Washington, DC

Basic Visitor Information for Visiting the Newseum

Location: 555 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.

Nearest Metro Stops: The nearest is Archived/Navy Memorial served by the Yellow and Green Lines. Judiciary Square on the Red Line is also pretty close. The closest Blue and Orange Line stop is Smithsonian and is still a very doable walk.

Hours: 9am to 5pm Daily, closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day

Admission: 6 and younger are free, for ages 7 to 12 it is $13, for ages 13 to 64 it is $20, and for ages 65 and older it is $18, annual membership is $75 and includes 10% store discount and unlimited access to Be a TV Reporter as well as unlimited entry to the Newseum

Accessibility: There are several sets of elevators conveniently located throughout the Newseum, however I did notice that there is very little maneuvering space to get to the elevator by the Early News exhibit on the sixth floor, as one person barely got through the hallway and it was not even a wide wheelchair. Other than that, though, it appears pretty open, but it was obviously hard for those here during the Grand Opening because of the crowds.

Photography: Flash photography is permitted in most areas. A few exhibit areas do not allow any photography or videography at all, such as the News History exhibit.

Continue reading for info on the exhibits and theaters at the Newseum. (more…)

I had planned to get to the Newseum Grand Opening early and see the block party festivities, but since I was at the Nats game last night I did not get to bed until midnight. Then this morning I was on target to leave my apartment by 8am, but I got distracted by of all things writing my Nats game wrap up post about last night’s game. Thus I got to the Newseum just as they were shooting off the confetti as a sign of the opening, although the doors did not open for another 10 minutes when it was actually 9am. When I got there the line was on Pennsylvania past the Canadian Embassy next door and it was just as long when I left the Newseum around noon. By the way it only took 30 minutes to get inside, which is pretty fast considering everyone in front of me has to go through one of only two metal detectors (i.e. you actually take all the metal stuff out of your pockets and put in a plastic bag they provide or your own backpack/purse and not like the Smithsonian where most of the time the metal detectors are off and you just have your bag searched).

Once inside the Newseum it was kind of crowded throughout my visit and especially annoying where all the school groups that were hard to slip past or just plain were in the way. I think it is great that school groups visit this museum, but they allowed way too many to come in the group entrance today when there was also a very big crowd coming in as non-groups on Pennsylvania Avenue. I think they realized this, though, and were addressing the issue because near when I was leaving I overheard one of the workers saying to stagger the groups more because there was still a lot of people at the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. Also, the school groups were overall not obnoxious, but it was just that they moved in big masses and were impossible to negotiate past when they were at a standstill or cross there path when you were trying to go opposite of where they were headed.

In the almost three hours I was at the Newseum I definitely did not see everything, but it was kind of hard to get up to the displays sometimes because of the crowd and I often felt the crowd pushing you along even when you were not ready to move on. I did still enjoy the Newseum and believe it is worth the normal $20 admission, although I am glad to have gotten in free today. I think there will be less crowds when there is admission and they will do a little better job of controlling the amount of people inside at a time then, which they were doing a little, but not enough.

One of the best things about the Newseum is the interactive exhibits. One I personally tried was the Be A Reporter one in which you interview characters to get the facts on a new story in a video game like environment on a touch screen monitor. There are headphones to listen to what the characters are saying, however they are kind of loud and I could not get the volume part to work to lower it. You do not need the headphones, though, because the text of what they say also appears on the screen. Another cool interactive thing is this thing where you float your hand above it to move you character to answer ethical questions.

One of the highlight exhibits is the 9/11 exhibit. Another is the Berlin Wall and Guard Tower. I will have more about the specific exhibits in my Special Topic Tuesday post on April 15.

