much a Latino population. The ONTARIO THEATRE converted to an exclusive Spanish language only movie theatre acknowledging DC Latino families where families would go with babies, grandparents and parents for almost a decade.  KB sold the space in 1977 to new owners who changed the theatre’s format to accommodate the affluent white residents moving in to the area. The ONTARIO THEATRE hosted a mix of broadcasts- soccer games, local artists and other musical acts. It became a musical venue under management by Seth Hurwitz, owner of the 9:30 Club. The ONTARION THEATRE was bought by the Circle Theatres chain in 1983. The building was no longer a movie theatre. It became a multi used retail venue. The building was owned by the Pedas Family since the mid 1980’s. The Pedas Family owned a number of theatres under the Circle Theatres chain. The Circle chain remodeled and reopened the ONTARIO THEATER back in 1985. The reopening was a grand affair with spotlights shining high above the District. The current owners plant to convert the space from a CVS and clothing store into condos protecting the outside of the building although the interior and above it could be adapted by the applicant Historic Washington Architecture Inc. The application is reviewed by the District of Columbias Historic Preservation Review Board.


OSCAR STRAUS MEMORIAL:
The OSCAR STRAUS MEMORIAL sits outside the 14th Street door of the Ronald Reagan Business and International Trade Center in Washington DC opposite the National Aquarium. Oscar Solomon Straus was an author, statesman and diplomat. Straus, born December 23, 1850 in Otterberg German. Straus emigrated with his parents to America. Straus’ family settled in Talbotton, Georgia. After the Civil War ended, Straus moved to New York City, attending Columbia College, graduating in 1871, graduating Columbia Law School in 1873. Straus practiced as a lawyer until 1881 then going in to business. Straus  served as a United States Minister to the Ottoman Empire from 1887 – 1889 and from 1898 – 1899. President Theodor Roosevelt appointed Straus the United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor from 1906 to 1909. As the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Straus was also in charge of the United States Bureau of Immigration, housed in the Reagan International Trade Center at this time. While serving as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Straus ordeered local police to work with immigration inspectors. He ordered the United States Secret Service to enforce the Anarchis Exclusion Act, arresting and deporting immigrants with Anarchist political beliefs. Straus was appointed by President William Howard Taft, the United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire serving until 1910. Straus served as the United States Ambassador to France from 1933 – 1936. Straus’ memoirs Under Four Administrations, were published in 1922. Straus grandson Roger W Straus Jr started the publishing company Farrar Straus and Giroux. His brother Isidor, co-owner of  Macy’s, died aboard the Titanic in 1912. Straus, a confident of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was America’s first Jewish United States Cabinet Secretary. Straus died May 3, 1926. Straus is buried at Beth El Cemetery in Ridgewood, New York.

The two part marble fountain memorial honoring Straus was set outside the Reagan International Trade Center between Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution Avenue in North West DC. One group of statues is called REAON, symbolizing Straus capitalism and labor efforts he put forth. The second statue JUSTICE called LIBERTY OF RELIGION celebrates the right to worship in the United States of America, a country that gave a Jew the opportunity to serve in the position of authority conferred upon him. The memorial to the German born  statesman was designed by German American artist Adolph Alexander Weinman. The memorial with the inscriotion STATESMAN AUTHOR DIPLOMAT was funded with public monies. The memorial was started in 1929. The memorial, rededicated October 26, 1998, was originally, dedicated on October 26, 1947. JUSTICE, her hands grasped in prayer, leans on a stone tablet with numbers 1 – 10 chiseled in to it. The artist said his inspiration was dedicated to the Judeo, Christian and Mohamedans. Ironically, the corner upon with the memorial nobly sits, used to be the Red Light District of DC.


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PATENT BUILDING [cross reference Smithsonian American Art Museum]
The Smithsonian American Art Museum used to be the Patent Office, a historic landmark, was conceived to be a TEMPLE TO INVENTION. Walt Whitman described the building, a Greek Revival Design, in 1863, to be the noblest of Washington buildings. President Andrew Jackson chose the site for the building along with the architects for the 333,000 foot building. The original planners saw the building of the Museum to Patent Models to be “a place to celebrate and present the achievements of the American people.” President Jackson signed in to law a statute that that is the United States Art Museum and a statute that has remained core to the US Patent System. President Jackson wrote in to Law, the requirement  that patent examiners must ascertain a proposed patent met the tests of ‘utlity, patentability and novelty.”

The site, a barracks and military hospital during the Civil War, was the location of President Lincoln’s second inaugural ball, March 6 1865. Three bands , entertained the guests- promenade music in the east gallery the Lincoln Gallery, dance music in the north wing and dinner music in the west wing. Over 4000 guests partied until 4:00am. The East Model Hall remains historically intact to the day. The First Rhode Island Regiment was billeted in the west model hall. President Lincoln watched them parade on 9th Street. He witnessed the American flag being raised above the building. A month after his second Inaugural Ball, President Lincoln was killed by an assassin’s bullet, one block over from the Patent Building.

The top floor was the hospital. Poet Walt Whitman tended the wounded. Clara Barton was hired by the patent commissioner as his assistant. Her salary was $1400 a year. Clara Barton was attacked, morally and otherwise. The Ladies Relief Association held a Grand National Fair in the building to support the troops. The women raised $25,000.

Robert Mills, a South Carolinian architect, was appointed by President Jackson to oversee construction of the US Patent Building. Mills, architect of the Treasury Building designed the interiors of the south and east wings and the top floor’s great vaulted exhibition halls. The exterior of the building was designed by William P Elliot. Architect  Thomas Walter replaced Mills on the job of supervising the building. Walter constructed the west and north wings. The south wing was constructed from Aquia Creek, Virginia sandstone used to build the White House and the Capitol. Walter’s work was disastrous. His system was not fireproof.

September 24, 1877, sparks from a chimney flue set the west wing roof on fire. Flammable materials stored in below the roof caught fire. A wind carried the fire to the north wing. There was not enough water pressure in the hydrants to reach the roof. The fire wagons were able to help but not enough to save the building touted to be fireproof. Thousands of spectators watched as employees raced to save what artifacts they could save. 211,000 patent drawings were saved. The heat from the fire collapsed the building. 87,000 patent models were destroyed.

Adolf Cluss was hired to rebuild the building. Cluss, who designed a church up the block at the corner of 8th and H Streets, selected modern Renaissance, a Victorian scheme complete with faux marble finishes, fancy railings, stained glass and tiled floors. After the rebuild, the department outgrew the building. Patent applications had grown exponentially. By the 1890’s, the Patent building was packed.

The Civil Service Commission resided in the building from 1932 until 1963. The marble surfaces were painted government green. The building was upgraded with elevators, ductwork and fluorescent lighting.

The building was acquired by the Smithsonian in the 1950’s after it was threatened to be torn down and replaced with a parking garage in 1953. President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the building saved. The building was restored. The Smithsonian took it over for museum use in 1958. In 1968, the site reopened as the Smithsonian Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. The site was overhauled to the tune of $266 million. It reopened to the public in July 2006. Sir Norman Foster designed the courtyard canopy covering made with blue jean material quieting the courtyard with its ability to absorb noise. The courtyard opened in 2007.

PEIRCE MILL:
PEIRCE MILL, located in Rock Creek Park, is the only mill left standing of eight water powered grist mills that used to exist in DC along Rock Creek. Isaac Peirce built the mill, house, barn and other buildings in the 1820’s. Peirce family gravestones, family Bible and Joshua Peirce’s estate book confirm the name is spelled correctly. His son Joshua and nephew Peirce Shoemaker later owned and ran the Mill. PEIRCE MILL became part of Rock Creek Park when the park was created in the 1890’s. PEIRCE MILL BARN was built on the estate in 1810. It was listed on the National Register in 1969. Horse tack and carriages were stored in the barn. PEIRCE MILL BARN currently serves as a display room for PEIRCE FAMILY and other Rock Creek Valley Mill estate information. PEIRCE MILL re-opened October 15 2011 in Washington DC. It is located in Rock Creek Park. Rock Creek Park encompasses almost 3,000 acres in the District.  Friends of Peirce Mill and Rock Creek Conservancy raised over $1 million to restore the Millworks under the oversight of millwrights of Gus Kiorpes and John O'Rourke. $2.7 million was funded through the federal American Recovery and Reinstatement Act. The National Park Service opened the Mill with a festival attracting visitors who came to see the mill operating for the 1st time since 1993. Flour ground at the Mill is not fit for human consumption. Peirce Mill is open to the public from 10:00am - 4:00pm on weekends and Wednesday to Friday by appointment to school groups.

PIERRE L'ENFANT:
There is no J STREET in DC. In fact, there is no J STREET in the 1791 city plan created of the District by Pierre L'Enfant. Rumor is L'Enfant left J out of the streets to slight either Thomas Jefferson or his rival, Supreme Court Justice John Jay. A more plausible theory is the I and J in old english script looked too much alike, that J was left out of the District's street plan, by accident because L'Enfant was fired from the City project before street names were added to his grid of planned numerically and alphabetically named streets. There is a Jay Street in the Deanwood neighborhood of Northeast DC.

