6th and Constitution Ave NW
It has obviously been a while since I walked by because I didn’t even know all the scaffolding had come down. It’s not totally finished because construction fences are still up but you can see it’s looking sweet as ever:
More photos after the jump. (more…)
I’ve always thought President Lincoln’s Cottage should get more exposure. Glad to see this addition at the entrance on the corner of Upshur and Rock Creek Church Rd, NW.
From the Museum of Science Fiction:
“In spring 2013, Executive Director Greg Viggiano began speaking with people about creating a museum for science fiction in Washington, DC. The response has been very enthusiastic. Greg quickly found science fiction fans of all stripes that were willing to share their professional talents and time to move the project forward.
Within six short months, a diverse team of 38 volunteers has accomplished key first milestones and worked on a long-term plan for making the museum a reality—making significant progress on everything from curatorial aspects such as gallery design and visitor experience to the non-profit management areas of development, project management, education, information technology, public relations, marketing, finance, accounting, and legal compliance.
We are unified by a shared vision. We want to build a museum, an experience that does justice to the breadth and richness of science fiction history, where we preserve that history in perpetuity and inspire visitors to embrace the genre and its ideas. As a first step, we are developing a 3,000-square-foot preview museum where we can test exhibit concepts and new interactive technologies to share a real-time look into this grassroots effort. We have begun our site selection process. We expect to open the full-scale facility within 24 to 36 months.”
You can see a fundraiser page for the Museum of Science Fiction: Preview Location here.
Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid via wikipedia
From a press release:
“The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is pleased to announce the reopening of its Mezzanine Café. Located in the museum’s elegant building at 1250 New York Avenue, NW in Washington, D.C., the café will be open for weekday lunches from 11 a.m.–2 p.m. The menu includes Caesar salads with smoked salmon or grilled chicken, a Wagyu burger, a roasted vegetable flatbread with marinated eggplant and a quiche du jour. Dishes run from $8–15.
The café owner Iliana Paravalou is joined by her husband Pantelis Paravalos and her parents Effie and Christos Damigos, who ran a café for The Star Ledger newspaper in Newark, N.J. for 15 years.
“We are honored to work alongside NMWA on its beautiful mezzanine level, which provides a lovely, relaxing atmosphere for patrons,” said Paravalou. “We provide excellent customer service and look forward to offering a menu of rotating seasonal items, including weekly specials inspired by Italian and French recipes. We craft in-house dressings and vinaigrettes and serve top-quality Wagyu meat.”
To welcome new patrons, the Mezzanine Café will offer a free coffee, tea or soda with purchase when the code “opening” is used through Nov. 8, 2013. Reservations are available at 202-628-1068. Walk-in customers are welcome. There is no museum admission fee in order to visit the café.”
Photo courtesy of National Museum of Women in the Arts
Museum Minute is written by Elle O’Flaherty. Elle lives in Mt. Pleasant and previously wrote about Lincoln’s Cottage.
Until recently, I didn’t realized there is an African American Civil War Museum tucked behind the African American Civil War Memorial off of U Street (it was actually kind of hard to find, 1935 Vermont Ave., NW). The name is a bit of a misnomer as it actually covers the African American experience from slavery through present day. The museum had lots of stories I had never heard such as the free African American women who were spies for the Union and voluntarily served as slaves in Confederate houses in order to gather information. In my opinion, you don’t hear a lot about women, let alone African American women, in most museums. It was refreshing and I really appreciated learning about it.
The exhibits unfold much like a book and it’s heavy on text with some photos and a few objects. While very interesting and information heavy, be prepared to take your time and read as you go. Due to that, the museum may be better suited to older children. This Saturday, October 5 at 11 am (and the first Saturday of every month), the descendants of Civil War soldiers will present information on their ancestors and the process of researching their relatives. I recommend visiting for a different perspective than you’ll see at a lot of DC museums.
@Heurich House Museum tweets us:
“Closed today due to massive gas leak outside museum (thanks DDOT).”
The Heurich House Museum is located at 1307 New Hampshire Ave NW. It is also awesome.
From a press release:
“The Newseum has revealed the design of “Anchorman: The Exhibit,” which features props, costumes and footage from the 2004 hit comedy “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.” The exhibit, created in partnership with Paramount Pictures, will open on Nov. 14, just weeks before the film’s highly anticipated sequel “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” hits theaters on Dec. 20.