Last summer when my family came to D.C. on vacation I thought of taking my little brother to the Newseum because I remember enjoying it on my 8th grade trip back in 2001 and I thought he would enjoy it. Well, that was when I discovered it was no longer open in Rosslyn. We soon learned it was being moved when we walked by the construction site on our way to the International Spy Museum (big disappointing attraction by the way!). Since then I had forgotten about the museum (I was not blogging on D.C. back then) and I was just reminded of it watching the news earlier this week. The Newseum is opening to the public at its new location in downtown D.C. tomorrow, April 11, 2008. Best of all it is a free admission day (meaning I plan to go and probably be doing a post about it tomorrow or it will be next week’s Special Topic Tuesday or both like I did with the Lincoln Cottage).

Before the 9am opening there will be a block party from 7am to 8:45am on Pennsylvania Avenue between 4th and 6th Streets. This will include The Newseum News Hound (mascot, I assume), New York Express Roller Dance Company, caricatures, historical newspeople, and free refreshments.

The museum has 14 galleries including The New York Times–Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News; News Corporation News History Gallery; NBC News Interactive Newsroom; 9/11 Gallery; Internet, TV and Radio Gallery; Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery; Berlin Wall Gallery (this is one of the main galleries I remember from seeing the old museum, it has a section of the wall); Cox Enterprises First Amendment Gallery; Time Warner World News Gallery; Pulliam Family Great Books Gallery; Today’s Front Pages Gallery; Journalists Memorial; ABC News Changing Exhibits Gallery; and Hank Greenspun Terrace on Pennsylvania Avenue.

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The new temporary exhibit called In the Forest of Fontainbleu: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet opens today (February 29) at the National Gallery of Art East Building. It runs until June 8, 2008. This exhibit contains over 100 paintings, pastels, and photos that represent “the pivotal role of the forest of Fontainbleu in the development of 19th-century naturalistic landscape painting and early photography.” The forest became a place where painter came to paint in the 1820s and in the 1830s it became an informal artists colony that led to the Barbizon School artistic movement. Fontainbleu is known as the first nature preserve that served as a model for national parks in Europe and the United States. Artists with works in this exhibit include Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Thèodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, and Claude Monet.

Today, February 8, 2008, a new exhibit at the National Archives also opens. It is called Running for Office: Candidates, Campaigns, and the Cartoons of Clifford Berryman. The exhibit will remain on display until August 17, 2008. This exhibit falls in with the 2008 Presidential campaign season, in particular, the primaries that are already in full swing. The exhibit shows the time line of running for President from candidates announcing their candidacy to the final outcome of the election. It uses pen and ink drawings done by Clifford Berryman as the illustrations and main artifacts on display in this exhibit. His campaign drawings in the exhibit appeared on the front page of the Washington Post between 1898 through 1948. Thus these are historical and to some extent are not representative of how campaigning works today, however you will probably also notice some things that are familiar with the campaigning today.

Top 5 Things I did in D.C. in 2007

A new exhibit opened today at the National Gallery of Art. It is located in the West Building in the special exhibit galleries on the ground floor near the west entrance to the building. This exhibit is titled Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives 1840-1860. This exhibit displays over 100 British photos that were developed from paper negatives. This format is known as calotypes and were mostly used for only about 15 years from its invention in 1839. The photos displayed include some taken by British gentlemen traveling to places such as the Middle East and Asia. Specific photographers that have works in this exhibit include Roger Fenton, Linnaeus Tripe, and B. B. Turner. The exhibit will be on display until May 4, 2008.

This is the last week for this special exhibit on display at the Stephan Decatur House Museum. The Gifts from the World to the White House: Caroline Kennedy’s Doll Collection 1961-1963 is a fun small exhibit, especially for young girls. To go up and see the exhibit you must buy a ticket in the Decatur Museum Shop. Tickets cost $5 per person. You then present the ticket to the docent at the desk near the Museum entrance and directed up the elevator. The exhibit closes this Sunday, February 3, 2008.

The collection displays some of the different dolls given to Caroline Kennedy while she lived in the White House during her father’s (John F. Kennedy) presidency. Many of the dolls are accompanied by a sign that describes the meetings that took place between ambassadors and heads of states of different countries with the President and/or First Lady in which they received the dolls. This colection contains over 70 dolls from over 30 countries.