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ROCK CREEK PARK:
ROCK CREEK PARK was established by an Act of Congress September 27, 1908. President Benjamin Harrison made its law. ROCK CREEK PARK is about 2.75 square miles or 1745 acres along Rock Creek Valley. It is over 2000 acres when it is combined with Glover Archbold Park, Montrose Park, Dumbarton Oaks Park, Meridian Hill Park, Battery Kemble Park, Palisades Park, Whitehaven Park and more. Most of ROCK CREEK PARK lies north of the National Zoo. Later on, Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway were added extending ROCK CREEK PARK from the Zoo to the ROCK CREEK where it meets the Potomac River.ROCK CREEK PARK and the National Capitol was transferred to the National Park Service in 1933. ROCK CREEK PARKne of America’s oldest, is patrolled by the UNITED STATES PARK POLICE.

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SHENANDOAH VALLEY NATURAL BRIDGE:
The Natural Bridge going back hundreds of years with a spiritual history for Native Americans was named the BRIDGE OF GOD by the Monacan Indians. The Natural Bridge surveyed by George Washington for Lord Fairfax fascinated Colonial America. Two years before the Revolutionary war, King George III deeded the Natural Bridge to George Washington's friend Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson cherished the Natural Bridge so much Jefhe opened a lodge hosting artists and visitors from around the world.

SHILOH BAPTIST CHURCH
The Church located at 9th and P Streets was founded in 1863 by Freed Slaves in the historic Shaw district. Shiloh Baptist Church was the 3rd Church attended by President Obama since the Obama family arrived in DC.

SMITHISONIAN:
The largest museum complex in the world began as a bequest beggaring mystery from an Englishman who never visited America. Smithson, a savvy investor, died in 1836 leaving the fortune he grew in to $510,000. Speculation is Smithson's gift to America arose from his disdain for the British autocratic system and the British monarchy he described as a "contemptible encumbrance."

Smithson, early on in his life used his mother's name Maice. He excelled in school, as a scientist and mineralogist discovering one mineral later named for him. It is called Smithsonite. It was after Smithson inherited his father's substantial estate that he changed his name to Smithson, his father's name. In turn, Smithson who had no heirs stipulated that is nis nephew died heirless, which he did, the fortune would "go to the United States of America to found in Washington an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." Smithson's gift was accepted by Congress in 1836. Congress took 10 years to decide how to use Smithson's gift debating the site and architect for the institution selecting The National Mall, crisscrossed by railway tracks dominated with a railroad station amidst its swampy mess. James Renwick, the selected architect, had never studied architecture. Talented Renwick, renowned for his design of St Peter's Cathedral in New York City created the Smithson Castle in Gothic revival style. Congress determined because Smithson was a scientist his gift would be interpreted as a palce for scientific exploration and study. Scientist Joseph Henry the Smithson's first curator became so obsessed with building up "America's Attic", as it became called, that he lived inside the Smithson's east wing from 1847 until his death in 1878.

A fire in 1986 destroyed the collection. The building was restored. Collecting began again w adjacent museums springing up on the Mall expanding the Smithson's preserving history theme with historic, artistic and educational themes. Smithson's bequest has grown into 19 museums, 9 research centers and the National Zoo visited annually by 28 million people.

75 years after Smithson died he arrived at the Smithsonian complex. Smithsonian Regent Alexander Graham Bell travelled to Genoa Italy where Smithson was buried, exhumed Smithson's body then bringing it to Washington DC where Smithson is now entombed in the crypt left of the front entrance in to the Smithson Castle.

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY:

SAINT ELIZABETHS HOSPITAL:
The National Historic Landmark Saint Elizabeths Hospital is located in SouthWest Washington. Earlier this 2011, Daniel Sanders, an estate auctioneer with Virginia based Four Sales, Ltd. came across a gravestone belonging to a Civil War veteran while preparing an estate for auction. Daniel Sanders researched online the history of the stone. The gravestone that came from the cemetery located on the West Campus of Saint Elizabeths Hospital where civilians and white and African American veterans from Union and Confederate forces are buried. It is estimated there were up to 450 military burials and 150 civilian burials between the years of 1856 and 1873. There are about 209 military gravestones in the cemetery. The headstone belonged to Jordan Mann, a nineteen year old volunteer member of the 12th Missouri Cavalry originally from Kentucky, enlisted in the Cavalry in 1863. Mann was transferred to Saint Elizabeths in the spring of 1864 after having been declared insane. Mann was deemed to have gone insane or lost his mind. He was taken by other soldiers to St Elizabeths where he got sick. Mann died September 1864 of typhoid fever.

Mann’s gravestone was returned as part of the General Services Administration’s annual Veteran’s Day observance held at Saint Elizabeths Hospital. Mann's headstone was found by the family of Guy Schultz from Clinton Maryland. Daniel Sanders president of Four Sales Ltd an Alexandria based estate sales company was called to clean out the Schultz house. The gravemarker was found while Sanders and his team where picking through the house looking for items resellable at auction. The gravemarker was in the garage hidden behind other items. No one who was alive knew how the gravemarker got in to the garage. Sanders, reading the markings on the gravemarker, recognized the stone had historical significance and the gravemarker had been removed without permission from a government facility, the St Elizabeth cemetery. There are 450 known gravesites in the cemetery. Only 250 gravemarkers are left. It was determined some of the missing gravemarkers were made from wood, deteriorating over time. Mann's headstone will be kept in secure storage until the implementation of a comprehensive conservation program of the entire West Campus Cemetery. The commemorative ceremony was attended by a Federal Protective Service Honor Guard and Coast Guard officials placing flags at each of the military gravestones in the historic cemetery. The GSA laid a wreath. Jordan Mann's gravemarker is in temporary storage until it will become part of a historic display.

SOCIETY OF CINCINATTI:
Society of Cincinatti, located in Dupont Circle NW, is a fraternal organization founded by Revolutionary War officers. Each month the Society Staff hold informal talks with the public. The experts discuss items in the Society's vaults. The vaults are brimming with treasures. The program is called "Lunch Bites at Society of the Cincinnati." At one informal talk, the curator Emily Schulz, talked about the collection's Diana Tapestires. The Diana Tapestries woven in 1600 in Brussels are among the Anderson House original furnishings. 

ST JOHNS CHURCH:
St Johns Church is also known as the President’s Church. It sits across Lafayette Square from the White House

ST MONICAs CHURCH:
Episcopal Bishop of Washington Right Reveran Alfred Harding dedicated and consecrated the Chapel Of The Nativity, January 1, 1909, on Capitol Hill. The Chapel was named after the chapel of the same name in Bethlehem, the site of the birth of Christ, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The small congregation was led by Revered E M Thompson. As the congregation grew, so did its building. In 1930, an  Annunciation Chapel and Parish Hall were added. The congregation continued to grow, outgrowing the expanded buildings. The congregation moved to Camp Springs, Maryland. September 20, 1959,  the congregation of St Monica's Episcopal Church began services led by the Bishop of Washington Right Reverend Angus Dun. The congregation was named after St Monica de Hippo AD 331-387. She was the mother of Augustine called St Augustine. June 10th 2009, the congregations of St James and St Monica's merged on Capitol Hill. There was no longer a full time congregation. The Bishop of Washington John Bryons Chane deconsecrated the property allowing it to become something other than a church. It was sold to developers. The developers created and built, on Massachussetts Avenue between A Street and 14th Street a block away from Lincoln Pakr, The Residences At St Monica's.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES   SCOTUS:
When the Judiciary Act of 1789 was signed on September 24th, thirteen District Courts, three Circuit Courts and a six member Supreme Court with two Justices drawn from each circuit was created. The United States Constitution had only outlined the Judicial Branch. The details were left to Congress to fill out the details. The first Court session was set for February 1, 1790. The session was held at the New York City Royal Exchange. The Court shared the open air market designed meeting area on the second floor with the State Assembly. New York was the temporary Capitol of the new republic. City officials moved the market butchers out of the area even placing chains across the streets to give the Court peace from the noises coming from carts on the streets. Oddly enough, Court's first session was delayed. Only three justices were present. John Jay was sworn in as the Chief Justice. Court was soon adjourned. There were no cases on the docket. A quorum was reached the day after John Blair arrived. The Court's first term ended February 10. Procedural matters were decided. Twenty six attorneys and counselors were admitted to the Federal Bar.

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U
ULYSSES S. GRANT:
The word "lobbyist" attributed to Ulysses S Grant appeared in Oxford English Dictionary 6 years before Grant allegedly used the word, showing up as early as 17th Century England.

