Several New Sights In DC Attract Tourists

The National World War II Memorial is a spectacular tribute to the men and women who served in the great war.

The familiar gripe “Same-old, same-old” may apply to politics in Washington, D.C., but not to tourism. This citizen, returning to the nation’s capital last December after a mere two-year absence, could only marvel at all the new tourist attractions there were to see.

At the time of my visit, the Wash-ington Nationals had not yet taken the field at RFK Stadium for the resumption of Major League Baseball in the capital for the first time in 34 years. What lured me to the D.C. area were several new sights added to the museum and monument roster on the National Mall.

High on my must-see list was the National Museum of the American In-dian. Built on what was supposedly the mall’s “last available property,” near the U.S. Capitol building and across from the National Gallery of Art, the museum doesn’t conform to the neighborhood’s reigning neoclassical style. The curvilinear building, clad in copper-toned limestone, instead evokes a Southwest landscape of bold, natural rock formations.

Even more unique is what goes on inside the five-story building—a wide-ranging series of themed exhibits that allow Native Americans to be the in-terpreters, not just the subject, of their history and traditions. Yes, many ob-jects on display have been seen in other museum settings: colorful ceremonial drums, headdresses and masks, native hunters’ bows and arrows and traded-up single-shot rifles. But the range, depth and presentation of the exhibits are so much richer here. On a giant wall, for example, a thousand arrow points (some 10,000 years old) are mounted to show how different points were utilized for hunting different animals, while an electronic display board lets you zoom in and read up on individual objects without straining your eyes.

Expressions of traditional Native American wisdom — “The drum is the heartbeat of Mother Earth,” “We are spiritual beings on a human journey” — add understanding to many of the exhibits.

The museum also presents the Na-tive Americans’ often tragic history—deadly plagues, broken treaties and loss of land and exile—that followed the Europeans’ arrival in the New World. Most compelling are the video clips documenting how various tribes today, from Alaska to Chile, strive against all odds to maintain their traditions, languages and a sense of community.

Continuing on foot past the Wash-ington Monument in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial, I next came to the mall’s other newcomer, the National World War II Memorial. Its location and design stirred up controversy, but nobody can deny that this tribute to the 16 million Americans who (as an announcement stone proclaims) “took up the struggle” and “made the sacrifices” to preserve liberty and justice is anything but monumental.

Admittedly, the WWII memorial plaza, with its 56 encircling 17-foot-tall granite pillars, seemed almost too stand-at-attention formal on first sight—at least when compared to the nearby, more intimate Vietnam Veterans Memorial, with its undulating polished black granite walls, and the Korean War Veterans Memorial, where a stainless-steel squad of 19 armed soldiers are deposited on the grassy mall, warily and perpetually on patrol.

A mood of quiet reverence gradually enveloped me, however, as I made a slow, circular tour of the WWII plaza. Ascending a ramp to the pavilion labeled “Atlantic,” I looked across a lovely reflecting pool and waterworks toward the other pavilion and major theater of war — “Pacific.” Each pavilion bears inscriptions on its walls recalling memorable battle sites such as Anzio, Normandy, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima. The 56 pillars symbolize the unity of the 48-state nation and its territories in the world conflict. And 4,000 sculpted gold stars on a commemorative wall honor the more than 400,000 Americans who died in battle.

An America united is brought into focus graphically in a series of 24 bas-relief sculpture panels mounted at the entrance to the memorial, depicting everything from the bond rallies on the home front to the landing on Normandy’s beaches.

To survey all of the nation’s conflicts under one roof, I crossed the mall to the National Museum of American History, where a new permanent exhibition, “The Price of Freedom,” had just been installed. Exhibits there range from the amusing (the stuffed carrier pigeon, “Cher Ami,” honored by the French for delivering messages across front lines in World War I) to the imaginative (the living room setup with TV screens airing news footage of the “television war,” Vietnam) to the chilling (a crushed air phone, retrieved from Flight 93 that terrorists crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept.11, 2001).

Across the Potomac River in Vir-ginia is an attraction for all ages—the National Air & Space Museum’s new repository for some of its biggest aviation and space artifacts. The Udvar-Hazy Center, located near Dulles In-ternational Airport, consists of two huge, connected hangars. Size isn’t everything: I found myself enjoying the display case with the economy-size tube of borscht that sustained early Soviet astronauts as much as the 122-foot-long Space Shuttle Enterprise and the solo-operated sport gliders hanging from the rafters as well as the sleek Air France Concorde bestride the concrete floor.