The exhibit is pretty small and can easily be seen in only 15 minutes. Even if you take your time and read all the signs it is not likely to take you more than 30 minutes to see the exhibit. It is however still worth seeing and the money from the exhibit does help go to the good
cause of funding the renovations of the Decatur House.

While you are in the area you can stroll through Lafayette Park and take in the view of the White House. On the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the block you can also visit the small Renwick Gallery that is part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

D.C., dolls, Kennedy, museum

The Bronze and Boxwood: Renaissance Masterpieces from the Robert H. Smith Collection temporary exhibit opens at the National Gallery of Art today (January 27th) and continues through May 4, 2008. This exhibit is in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. The exhibit contains bronze sculptures along with boxwood and ivory carvings including some that are recent additions to the Robert H. Smith Collection. One of the new additions is an early cast of Giovanni Bologna’s Cesarini Venus. The Robert H. Smith Collection has not been on display at the National Gallery of Art since 2002, thus many people have not seen them or do not really remember them. Plus even if you have seen them there are the new additions that are worthwhile to see if you enjoyed the exhibit back in 2002. Certainly a worthwhile indoor exhibit to enjoy while it is still winter and before all the outdoor spring gardens and cherry blossoms become the thing to see in D.C.

National Gallery of Arts: Basic Visitor Information

Gallery of Art, bronze, sculptures, D.C.

Today I went to the National Archives to check out the special National Treasure activities as part of the Real National Treasure (II) Family Day Celebration. The main activity was the National Archives Treasure Hunt 2: Book of Real Secrets Edition. The treasure hunt had you look at different documents and videos to match the clues with the right item they described. Some clues were easy and others required more thinking. They served as a fun way to learn about different parts of history and the items in the National Archives. To figure out if you got the clues matched up correctly you had to use something to break a number code and thus discover the answer to a question relating to a historic situation. Overall a lot of fun to do and great for the family to do together with parents helping kids decipher the clues and match them up with the items. According to the website the treasure hunt is available to do until January 1st. You just need to pickup the map and clue paper in the lobby as you enter the National Archives and proceed to the Public Vaults exhibit to locate the information you need. (more…)

Today I went to the United States Botanic Gardens to check out the special Christmas display. Once I heard that they had mini D.C. buildings made out of all natural sources I just had to see them. Outside the Botanic Gardens is the Starlight Express train display that is pretty amazing with a lot of different trains running on it over and through mountains as well as across bridges. I noticed several parents had a hard time getting the children to even go inside the Botanic Gardens because the children wanted to keep watching the trains outside.

Inside the Botanic Gardens probably is not as impressive to the kids as the trains outside, but it is still impressive. The inside exhibit includes a Christmas tree with Capital Hill Residential Neighborhood house replicas surrounding the base of the tree and a train going around it. These residences are made out of natural materials such as walnut shells for window frames and lotus pods and branches as architectural details.

There is also a replica of several D.C. buildings laid out relatively the same way they are in relation to each other on a map. The building replicas include the US Botanic Garden, the Library of Congress, the US Supreme Court, Ford’s Theater, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian Castle, the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House. All are elaborately detailed, but the highlight is the Capitol building. The Capitol replica includes corn husks in the Statue of Freedom, acorn caps in the architectural details, kangaroo pods in the dome, cinnamon sticks in the windows, willow branches in the columns, and horse chestnut bark in the stairs to just name a few of the plants in the replica.

Christmas, D.C., botanic gardens

This exhibit that opened at the National Gallery of Art last month on October 7th. The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978 continues until the end of the year on December 31, 2007. As a someone who enjoys photography I found this a very interesting exhibit to walk through. The exhibit is full of interesting photographs dating from as far back as 1888. This year is chosen as the beginning of the time line for the exhibit for the significance of 1888 being the year that the first Kodak camera and roll film was introduced. One of the intersting things I learned about early Kodak cameras is that the film was not removed by the user, but rather the whole camera was mailed to Kodak, the film removed and developed, and then the camera returned with a fresh roll of film. It was this camera that first allowed for more than just professional photographers. It was also more portable making it easier to use in spur of moment situations and thus the snapshot was born.