UNION SQUARE:
The National Park Service was caught by surprise to learn control of the property Union Square is changing to Capitol hands in the newest Omnibus Bill out of concern for security. Senate Sergeant At Arms Former US Capitol Police Chief Terence Gainer said bringing Union Square under the US Capitol security umbrella has been long coming. The Architect of the Capitol oversees the Capitol complex. The Office of the Architect of the Capitol is ready to “assume responsibility of the care and maintenance of Union Square… as well as present an impressive and proper transition to Capitol Hill from the National Mall.” Union Square which includes Grant Memorial and the Capitol Reflecting Pool is perceived by the National Park Service as being a First Amendment demonstration space has been transferred to become jurisdiction of the Architect of the Capitol. Union Square had jurisdiction over the 11 acres since the 1930’s. The Bill provision appears to move the easternmost boundary of Union Square from 1st Street to 3rd Street in that the provision says, “To the extent that the Director of the National Park Service has jurisdiction and control over any portion of the area… and any monument or other facility which is located within such area, such jurisdiction and control is hereby transferred to the Architect of the Capitol.”

UNION STATION:
The earthquake of August 23 2001 rattled chunks of ceiling plaster falling to the ground causing 10 months and millions of dollars of extensive plaster, other repairs and painting to Union Station's main historic hall and concourse area. One chunk of plaster hit a waiter causing officials to drape the hall in protective netting. Plaster artists must reach the top of the 96 foot high ceiling in the main hall where they will inspect the entire ceiling, replace unstable sections of plaster and repaint them including the gilt sections covered in real gold. Room must be made for foot traffic. 

The work is overseen by Union Station's General Manager. About 100,000 people pass through Union Station every day. Shops want to stay open. Extra signs are in place pointing travelers to shops. Extra lights were set up to compensate for loss of light due to nets and scaffolding. The last time Union Station underwent suxh extensive repairs was in 1988. Scaffolding will take up to two months to construct. Repairs could take another six to eight months. Union Station first opened in 1907. Union Station's white granite and classic lines set the Washington architecture mode for the next 40 years.

UNITED STATES CAPITOL:
James Diamond proposed, in 1792, an oversized weathercock of a bird dome as wide as the of dome itself, unknown species, to sit atop the US Capitol were FREEDOM was decided to stand. The US Capitol design contest was won by amateur architect Dr. William Thornton a physician.

Architect of the Capitol J George Stewart was asked to determine if dark spots on the staircase leading from the House of Representatives eastern corridor down to the Capitol's basement were bloodstains or not. It seems working around politicians rubbed off on the AOC. Stewart diplomatically answered 'these may be the bloodstains referred to or it may be one of the many legends which has been perpetuated." Legend goes Representative William Preston Taulbee, a lobbyist, often exchanged fighting words with Louisville Times correspondent Charles Kincaid. February 28 1890 , Kincaid, after meeting, Taulbee,  on the staircase leading from the House of Representatives eastern corridor stairs leading down to the Capitol basement, left hurriedly, returning gun in hand, shooting Taulbee in the head, leaving gossips to wonder if the dark spots are Taulbee's blood.

December 2001, an area of DC known as Union Square was annexed as US Capitol property. The 11 acres including the Reflecting Pool, a Hollywood favorite visual used to communicate in films 'American Government', was slipped without a hearing into December's appropriation bill, seemingly, at the request of the Capitol's effort to shore up security. DC Councilwoman Eleanor Holmes Norton pressured the Hill saying the move cut off access for commercial filming, already in a decline for the District. Filmakers were finding suitable dopplangers in Baltimore for DC-like shoots that in 2011 brought in an estimated $20.5 millions, up to $500,000 a day from location shoots. Baltimore's Tremont Plaza Hotel stands in for the District's Senate buildings. Transformers: Dark of the Moon lit up DC's skies on Pennsylvania Avenue in fall 2010. The US Capitol dome which has shared the big screen beauty shots with the likes of Sean Penn, Aaron Eckhart, too, was no longer under the eyes of film friendly US Park Police part of the National Park Service. Game change. It was now under the watch of the US Capitol Police.

UNITED STATES CAPITOL: BRUMIDI
CONSTANTINE/ CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI: A MAN SEEKING HONOR FOR THE BIRTH OF THE NATION WHO GAVE AMERICAS LEGISLATORS BRUMIDI: [ www.godinthetemplesofgovernment.com ]A few days after the Sunday February 19th observance of CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI a Congressional Cemetery where the Painter of the Capitol is buried, 630 WMAL MORNING MAJORITY host Brian Wilson shared stats on Constantino Brumidi the man the American public doesnt know but might enjoy knowing. And maybe shouldn’t know. Yes Brumidi was paid $8 a day. No. Those are not prostitutes on the ceiling of the Rotunda flanking George. To the best of the office of the Curator of the Capitol, Brumidi used no models for his paintings except one, a man, an engineers son. So is the way of modern media, first to report rather than the old gumshoe way of Research Research Research.

One man working hard to change America slowing forgetting Constantino Buurmidi is Joseph N Grano President of the Rhodes Tavern-DC Heritage Society, Founder of the CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI historical Society and a man I met one day helping push Abe Lincoln across G Street seated on his chair atop a dolly back to Lincoln’s display in Madame Tussauds President’s Section. Joe is a history buff working hard to keep in public memory a place THE MAN living to this day on the walls & ceilings of the hallowed halls of Congress.

Brumidi known for his fresco work in the United States Capitol Building was a Greek/Italian-American historical painter born of a Greek father & an Italian mother. One would think Italian American former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would be on board helping Grano achieve his goals to honor the former Palace Painter also working for a few years under Gregory XVI . Not at all according to Grano. Brumidi sailed for America after the occupation of Rome by French forces in 1849. Brumidi was 47 years old when he became a naturalized American citizen in 1852. He had arrived in America September 18, 1852, looking for Church commissions.

Brumidi made ends meet by painting a few portraits. Eventually Brumidi graduated to painting frescos in Churches ie St Stephens Church & at Taylors Chapel in Baltimore MD. Two years later enroute to New York after he painted an allegorical painting in Mexico, Brumidi stopped in DC and visited the Capitol. Brumidi had gone to New York to paint the altarpiece at St. Stephen’s Church later painting the mural of the Crucifixion the church now called Our Lady of the Scapular and St. Stephen. Brumidi painted altarpieces and murals in churches in Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; Philadelphia; New York; Mexico City; and Havana, Cuba. Blown away by all the inside wall spaces he could decorate, Brumidi offered his services to paint the Capitol. Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs just commissioneed as Captain of the Cavalry accepted Brumidi’s offer paying the artist $8 a day. Brumidi started painting the House Committee Agriculture meeting room in the Capitol. His work was well liked. He was given a raise of $2 to $10 a day by then Secretary of War of the United States, Jefferson Davis. Brumidi’s work took several years. Eventually, Brumidi was paid more than Miegs his supervising engineer. More commissions came Brumidi’s way eventually turning the immigrant painter’s passion for vast blank interior canvases, walls, in to a job as a Government painter leaving as his life Post Script, the Brumidi Corridors, Senate side of the Capitol and the Frieze of American History.  He signed his paintings C. Brumidi. Brumidi referred to himself as the Artist of the Capitol. He was. To this day, visitors to the Capitol admire his cherubs and mythological figures, birds, fruit bunches and, tucked away, religious imagery found by discerning eyes. Brumidi’s “crowning glory”, pun intended, is the US Capitol rotunda capped off Brumidi’s painting the Apotheosis of George Washington in to the Capitol dome. A trained artist, schooled in the tradition of Renaissance painting, Brumidi brought his artworks to life. Brumidi, after a quarter of century working in the Capitol, died in Washington DC leaving his work in the Capitol unfinished.

The painting of the dome of the Rotunda had been delayed almost twenty years after Brumidi sketches his scenes for American history until authorization to begin painting came through in 1877. Brumidi was an old man by this point, in his 70’s, failing health yet Brumidi climbed up and down the scaffolding each day and multiple times a day to the tiny scaffolding 60 feet above the hard marble cold floor in the Rotunda. Things changed after Brumidi slipped from the scaffolding. The leg of the chair he was sitting on went off the edge. Somehow, the 70 year old managed to having on to the ladder until rescue came. And yet? The next day, Brumidi was back up on his scaffold finishing his piece de resistance. Sadly, Brumidi did not finish the dome. Fillippo Costaggini, Brumidi’s appointed successor, completed the scene in WILLIAM PENN AND THE INDIANS Brumidi had started. Brumidi decided it was better for him to create the sketches the artists would use to complete Brumidi’s vision. Age took its toll on the artist. Brumidi miscalculated the circumference leaving Costaggini to stretch the art scenes to fill in the gap in the fresco. It wasn’t Costaggini who filled in the gap. A painter completed the ceiling in 1953, years after Costaggini stopped painting in 1889.

Since then, the Architect of the Capitol’s conservationists in the convservation program work diligently to maintain and restore Brumidi’s artworks, cleaning dirt, retouching the art. The conservation program started in the 1980’s hiring artists with fresco restoration expertise learned in Italy. The US Congress published a book on Brumidi’s art in 1998.

