Saturday, November 14, 2009
The subway took us close to the Capitol, only a short walk to the new Visitor Center below the Capitol. We had to go through the usual security check which we now were used to. There were many statues in the Visitor Center. Here we were able to sign up for a tour starting with a movie. The guide then brought us to the Rotunda - the physical heart of the US Capitol - a circular room connecting the House and Senate sides. The dome is 180 feet high. It is just beautiful. The picture on the inner dome shows George Washington ascending to heaven flanked by 15 female figures - two symbolizing Liberty and Victory, the others representing the 13 original states. On top of the dome there is a 19.5 ft statue called Freedom - a copy of which is in the Visitor Center. Prominent citizens may lie in state in the Rotunda. George Washington laid the cornerstone of this building in 1793.
The Rotunda was not completed until 1828. It was delayed due to shortages of funds and materials and the fire set by the British in 1814. That war kept cropping up on our trip through the East Coast.
The National Statuary Hall is a semicircular room. This was the meeting room for the House of Representatives for 50 years. It now contains two statues from each state.
Interestingly, an editorial in the Chronicle (after we returned home) mentions that the two statues - Father Junipero Serra and Thomas Starr King - were chosen in 1913 for California. T.S. King was a Unitarian leader who helped keep the state from siding with the South during the Civil War, raised money for the forerunner of the Red Cross, fought against slavery, raised funds for the victims of disastrous flooding and drought in the Central Valley, defended the rights of the city's Chinese Americans. His church is still standing at Franklin Street and Starr King Way. But according to the editorial, the California lawmakers evicted his statue in 2006 and replaced it with a statue of Ronald Reagan. This disappointed California historians. The Statue has now been moved to Capitol Park in Sacramento.
On the walls were eight large, historic paintings - one of which I think is the one I read about in my book "What they didn't teach you about the American Revolution". That is the famous painting by John Trumbull of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Livingston, and Roger Sherman presenting the Declaration of Independence to John Hancock. Around them are the other members of Congress apparently ready to sign. The picture fits the description. However, the author claims that on the day when the Declaration passed on July 4, 1776, only two persons signed. Most members of Congress signed on August 2 and it is not known when the last one signed. The author calls this "perhaps the greatest myth of the Declaration of Independence". There was a justifiable fear that the British would retaliate against those who signed. It was after all, an act of treason against the lawful government. The New York delegation was ordered by the colonial legislature in Albany not to vote for or against.
Does anybody know if this is the painting? --- I just found the description of the eight paintings on Internet and it is the painting Mike Wright wrote about. But they claim that the Declaration was signed on July 4! Who is right?
Per the internet site:
"John Trumbull
Oil on canvas, 12' x 18'
Commissioned 1817; purchased 1819; placed 1826
Rotunda
This painting depicts the moment on June 28, 1776, when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress. The document stated the principles for which the Revolutionary War was being fought and which remain fundamental to the nation. Less than a week later, on July 4, 1776, the colonial delegates signed the Declaration, setting a milestone in American history."
The next room she showed us was the Old Supreme Court room which has been restored to its mid 19th century appearance.
In the Visitor Center there was a a remarkable cafeteria with all kinds of different, delicious food and a huge salad bar in the middle. You picked whatever you wanted and paid per pound.
From the Visitor Center you could walk to the Library of Congress - the Jefferson Building - via a tunnel under the street. This is a most elaborate building constructed of white Italian marble, stained glass skylights, sweeping arches, columns and statues and more. Our guide was not easy to listen to so my memory is faint. My memory is fuzzy anyway. But I have pictures luckily. We did see the Jefferson Library, which he donated to the government as the British had burned the first library in 1814.
The Library of Congress consists of three buildings where you can find 120 million items, making it the largest library in the world.
From the library we walked around the Supreme Court building with the words Equal Justice for All. The court did not get its own building until 1935. We passed in front of the Capitol with the wings of the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bride and a groom were being photographed there. We continued downhill on Constitution Avenue and suddenly we heard a siren and these metal barricades - normally flat in the street - rose straight up! And police cars arrived. Then the barricades flattened out and everything looked normal again. Who knows what that was about. Jalil thought it was a false alarm.
Our next adventure was the Newseum. It takes you behind the scenes to show how and why news are made. It has six floors to explore, a 4-D cinematic journey through time describing the experiences of three inspiring American journalists. One was a woman who pretended to be mentally sick and was hospitalized which she described so well that there were changes made in mental health care; the other was Ed Morrow's experience in London during World War II; and the third was about the investigative reporter Don Bolles who was killed. There were Pulitzer Prize winning photographs - the largest collection of PP winning photographs ever assembled. This is what we had time to see before they were closing.
On the way out we were studying the map and were discussing - probably rather loudly - how to get to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts quickly. There are free performances daily at 6 PM on the Millennium Stage. A Newseum employee came over and wondered how she could help. She helped us find the subway and where to get off. To our surprise, there was a bus at the subway station with The Kennedy Center written on it. It was a free shuttle to the center! We did arrive in time but there were no seats left. We stood for a while listening to Figaro's Wedding with explanations but soon drifted away. It is too hard to stand up for a long time. We went outside to the fountain near the Potomac River. While there a man from South America approached Jalil and wondered if he wanted a ticket to a concert that night with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Jalil said that he needed two tickets. Jalil suggested that I take the ticket and he would wait for me but that was not acceptable to me. We went to the box office to see if we could buy tickets this late. The Brazilian man was standing nearby and he asked if we got tickets. We said that they were too expensive. He gave me a ticket and Jalil bought one. Jalil sat in the orchestra- "the most expensive seat I ever sat in ($75)- and I sat up higher with the Brazilian couple. They were not very talkative but they told me that they had planned to go with a friend who backed out. We had no idea who this New Zealand soprano was who was performing with a Brian Zeger on the piano. She had a beautiful voice but it was quite long with similar music. Jalil did not appreciate it - "tortuous!" The audience seemed pleased. The woman next to me applauded so loudly that my ear drums hurt. She was calling for an encore - two were done. I thanked the Brazilian couple very much before I went searching for Jalil who was downstairs somewhere. It felt funny to sit in this famous place in running shoes and parka but this was not a planned visit. We had not had time to have dinner so I was nibbling on my oatmeal bar trying not to make any noise during the quiet singing.
I learned later that Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is one of the most famous sopranos in the world. When she sang at the wedding of Prince Charles in St. Paul's Cathedral, she faced one of the largest direct telecast audiences of any singer in history (estimated to be 600 million people). In 2009 she was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of fame. And I did not have a clue who she was! She was born in New Zealand and is related to Maori aristocracy.
On the bus back to the subway, I talked to the man next to me. He told me that there are five stages in the Kennedy Center and today all five were sold out. He had never seen so many people there. Usually you get a seat at the Millenium Stage. The bus took us to the Metro for free again. The train took us one station to Rosslyn; we walked three blocks and then we were in our hotel - not bad! The subway really makes things easy.