The exhibit is organized in a way that takes you along the time line of the evolution of snapshot photography. Just by walking through the exhibit you can see how more of the photos are like what we would today think of as a snapshot compared to some of the earlier photos being more posed shots. It is also interesting to see the different types of development, such as cyanotype that made the photo have a blue tinge and was also the easiest way of development. Other types of development include gelatin and silver. There are even some that were colored by hand. Then there were the ones towards the end of the exhibit that were really color using color film and development. There is also the increasing ability for snapshots using Polaroid cameras and the first instant cameras.

Do not forget you can win an autographed book in the November Comment Contest.

Weekly Topics

D.C., art, photography

The current special exhibit at the National Archives is titled School House to White: The Education of the Presidents. It is a very interesting and worth checking out, especially with kids. The exhibit brings together many of the different school documents that the National Archives has relating to the education of the past and present leaders of the United States. It focuses exclusively on the Presidents that went to school in the 20th century (i.e. 1900s). The exhibit goes in order of the school system from elementary to high school to college. Interestingly enough for most of the time period that these Presidents went to school it was still rare for students to continue through college, yet all of these presidents did go to college.

The greatest feature is the signs that ask questions and challenge you to use the documents shown to figure out the answer to the questions. Some items on display include report cards and essays. Towards the end of the exhibit is an area showing different extracurriculars from music to theater to sports. The most interesting aspect I found was the lockers that you opened to see a sports team photo. It asked you to try and find the president in the photo and you then pressed a button that lit him up to show which one he was on the team. Also, I liked the end of the exhibit about memories that included a school scrapbook of John F. Kennedy’s time at Choate from 1933-1935 and a movie running with President’s talking of their school days

This special exhibit is on display until January 1, 2008, so there is still plenty of time to go and see it.

November Comment Contest

Weekly Topics

D.C., archives, school house

Today was the first day Madame Tussauds Wax Museum’s Washington, D.C. location was open, so after work I headed over to see the museum while the price was still only $10.

The museum does not have a very big collection, but it is very fun to see. The wax models look pretty realistic and you are encouraged to get up close, touch, and take photos with the figures. I thought it was really fun to see some of the Presidents in wax such as George Washington and FDR. The museum also has some fun interactive things. I really enjoyed the interactive stations that had quizzes. My favorite quiz I did was the Presidents in the military one. Another good one was on the making of the wax figures. Actually the whole exhibit area on the making of the wax figures was amazing, especially with the history timeline of Madame Tussauds herself and how the whole wax museum attractions that bear her name got started. I had no idea that Madame Tussaud the person dated back to the French Revolution and that she actually in person did wax moldings with Ben Franklin. Continue reading for visiting information and photos. (more…)

Today the J.M.W. Turner exhibit opens at the National Gallery of Art. This exhibit features the art of James Mallord William Turner, which is kind of obvious from the name of the exhibit. He lived in the late 1700s and the first half of the 1800s (1776-1851 to be exact). Turner was a British artist “known for his technical brilliance and startling use of light and color, he incorporated learned references to literature, mythology, and historical events in his pictures” (NGA website). His medium of art was painting, especially using watercolors. The National Gallery of Art exhibit contains over 140 of his paintings making it the largest exhibit of his works to ever be displayed within the United States. (more…)

The Edward Hopper exhibit opens at the National Gallery of Art tomorrow (September 16, 2007). This exhibit boasts as being a comprehensive survey of this artist’s career and the first one to be displayed outside of New York in over 25 years. The exhibit includes some of his most famous paintings including the 1927 Drugstore and 1942 Nighthawks. There is also a film associated with the exhibit. This temporary exhibit is planned to stay on display until January 21, 2008.