Captain Montgomery C. Meigs had been placed in charge of the construction of the Capitol when it was moved in 1853 under the authority of the War Department. Miegs took art at West Point. What he knew about art and artists like Michelangelo, Miegs learned from books. Miegs vision was to decorate the Halls of the Capitol in fresco. Miegs had been unsuccessful finding an artist mastered in fresco. Then Brumidi walked in to his door. This was way before the days of social networking and iphones. Brumidi could only describe his paintings done back home. With no examples to show, Miegs, cautious to go out on a limb, agreed to let Brumidi paint his office, now H-144, as a test. The subject was the Roman hero, Cincinnatus, called away from the fields he was plowing to fight for his county. Miegs slipped George Washington in to the art, a frequent image in Brumidi’s art throughout the Capitol as Brumidi continued painting on. George Washington, Miegs knew, was also called the American Cincinnatus. One month later, Brumidi was on the US Capitol payroll, I guess making the US Capitol the first employer of illegal immigration, ironic as it is in light of modern day political debates, as well as an example of an immigrant who came to give to America, leaving a legacy that bars non. Although it is Brumidi’s name linked to the Art in the Capitol, Brumidi did not paint everything himself. Over 30 fresco and decorative painting assistants from Germany, Italy and England, at one time, helped Brumidi decorate the Capitol.

Brumidi went on to complete painting Miegs office w images of the Four Seasons, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the history of reaping wheat in fresco reminiscent of the Baroque, Roman and Renaissance art styles Brumidi studied. Brumidi was under fire at times for work that wasn’t American themed. S-127, the Naval Affairs Committee room was decorated with Sea Related Gods and Goddesses. Over the years, Brumidi painted the Senate Military Affairs Committee, S-128, used by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Brumidi painted Senate Library, S-21n1, now amed the Lyndon B. Johnson Room. In 1857, Brumidi’s citizenship was becoming final. He signed his mural of Washington negotiating the surrender of Cornwallis "C. Brumidi Artist Citizen of the U.S."

Attacks on Brumidi’s art were spurred by the Know- Nothing Gang because of its aesthetics, because Americans were not being hired, because Miegs an officer was choosing the artists. Tales of the Know Nothings are legendary. They are the same group who stole the Pope Stone from the Washington Monument. As they did with the Washington Monument, stopping its construction, the Know Nothings succeeded in their effort to remove Meigs from overseeing the art in the Capitol. That was how the Art Commission was created a year later. The Commission came up with a fantastical budget for art. Their commission was abolished Meigs was rehired for a very short time. Despite all the political wankering, Brumidi stayed on for the next twenty years manifesting the mural designs for murals Meigs approved back in the 1850s when Miegs and Brumidi began their partnership of legendary artworks America enjoys to this day.

Americas beloved rotunda was painted over an eleven-month period at the end of the Civil War. As far as is known, Brumidi painted it alone paying homage to his adopted country. George Washington ascends to heavens. Historical figures are mixed with on the earthly level, Brumidi mixed classical deities such as Minerva, Goddess of War, and mythological dieties such as Neptune, god of the sea. Cherubs, once described as childrens voices in heaven, ride a dolphin.  Meig wrote Brumidi after he viewed the canopy of the Capitol: “I am glad the country at length possesses a Cupola on whose vault is painted a fresco picture after the manner of the great edifices of the old world.” 

Joe Grano emailed in response to my question of him what the former Speaker of the House Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi has done to help Grano with his BRUMIDI efforts in light of the Speakers often publicized Italian roots annually showcased with her stride up the Red Carpet to the Dias of Famous Americans of Italian heritage. Joe’s subject title said it clearly “WHAT'S NEW ON THE ITALY RES. & BRUMIDI CEREMONY.” Joe emailed back “I literally do not know. Why don't you call her Minority Leader office and ask:
202-225-0100. Thanks for asking. Joe Grano  joegrano@netzero.com”

Your welcome Joe. I hope this piece helps.





V
VIETNAM MEMORIAL:
Author of MONUMENT WARS: WASHINGTON DC THE NATIONAL MALL AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE MEMORIAL LANDSCAPE Kirk Savage tells the powerful story of a simple monument and a man. MAYA LINs powerful design for the memorial was controversial at its public reveal, criticized for its stark simplicity of marble, a walkway that goes down and then up, with little other fanfare. At different times, the Wall, as it is called, is different things. At times, it reflects the sun. At times, it reflects the dark. And at times, it is like looking into a mirror, so clear and so reflective, so crisp, the lines of the trees and Capitol reflected in it are almost as if they are right there in the wall when in fact they are behind. The ground above the Wall, on most days is grass. On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, the grass above the Wall, inset in to, is Hallowed Ground reserved for Trooping of the Colors.

Few talk about moments at the Wall often uncaught. There is talk the Wall cries for the men and women whose names are carved in to it, if one arrives early enough to watch the dew condense on the Wall and names. The National Park Service prepared stations visitors to the Wall can look through to locate, by panel and alphabetically, a name on the Wall.

Kirk Savage tells the story of going early to the Vietnam Wall for solitude. Savage wanted to be there by himself. Savage recalls a man in a business suit walking up to the monument, putting his briefcase down at a particular spot before straightening up, saluting the name caught in his gaze, picking up his briefcase, before continuing on presumably to work. One year, covering a Wall Veterans Day event, I brought along a friend who just happened to be walking past me as I snagged a cab. I pulled him into the cab with me. At the Wall, he did the unthinkable. He pulled out his cellphone, chattering on it as we began our walk down the walkway, making our way through the throngs of mourners and hordes of lookie loos and longtime friend reunions. I suggested he put away his cell phone. He looked at me. He said he was a Vietnam Vet, sharing he had never been to the Wall all this time. He said he couldnt. The Vets around him began going off on him for talking on his cell phone at the Wall on this Hallowed Day. He was like a deer in headlights at the anger coming towards him so I spoke up. I shared he had never been to the Wall before, that this was his first time. Within moments, he was enveloped by brothers who knew the cell phone wasnt for conversation, the cell phone was from fear. We have never adressed the moment since. I hear, on occasion, he goes back to the Wall. Without knowing, I had started his journey back in to War and forward towards healing.

VOICE OF AMERICA:
VOICE OF AMERICA started in 1942 when America sought to undercut Nazi propaganda by broadcasting in to Germany. VOA broadcast to over 134 million people by radio, television and Internet programs in 45 countries where there is only partisan media or state sponsored media. VOA engineers work hard to unjam Chinese jammers working hard to prevent American news enter China. VOICE OF AMERICA also known as VOA is located on Independence Avenue across from the Department of Health and Human Services and Smithsonians National Museum of the American Indian and kitty corner to the US Botanical Gardens and the US Capitol. Its nearest Metro station is Federal Center Metro station a quarter of a mile away. VOICE OF AMERICA is US news produced for export to countries who are not fans of a free press. US taxpayers fund the online uninterrupted news from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. VOICE OF AMERICA is barred from broadcasting over US airwaves. www.voatour.com

Artwork is chiseled outside above the doors of the VOA entrances. Murals decorate the walls inside of the VOA building. The interior murals illustrate Social Security themes. The VOA building used to house the Socail Security administration.  

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WALTER REED HOSPITAL:
Walter Reed Hospital the Military’s flagship hospital in NW DC was retired with a medal decked ceremony. Dignitaries addressed the Medical Center’s mission of a century of service.  Flags were rolled up one by one. A sword was handed over to symbolize the Hospital’s transition. Paratroopers landed. Walter Reed then officially moved to NIH up in Bethesda, Maryland. Walter Reed National Military Medical Center relocated to Bethesda Maryland. Bethesda was named Bethesda for the healing pools in the Bible. August 1942, President Roosevelt said “Let this hospital then stand for all men to see throughout all the years, as a monument to our determination to work and to fight until the time comes when the human race shall have that true health in body and mind and spirit which can be realized only in a climate of equity and faith.”

A segment of an interior mural celebrating prayer in the field is captured on our homepage. No word has been released on if the mural is being preserved. Artifacts at the National Museum of Health and Medicine were packed away. Parishioners at the Memorial chapel were relocated to other churches. The District is buying the 113 acre site selling off parcels to real estate developers, giving the rest to the State Department. Official boundaries between the District’s land and State Department land must be drawn then submitted to the DC Council. The property will be conveyed to the District after the Army begins its environmental review. DC Office of Zoning will have to recommend zoning to the unzoned site.

Walter Reed Hospital assumed landscaping responsibility for a Civil War cemetery down the road from its NW campus after a photo I took was published in the DC Examiner. My photo showed the flag atop the pole tattered and hanging by one end. The flag at the Cemetery honoring Civil War heroes had holes in it. My photo hit Page 3. The Army responded promising to take care of grounds. There is no word if the Army will continue to take care of the grounds once the Army leaves the neighborhood. I had also picked up a small chipped figurine of a saxophone player. He had seemed out of place alone at the cemetery when I came across him. I held on to the figurine for years before rehoming him. I had covered Wynton Marsalis at an event. I was impressed by Wynton’s character. I told Wynton about the figurine. I asked him if he would like him. Wynton answered, yes, very much. I told wynton I hoped Wynton would create Jazz Concert in the Civil War Ceremony. Maybe, someday….

WASHINGTON MONUMENT:
The Washington Monument is shaped like an ancient Egyptian Obelisk. A pyramid was originally proposed for Washingtons Monument instead of the obelisk. The obelisk was derived from ancient Egypt. Both the Obelisk and the all seeing eye atop a pyramid symbolized the all seeing sun god, Ra.

The Senate Park Commissionin 1901 – 1902 proposed the National Mall to have symmetrical terraced gardens on the Monument side facing the Lincoln Memorial.

Symbol researcher Wayne Herschel says September 15 a Christian Holy Day celebrating the rising of the Sacred Cross is the day on which the Washington Monument acts as an important astrological marker speculating it might be related to the Star of David. Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown says there is a symbolic similarity between Egyptian and Masonic symbols.
The Washington Monument color changes a third of the way up because construction was stopped in 1854. Construction funded by private money, was started in 1848. Money ran out. The Civil War started. Interest was not on completing the monument. When construction resumed in 1879 after Congress appropriated funds, the builders, unable to find the same stone initially used, continued, 150 feet up, with a darker stone that darkened when it weathered.

The design firm of Diller Scofidio Renfro is a finalist competing to redesign the Washington Mounument grounds which will inclulde a performance space and food facility.

WASHINGTON NATIONAL CATHEDRAL:
WASHINGTON NATIONAL CATHEDRAL:
The other night at Starbucks on Wisconsin up the road from the Washington National Cathedral, an old woman wrapped in black, her upper dentures seeming to be upside in her mouth, opened the coffee shop door for me, partially. Blocking my path, she stepped in to a conversation as if we had already been talking or introduced, saying that Froham became an Anglican after he quit the National Cathedral and that he was to be forgiven. No “hello.” No, “hi, I am.” Nothing said but gibberish about Froham and the Washington Cathedral. Her thin white hair flying all over her face, she told me Froham’s daughter Pearl lived somewhere nearby in a nursing home- complete with her faculties, a living angel, the woman speaking right up in my face, that I should tell the world about Pearl and her father. Froham wasn’t a name, to be honest, I heard of to date. I’ve not seen this old woman before. What I had been doing, prior to this woman stopping my exit Starbucks intrigued me to hear her out. She had no way of knowing I was gathering my notes on the Washington National Cathedral to dive in to my God Project after my constitution. Kismet or guided path. We really never know. I have learned to stop and mull after all, I had been at the Cathedral earlier this week with my son. I’ve been to the Cathedral multiple times before over the years since I began my God project. My son had worked and lived in DC more than a decade ago. I was going to be his inaugural tour guide on his first visit to the National Cathedral, able to share with him secrets I found for my God project that I had not made public yet. Interesting for me, this was the first time I heard of Froham. My focus, singularly, was images of government. The woman’s piercing blue eyes, looked into me. She told me don’t let people forget, Pearl is an angel. That was the last time I saw the old lady who changed my beginning. How could she have known I was stepping back on to my journey of Faith                         

Washington National Cathedral, America’s Cathedral, is located in Northwest DC, above sea level, at the crossroads of Wisconsin and Massachusetts Avenue, known as Mass Avenue to locals. Endearingly nicknamed the “last jewel in the Lord’s crown,” the National Cathedral, listed the National Register of Historic Places, looks good for its age. It is over 100 years old. The congregation is small, numbering around 800 plus. The National Cathedral’s ministry is huge. Over 400,000 people walk through Washington National Cathedral annually. In 2007, the National Cathedral ranked third on the American Institute of Architects List of America’s Favorite Architecture.

The National Cathedral is the Episcopal seat of the Bishop of Washington as well as being the primatial seat of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Pierre L’Enfant, designer of the "Plan of the Federal City," 1792, included in his plans land designation for the City of Washington, a “great church for national purposes.” L’Enfant suggested the Church be “a church for national purposes, such as public prayer, thanksgiving, funeral orations; and be assigned to the special use of no particular denomination or sect; but be equally open to all.”  L’Enfant’s National Church  was never built where it was intended to sit in NW DC at 8th Street  and G, an area called Gallery Place, location of the Smithsonian National Portrait Museum. A Temple of another sort housed there for a while, the US Patent and Trademark office, a Temple of Innovation.

The first Episcopal bishop of Washington, Henry Yates Satterlee, set out looking at places to home the future National Cathedral. He even looked at Dupont Circle, today a hub for retail and residence, embassies and site of the annual Pride Parade.

Cathedrals in Europe were built over centuries. Construction on the Cathedral was completed in 83 years. Once the meeting on the idea of the National Cathedral,  was held with civic leaders including Riggs Bank president Charles Glover, 1891, to move things forward, Congress granted the Charter to the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia. The year was 1893. The day was January 6th. Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, America’s counterpart to Britain’s Westminster Abbey, Cathedral Church was designated by Congress to be the "National House of Prayer."  Cathedral Church was to become a Cathedral “for the promotion of religion and education and charity.” The National Cathedral has been a temporary home to congregations, including a Jewish Synagogue and an Eastern Orthodox Community.  The 23rd president of the United States, all of  5’6” tall, Benjamin Harrison, (1889 – 1893), also known as Little Ben, signed the Charter in to law.

England’s leading Anglican Church architect Frederick Bodley was selected to by Henry Yates Satterlee to be as the National Cathedrals head architect. Satterlee was the first Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington. Henry Vaughan was the National Cathedral’s supervising architect. Mount Saint Alban had been selected as the Cathedral’s site.  The Bishop had come across Mount St Albans where a small parish church was already standing on 57 acres. Satterlee snapped the property up. America’s National Cathedral a place to call home.  A Peace Cross was set across from St. Alban’s parish church, south west of the Cathedral marking the end of the Spanish-American War. The foundation stone, a composite of two stones, a small stone quarried from a field beside the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem that was inserted into a larger piece of American granite, was laid September 29, 1907. President Theodore Roosevelt spoke at the ceremony, giving a blessing the future work of the cathedral. The foundation stone was covered over in the ensuing construction, as a symbol the foundation of the Christian faith on unseen mysteries. President Theodore Roosevelt delivered his ceremonial address to a crowd of more than 20,000. The President then assisted with the laying of the National Cathedral’s cornerstone. 

Building of the cathedral began on the east side of the site. An Elementary School, a Boys’ School, a Girls’ School, a Parish Church, a Conference Center, a Library, a gift shop, thrift shop, plant shop, museum offering classes, lectures and the offices of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington sit on the Washington National Cathedral, these days, where the small parish Church sat surrounded by acres of land. People forget how young Washington DC is. Construction on the National Cathedral began September 29, 1907.  

Back in 1900 before the Cathedral’s groundbreaking, steps were taken by individuals to create community. Phoebe Apperson Hearst, wife of Senator George Hearst (CA) established the National Cathedral School for Girls. Hearst is the mother of publisher William Randolph Hearst, doyenne to Patty Hearst- debutante turned guerilla then movie starlet. Nine years later, St. Albans School, a school to educate boy choristers at the Cathedral, was founded.

The design of the National Cathedral is a mix of architectural influences- Gothic and Middle Ages. The crypt chapels were designed in styles predating Gothic, giving visitors the feeling they were inside a much older church. Most of the building is constructed using a buff-colored Indiana limestone over traditional masonry core. The roof’s trusses are built from load-bearing steel. oncrete is used in the support structures for the central tower bells and the floors in the west tower floors. The pulpit was carved from stones brought from Canterbury Cathedral. The Cathedra, the Bishop’s formal seat is carved from stone given by Glastonbury Abbey. The Jerusalem Altar, the high altar, stone came from Solomon Quarry near Jerusalem supposedly the same quarry stones used for Solomon’s Temple were taken from. The ten stones directly in front of the Jerusalem Alter are stones from the Chapel of Moses located on Mount Sinai. The ten stones were placed their to show the foundation of the Jerusalem Altar is the Ten Commandments.

The National Cathedral was under construction when it opened for services in 1912. Congregants flocked to the Bethlehem Chapel. Bethlehem Chapel was the first part of the National Cathedral that was built. Bethlehem Chapel was built atop the Foundation Stone. The Foundation Stone is at Crypt level. The Chapel was dedicated to Bishop Satterlee after he passed in 1908. A worship service has been held in Bethlehem Chapel daily since the Chapel’s completion in 1912. Bishop Satterlee is there to this very day, encased in an alabaster sarcophagus behind the altar. In the year 1990, President George H Bush watched as the National Cathedral’s last finial was put in place on the South West tower.

The National Cathedral is the world’s 6th largest cathedral. It stands 301’ tall. It’s center aisle measures 500 feet long, the height of the Washington monument, east to west. Technically,  if the Monument was tipped on its side inside the National Cathedral, the Monument would lie end to end down the Cathedral’s center aisle.

The Cathedral’s walls and windows are richly decorated within its 9 chapels with artworks all over its walls with hundreds of stained glass windows painting the Cathedral walls in dancing palettes of color throughout the day, thousands of needle points, lore, history including a Moon Stone, innumerable stone carvings each with a their story of inspiration including Darth Vader’s, crypts containing a president and others, music from prayer, parishioners, choirs, the District’s largest pipe organ and a 53 bell carillon. Near the top of the 234 foot tower, is the sculpted head of Darth Vader, best seen with binoculars. The sculpture was chosen just as the work on the Cathedral was ending, in the 1980s. Christopher Rader of Kearney Nebraska sent in to the WNC Call For Art, his drawing of Darth Vader from Star Wars. Other winning entries included  a raccoon, a man with large teeth, an umbrella and a girl with pigtails and braces.

Work on the Indiana limestone National Cathedral never ends. DC’s earthquake of August 23, 2011 loosened the Cathedral towers from their enviable perch above the District’s glorious view.  One spire leaned. Three spires fall off the Cathedral. Two of the spires were placed on the Wisconsin Avenue apron of the Cathedral near Hearst Hall for visitors to the Cathedral to see.

The National Cathedral was designed by George Frederick Bodley. His partner was Henry Vaughan. Bodlye was a late 19th Century British Gothic Revival architect. The Cathedral Close was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. Bodley died in 1907. Bodley’s plan, including building the National Cathedral with several intentional flaws testament that only God can be perfect, was revived in 1917. Bodley’s partner Vaughan made changes to Bodley’s design. Construction on the National Cathedral stopped during WWI. By the time construction on the National Cathedral started up again, Vaughan was dead too. Building funds were low. General John J Pershing spearheaded the National Cathedral’s fundraising effort. Philip Hubert Frohman of the New York architecture firm Frohman, Robb and Little was hired and designated the new principal architect. Frohman was an American. It was fitting for the designer of the Cathedral to be American not British after all America had fought so hard to separate from England and the King. Frohman, an architectural genius, designed his first home at age 14. He received his architectural degree at age 16. Private sources funded the construction moving forward. Frohman worked hard to perfect Bodley's vision. Frohman saw that the West Façade was enlarged. Frohman added to the carillon section of the central tower along with other smaller changes. Ralph Adams Cram was hired to supervise Frohman. The men did not get along. Frohman and Cram were at odds with each other. Frohman objected so adversely to major changes Cram wanted to make to Bodely’s plan that Frohman fought to have Cram fired. Frohman, successful with Cram’s firing, finished the Cathedral according to Bodley’s plan.   

Parts of the Cathedral were built with the hope people would give more. The Dean in the 1950’s or 60’s  thought imagery of building the National Cathedrals would encourage people to give more.

As it stands, there are four chapels and a meditation center on the Crypt level. Thousands of artworks in stone, wood, fabric, wrought iron and stained glass decorate the Washington National Cathedral. The story of mankind is told in the windows traveling from East to West from Creation, the West Rose Window or sculptor Frederick Hart’s tympana of Creation above the West Doors. The National Cathedral is narrow and long. Rectangular in shape it house a nine bay naïve. The side aisles are wide. The chancel holds five bays. It is intersected by a six bay transept. 301 feet above the ground is the Gloria in Excelsis Tower, 676 feet about sea level, the highest point in Washington. A  one-story porch projects from the south transept. Its portal, reached from the long climb up Pilgrim Steps, has a carved tympanum. The East End of the cathedral features 110 carved figures surrounding the central figure of  Jesus.

The Pilgrim Observation Gallery is three quarters of the way of the West End Towers. The views of the City of Washington are spectacular. There are two full sets of bells in the Central Tower, a 53 bell carillon and a 10 bell peal. The Washington Ringing Society rings the change bells.

Wrought ironworks with Christian symbolism honoring the Church’s Episcopalian roots, adorn the National Cathedral. Much of the ironwork is the work of Samuel Yellin. Alberet Paley’s forged iron was in place, north side, in 2008. Intricate woodcarving, wall-sized murals and mosaics, and monumental cast bronze gates can also be found.

One of the National Cathedral’s best known windows is the Space Window, the Scientists and Technician’s window, honoring Man Landing On The Moon. The Space Window sits on the south side of the nave. A piece of moon rock sitting within in a glass bubble is embedded in the glass. The glass bubble is to keep the moon rock from oxidizing. The moon rock was brought back to Earth by astronauts Apollo 11 Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.

Artist Albert Paley designed the wrought iron door separating the Good Shepherd Chapel from the rest of the Cathedral where it is entered off the courtyard. The floor of the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, is intentionally lower than Crypt level intended to reflect the low point of Jesus’ life. The mural of  Jesus’s burial scene includies St. Joseph who gave for Jesus the  tomb he bought for himself. Mosaics decorate the Resurrection Chapel walls and dome. Cathedral artist Rowan LeCOmpte and his wife Irene decorated the Chapels back wall. LeCompte had met Philip Frohman in Baltimore. Frohman, the Cathedral’s lead architect was in Baltimore on another job.

LeCompte had fallen in love with the National Cathedral’s stained glass when he visited the Cathedral at age 13. He always thought of the Cathedral as a magical place. LeCompte wanted so badly to create a window for the Cathedral. LeCompte invited Frohman to view a stained glass window LeCompte designed for Goucher College. Frohman agreed. Frohman’s directions to LeCompte were simple, create stained glass windows of such clarity and richness that colored light beams would shine brightly on the inside of the National Cathedral. Just before Frohman took LeCompte stained glass design into the Cathedral’s building committee, Frohman thought to ask how old LeCompte was. Sixteen was LeCompte’s answer. His design was approved beginning a career of LeCompte making beautiful artworks for the Cathedral. LeCompte went on to create 40 stained glass windows for the National Cathedral. His West Rose Window “Creation”, an abstract of the Creation story, was installed in 1976 just in time for the US bicentennial. Queen Elizabeth II was present along with President Jimmy Carter, when the Cathedral’s west rose window was dedicated in 1977. 10,000 individual pieces of colored glass reflect light differently at different times of the day, looking as if its color shifts from blue to pink as the day gets darker. His first stained glass sits in a Crypt Chapel. At age 81, LeCompte was reworking to make brighter a window he created 26 years earlier. LeCompte’s Rose Window in an umbrella likeness is on of the most popular items in the Cathedral gift shop.

Stone carvers dedicated their lives working for decades on the National Cathedral structure creating artworks barely seen from the ground by the naked eye. There are more than 600 bosses depicting Bible scenes and warfare, at the ceiling top where the ribs come together in the vaults. Bosses are giant carved stones. Not all the stones are carved. It was part of the grand plan to leave stones untouched so future generations can write on the Cathedral walls moments of their times. Two such impressions of modern times are the statues of Mother Teresa and Rosa Parks. They will be in the Human Rights Bay in the entrance area of the Cathedral’s west side. Grotesques are carved on the Cathedral exterior. Grotesques are a medieval way of keeping water off a limestone building. Darth Vader, a Cathedral grotesque, won his place in the Cathedral’s history resulting from a children’s design competition. Some of the carvers carved grotesques in their own image. Vincent Palumbo’s self portrait grotesque is a memory of the time he bent the Cathedral’s flagpole when he ran into it with his truck. Joseph Ratti’s memorial has been left uncarved since the day he died at work in the Cathedral. His scaffolding collapsed. A memorial gargoyle of Joseph is on a south transept balcony. One stone carver’s wife’s ashes, it is told, are mixed into mortar used in the building. Her husband did not like being told she could not be buried in the Cathedral. He took matters and mortar in to his own hands.

Music is part of the cathedral. There is the summer music festival and then there are the daily celebrations of sound. There is the men and St Alban’s Boys School choir; men with National Cathedral Girls school choir. The Cathedral Choral Society  240-voice chorus performs there. The Washington National Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys was founded in 1909. It is affiliated with a school, in the choir tradition. The boys are trebles attending the Cathedrals school for boys, on singing scholarships. Both choirs have record. They have recorded a Christmas Album, AMERICA The Beautiful a patriotic album, a Requiem for Victims of the Holocaust. The choirs are also featured on the Cathedral’s annual live television broadcast of the Eucharist on Christmas Day broadcast, since 1953, from the Washington National Cathedral by Allbritton Communications shown on national affiliates in most places. Each Christmas special services of lessons and carols.

There is the carillon and Above the central tower is the carillon, a musical instrument punched by the fist on its keyboard to ring the bells. Keys connects levers and pulleys to activates clappers which swing and hit bells. The carillon bells play stationary. Each of the 53 carillon bells is inscribed with a Bible verse. The largest bell, Bourdon, 8½ feet wide and 12 tons, is rung by himself on mournful occasions. Bourdon is inscribed with “the Lord he is God.” The carillonneurs vantage point affords him a view for miles all around. The ringing room sits atop the carillon. Ringers can learn to ring through the Washington Ringing Society. Ten peal bells are in the room. Ten ropes dangle from the bells ranging in size from more than 600 pounds to over 3,500 pounds. The peal bells ring from mouth up to mouth down. The bells are played one ringer per bell in a predetermined sequence called a change. It takes a bit for the peal bell mechanism to reset. Plain Bob Minor is a six bell sequence of 123456 then 214365 then 241635 with a total of 5040 changes by 7 bells. The National Cathedral Great Organ one of the 20 largest organs in the world, a 1938 Ernest M. Skinner organ, had 10,250 pipes at its revision in 1975. It started out with 8,015 pipes when it was installed by Ernest M Skinner & Son Organ Company in 1938. The organ was enlarged in 1963 by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company and twice more in 1970 and 1975, still, the National Cathedral is planning to build two new organs.  The organ has four manuals- Choir, Great, Swell and Solo. The Skinner organ’s music does not travel to the farthest seats in the Cathedral. Plans are underway to increase the organ voice- with two new organs.

The National Cathedral is filled with memorials to persons or events of national significance. Lincoln-head pennies are in the floor of the bay of the north side of the entrance surrounding President Lincoln. The text of his farewell address to the citizens of Springfield, Illinois, as he left for the White House pays tribute to Lincoln. A statue of George Washington sits on the south side. Flags of all the states line the walls high above the congregation. President Woodrow Wilson’s body is interred in a stone casket on the south side accompanied by flags of Princeton University and the United States. Woodrow Wilson is the only American President buried within the District of Columbia. President Wilson’s grandson, Francis B. Sayre Jr., was the 5th dean of Washington National Cathedral for 27 years overseeing much of the Gothic structures completion. Francis Bowes Sayre Jr. was born Jan. 17, 1915, in the White House, the fourth grandchild of President Wilson, the firstborn of Wilson's daughter Jessie. Sayre’s became a leading national voice of conscience preaching social gospel applying Christian ethics to matters such as war, race relations and economic inequality. Sayre was elected to President Kennedy's Committee on Equal Opportunity. Sayre’s activism opened the National Cathedral to antiwar protests; protesting President Nixon’s re-election with a free "counter-inaugural" concert lead by conductor Leonard Bernstein, January 1973; Palm Sunday 1972, Sayre delivered a blistering sermon criticizing Israel’s "moral tragedy of mankind" for "oppressing" Arab residents of Jerusalem. Many of the Cathedral’s stained glass windows were done under Dean including the Space Window with its coup of an actual piece of moon rock. Completion of the National Cathedral’s bell tower and nave were under his leadership. He was among a group of several leading Washington-area clergymen accompanying Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Ala. Sayre campaigned a decade for King to speak at the National Cathedral. It turned out to be Reverend King’s last Sunday sermon, a speech favoring civil rights and world peace. King was assassinated shortly after,   Memphis, April 4, 1968. Later that week, a memorial service for Dr. King was held inside the National Cathedral. Decades later in the District, walking distance away from the National Cathedral, the MLK Memorial on the Mall opened to the public, void of all expressions of religion, no reference or acknowledgement Dr. King was a minister, a man of Faith.

Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan are buried in the  National Cathedral, along with her teacher. Cathedral architect Philip Frohman is buried there too. He was killed by a car on the cathedral grounds in 1972. The National Cathedral is not without suspense. Assistant librarian Catherine Cooper Reardon was murdered in the library building in 1944 by Julius Fisher a handyman who claimed Reardon criticized the cleaning job he did under her desk so he clubbed her then hid her body under steam pipes in the basement. Fisher’s appeal was denied by the Supreme Court. He was executed.   

The debate over the Separation of Church and state is constant and heated. Politics and politicians enter the National Cathedral, dead and alive, in artistry and in debate. Stained glass commemorating national and historic events. State seals and the Seal of the United States of America are embedded in the marble floor of the Narthex, on the marble floor of the entrance facing Wisconsin Avenue. In the wooden pews behind the main pulpit are two seals indicating those seats are reserved- one for the President of theUnited States of America, the other for the Vice President of the United States of America. American state flags were displayed in the nave until 2007. Since then the display of the state flags hang on the pillars alternating throughout the year with displays of liturgical banners honoring the celebrations throughout the Church year. The National Cathedral celebrates a state day for each state every year, naming the state in prayers. Each state is recognized on a Major State Day encouraging those who live in the celebrated named state are encouraged to journey to the National Cathedral. Dignitaries from the celebrated state are invited to speak on that date.

Funding for the National Cathedral’s upkeep and maintenance came from private donation until 2011. Rushing to complete construction for the bicentennial celebrations left the church in heavy financial debt. The National Cathedral’s budget was $27 million in 2008. Financial times forced the National Cathedral to trim its budget to $13 million in 2010. There had been an endowment of $50 million. Staff was cut from 170 to 70. The National Cathedral relies on its volunteers. The national landmark has a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, the National Cathedral Association with more than 14,000 members, 88% of whom live outside the Washington area assisting the National Cathedral stand as a House of Prayer for all people, a sacred place where major events of religious and secular nature, welcoming the country to pray, commemorate, celebrate, and mourn, addressing “pressing moral and social issues of the day” that shape America. The National Cathedral brought people together during WWII with monthly services held "on behalf of a united people in a time of emergency". Interfaith services were held after 9-11, after Hurricane Katrina, and for the 1980 Iran hostages. A stone chiseled GITMO has been included in recent years.  National Cathedral Association relaunched in 2010 with the mission of supporting the spiritual home of the nation of ministry, dialogue, and service to the nation. Opportunities for people to take part in religious life are displayed throughout the National Cathedral. Tours and lectures focus on the beauty of the National Cathedral’s building rather than on theology or worship. Booklets are distributed. Posters are hung for visitors. The National Cathedral assures no one is pressured. Visitors who ask are told about the National Cathedral’s messages of Welcome and Reconciliation.

Special tours can be arranged in advance to access areas atop the apse and the transepts. Where it is possible to step off the wooden planking and walk on the stones topping the 102½-foot space beneath. Escorted guest can raise and lower the chandeliers in synch with people below on walkie-talkies. They can check devices that measure the settling of the cathedral. Special tours are arranged to

walk outside onto the narrow walkways overlooking the flying buttresses to see walls St Alban school boys graffitied decades earlier. 

August of 2011, the Virginia earthquake 5.8 shook of finial stones from several of the Cathedral’s pinnacles, twisting some pinnacles out of alignment. Other pinnacles collapsed completely. Gargoyles and carvings were damaged. Falling masonry punctured the Cathedral’s metal clad roof. Flying buttresses around the apse show cracks. Mortar joints fell out. Others were loosened. The Virginia quake was the largest earthquake on the east coast since 1944. The National Cathedral closed its doors in October 2011, re-opening November 2011. Repairs of earthquake damage to the National Cathedral were estimated to take several years and cost to the tune of millions of dollars.

In 2011, the National Cathedral took $700,000 in federal funds through the Save America’s Treasures program.  February 1998, Save Americas Treasures was established as part of the White House Millenium Council’s programs, in Executive Order 13072, by President Bill Clinton as a United States Federal public-private initiative between the US National Park Service and the National Trust For Historic Preservation, Heritage Preservation and National Park Foundation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then First Lady of the United States was active in founding Save America’s Treasures to save and restore America’s priceless heritage. Every First Lady since the program began served as the Honorary Chairman of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Funding for the program was slashed and eliminated along with funding for  heritage areas, national parks and historic preservation in President Obama’s Tough Choices FY 2011 Budget because the program lacks “rigorous performance metrics and evaluation efforts so the benefits are unclear." 

Repair on the earthquaked damaged Washington Monument, closed since the 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit the DC area August 23, 2012, was estimated to continue through 2013. External scaffolding was determined by the National Park Service for the complex planned repairs. The Federal Government was paying a $15 million tab. A private $7.5 million donation toward the project was announced. The donation came from Bethesda billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein, managing director of the Carlyle Group. Director of the National Park Service Jonathan Jarvis said David Rubenstein, the estimated $2.7 billionaire, called offering to help even before the building stopped shaking. Rubenstein, the single largest donor of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with gifts in the area of $25 million, explained, America has been good to him. DC's been good to him and his family.

Superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, Bob Vogel, announced the Park Service awarded a contract for the planning phase of the repair to Wiss, Janney Elstner Associates, already begun on the design. The same company used workers suspended from ropes who rappelled down from the Washington Monument top to inspect the exterior of the monument after the quake. The workers reported cracked and chipped stones. They saw cracks up to 1 1/4" wide in the mortar and stone of the obelisk's pyramid shaped top. It was projected the repair contract will be awarded late summer with work expected to begin the challenges of repairing the one-of-a-kind structure with challenges other buildings don't present. Superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, Bob Vogel, said it was likely the Washington Monument would stay closed the whole time the structure was being repaired. Over 600,000 people visit the Washington Monument annually.


THE WATERGATE:
The Vatican vested Luigi Moretti (1907 - 1973) design of the WATERGATE, site of the infamous burglary, is either loved or hated. Its fans call its design fluidity in a boxy city; its critics called it either a beached whale or antipasto on the Potomac. 

WHITE HOUSE:
The WHITE HOUSE was originally called the PRESIDENTs HOUSE.

Some historians speculate President Thomas Jefferson had a pen name he designed under. Then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had ideas how the White House should look. He submitted a design for the Presidents House signing the piece A.Z. 1792 because he did not want his drawing to be accepted or rejected simply because the designer was Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson

The corner stone of the executive mansion, later called the White House, was laid in 1972. Rumor has it the White House outer facade is made from marble. Unlike other Federal buildings in the District, the White House face is Aquia sandstone from an Aquia Creek quarry in Stafford County Virginia. The grey malliable stone was transported up the creek to the Potomac River. The grey stone cracked and discolored soon after construction was completed in 1800. The solution to cover up the cracks and discoloration was to paint the house white, earning the President's House the nickname the WHITE HOUSE. The name was made official in 1901.

WHITE HOUSE EASTER EGG ROLL:
The White House Easter Egg Roll is an annual event. It began as a US Capitol, tradition in 1878 during the B. Hayes’ administration before the Easter Egg Roll was moved to the White House South Lawn. Lawmakers at the US Capitol had a tight landscaping budget. The Easter Egg Roll left the Capitol lawn a mess. Presidents and First Families appear during the morning hours for a short time. Media is brought to and restricted to a riser keeping them back from mingling in the crowd of attendees. Easter 1923, President and First Lady Florence Harding did not show up, instead, their surrogate was the First Airedale Laddie Boy to entertain the attending children. Each administration imprints their own tradition on the event. First Lady Pat Nixon unveiled the First Easter Bunny. First Lady Rosalyn Carter brought farm animals. First Lady Nancy Reagan brought clowns and Hollywood characters. First Lady Michelle Obama incorporated her “Let’s Move” initiative in to the event with basketball and tennis training stations, football and baseball obstacle courses, yoga and a Farmer’s market. Over 30,000 people attended the ticketed event that spans over 11 hours. Over 205,739 tickets were requested through the online lottery. Tickets for allotted time arrivals and departures are distributed by online lottery. People including famous people come to the event. Reese Witherspoon, Colbie Caillat, Kelly Ripa, Miley Cirus, the Jonas Brothers and Sesame Street’s Elmo have attended the event. Most celebrities perform for free. The taxpayer picks up the cost of the National Park Service and Secret Service, Each guest leaves with a gift bag enclosing a candy Easter egg and a collectible wooden egg stamped with an autograph of the sitting President. Easter Egg event stations include food tasting, races with the Washington Nationals Racing Presidents, performance stage, reading stations hosted by politicos and stars. The recent White House Easter Eggstravaganza started at 7:30am ending at 6:20pm to fit in 5 groups of 6,000 guests given 2 hours to enjoy the White House tradition. The cost of the event is not disclosed by the White House. Some say the event is underwritten by corporate donors.

WHITE HOUSE GARDEN:
W/in a few short weeks of being outed by Culinary Queen Paula Deen as a Fried Food Demon Crown Publishing Group publisher Maya Mavjee released news that First Lady Michelle Obamas 4 color hardcover book  AMERICAN GROWN: HOW THE WHITE HOUSE KITCHEN GARDEN INSPIRES FAMILIES SCHOOLS & COMMUNITIES will be released in April. Mrs Obama will not earn an advance for her book stating all net or after tax author proceeds will go to a TBD charity. Mrs Obama will retell how her daughters were catalyst for the Obama family eating better inspiring Mrs Obama to plant an edible garden on the South Lawn the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s ‘Victory Garden’ planted during World War II. Mrs Obama hopes to get a movement going to create Community School & Urban gardens support local farmers’ markets & make small lifestyle changes to achieve big health results. The Obamas personal chef hands on responsible for the Obamas healthy eating in Chicago before the Obamas relocated to Washington DC relocated to DC along w the Obama family & in to the White House.

WILLARD HOTEL:
Abraham Lincoln stayed at the Willard Hotel prior to his inauguration.
Martin Luther King Jr completed his I HAVE A DREAM speech at the Willard Hotel.
Ulysses S Grant enjoyed cigar and brandy at the Willard Hotel.

WMATA:
The Metro Board Staff  is preparing for service changes to the Blue and Yellow lines along with the 2013 opening of the Silver Line of the Dulles Airport rail line to Tysons Corner and Reston. In July 2011, the DC Board adopted to have a well-known primary name no longer than 19 characters for each Metro station; the primary names of transfer stations will be limited to 13 characters. Each stop also has a secondary name; New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U stop aka New York Ave to NoMa-Gallaudet U; Navy Yard will become Navy Yard-Ballpark; King Street will become King St-Old Town; SEU will be dropped from the Waterfront-SEU stop’s name, because Southeastern University no longer exists.

Three station names exceeding the 19-character limit  are grandfathered in because riders have a strong connection Grosvenor-Strathmore, Georgia Ave-Petworth and Franconia-Springfield. The new Metro map will have a new design format for stations with the primary name before the slash on its own line including Addison Road/Seat Pleasant, Archives/Navy Mem’l-Penn Quarter, Dunn Loring/Merrifield, Gallery Place/Chinatown, Mt. Vernon Sq/7th Street-Convention Center, U Street/African American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo, Vienna/Fairfax-GMU, West Falls Church/VT/UVA, Woodley Park/Zoo/Adams Morgan. The universal “hospital” symbol was added to Forest Glen, Foggy Bottom-GMU and Medical Center station names indicating there are medical facilities nearby.

WW I MEMORIAL:
DCs WW I MEMORIAL was rededicated November 10 2011 80 years after its original dedication in front of President Herbert Hoover. The WW I MEMORIAL, located west of the WW II MEMORIAL, a jewel in the crown of local memorial architecture, was lost on the Mall, across the street from the multimillion dollar MLK Memorial and a stone’s throw from the WWII Memorial, buried behind overgrown trees, without lighting, a way finding it or inclusion on National Mall maps.

The WWI domed Peristyle Doric Temple, funded by the people of the District of Columbia, was dedicated at eleven o'clock on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1931, the 13th anniversary of Armistice Day. The WWI Memorial was designed by Frederick H. Brooke and Nathan C. Wyeth to memorialize local heroes regardless of sex, race, or class. It honors DCs 20000 residents who served during WW I. 449 DC residents gave the ultimate sacrifice in WW I. It is the first memorial on the Mall where each name etched in to the white marble Memorial remembered all local heroes who gave their lives serving the nation in World War I. The President was accompanied by WW I hero Army General John J Pershing. The WW I MEMORIAL funded by DC residents, was under the care of the National Park Service. Overgrown and neglected, the WW I Memorial was in disrepair. Months were spent restoring the elegant 47' tall domed columned WW I MEMORIAL. 

The local paper the Washington Star published “The War Memorial”, an editorial thinking ahead to future generations "it is a pleasing thought to believe that when many, many years have rolled over the hill and the children of our children pause a moment over the names carved on this memorial they can look about them… and say, 'they built well.”

The Memorial deteriorated over the years. The local and federal government  disagreed over who was responsible for maintaining the site. It was determined responsibility for the Memorial fell to the National Park Service, an agency short on funds and available resources. It was determined over one million dollars was needed to restore the Memorial. The DC Preservation League brought attention to the Memorial by listing it in its list of Most Endangered Places for Washington DC in 2003 and again 2006. The National Park Service included the WWI Memorial in its list for funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. $3.6 million money for repairs was made available by DC Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the WW I Memorial Foundation and the Trust For The National Mall through federal stimulus funding. Once the renovation was completed and under the stewardship by the National Park Service, the Memorial was removed from DCPL’s list of Most Endangered Places.

The last WWI veteran Frank Buckles died in West Virginia December 2011 as the debate on the future of the WWI on the National Mall brews. The Memorial’s July 28 2014 Centennial is looming. For years the debate was whether to designate the DC War Memorial or Kansas City Liberty Memorial as the national monument to WWI. After Buckles died a Federal Bill established a WWI Centennial Commission seeking to designate DC’s Memorial as the Nation’s monument. The Association of Oldest Inhabitants thinks Pershing Park in downtown DC should be the site of the WWI memorial arguing Pershing Park located kitty corner to the Treasury Building and across the street from the Willard Hotel and DC City Hall is better suited for the site. A statue of General John Pershing who commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in France stands there decorated with quotations from the General’s speeches. President of the Association William Brown suggested holding a design competition requesting more symbols of WWI be added commemorating the Army, Navy and Nurse corps. The WWI Memorial was originally named the DC War Memorial. It was located on the Mall and built with money from DC residents which, because of the moratorium on building on the National Mall, some say, makes it the only chance for the Nation to have a National WWI Memorial on the Mall.

A bipartisan proposal to convert DC's WWI Memorial in to a National WWI Memorial put forth by Congressional leaders was hammered by DC's Council cited as Congress meddling in the District's affairs. DC's Mayor Vince Grey and DC's Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton held a news conference on Capitol Hill stating they were insulted for DC by the House Committee's proposal and the proposal put forth in the Senate by West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller. 





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