Entering the exhibit, visitors will be greeted by a giant display case featuring the iconic burgundy business suit worn by fictional newscaster Ron Burgundy, played by Will Ferrell. Towering more than eight feet tall, the revolving display will provide a fitting entry point for this one-of-a-kind exhibit. Throughout the exhibit, visitors will see other reminders of Ron’s reporting prowess and personal style, including his license plate, which reads “IM #1,” three local Emmy awards for excellence in news reporting, his mustache brush, jazz flute and other classic props used in the hit movie. Props from “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” will be added to the exhibit shortly before the sequel’s Dec. 20 release.
The exhibit also will feature costumes worn by members of the Channel 4 News team, along with field reporter Brian Fantana’s (played by Paul Rudd) Sex Panther cologne, a stuffed prop version of Ron’s dog Baxter in Channel 4 pajamas, weatherman Brick Tamland’s (played by Steve Carell) eyeglasses and more.
Nearby, Ron will provide intros to the Newseum’s popular Be a TV Reporter experience, and budding news anchors can have their photos taken behind a replica of the Channel 4 News desk.
The exhibit also will explore the reality behind the film’s humor. Local TV news promotional ads from the 1970s will be on display along with photos of popular news teams of the day. Before today’s 24/7 news cycle, local TV anchors ruled the airwaves, and the anchor chair was for men only. But dramatic changes hit local TV news in the 1970s when women stepped up to the anchor desk, and news teams took over.”
Anchorman Floor plan courtesy of the Newseum
Museum Minute is written by Elle O’Flaherty. Elle lives in Mt. Pleasant and previously wrote about the National Children’s Museum.
This Saturday, September 21st the good folks at President Lincoln’s Cottage will throw a Family Day celebration complete with tours of the cottage and make-your-own top hats (140 Rock Creek Church Rd./Upshur). The festivities will also include a civil war encampment, period stories, live music, and a military drill team. I went last year and not only did I learn a bit about Lincoln, but I got to pet a goat, too.
There was also pie. Yummy, yummy pie. The grounds have a gorgeous view of the city and, along with a tons of delicious food for sale, they’re cool with bringing your own picnic. On a more serious note, the current special exhibit “Can You Walk Away?” about modern human trafficking is excellent and worth seeing before it closes in December. Full disclosure, my friend curated the exhibit, but it really is thought provoking and you’ll probably need a hug afterwards. Or pie.
Photo courtesy National Air and Space Museum
From the Air and Space museum:
“Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex on the Flight of Birds
Opens September 13, 2013 through October 22, 2013
Admission is free, but timed tickets are required during the first week (September 13 through 19).
You may obtain free timed tickets at the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater or the museum store outlet inside the Independence Avenue entrance.
To reserve timed tickets in advance, call (866) 868-7774 or order tickets online. Service fees apply to advance online and phone orders. Please check this website for changes to this policy.
Leonardo da Vinci created masterpieces of art and sculpture. Equally remarkable, his aggregate achievements in engineering, mathematics, anatomy, geology, physics, music, military technology, aeronautics, and a wide range of other fields, not only stood without peer in his own time, but were strikingly prescient for the distant future. He recorded his forward-looking ideas in thousands of notebook pages, known as codices. He produced one codex entirely on flight in 1505-1506, the Codex on the Flight of Birds.
Among the many subjects Leonardo studied, the possibility of human mechanical flight held particular fascination. He produced more than 35,000 words and 500 sketches dealing with flying machines, the nature of air, and bird flight. In the Codex on the Flight of Birds Leonardo outlined a number of observations and beginning concepts that would find a place in the development of a successful airplane in the early twentieth century.
Hundreds of years before any real progress toward a practical flying machine was achieved, Leonardo expressed the seeds of the ideas that would lead to humans spreading their wings. This extraordinary document, exhibited outside of Italy only a few times, will be displayed in The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age gallery. The Codex exhibit will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to appreciate the genius of da Vinci in the same space as the Wright Flyer, which made the airplane a reality four centuries after the Leonardo produced the Codex on the Flight of Birds.”
Ed. Note: You can see all events here and you can schedule your own event listing here.
Museum Minute is written by Elle O’Flaherty. Elle lives in Mt. Pleasant and previously wrote about the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
I was pretty excited to take my kid to the National Children’s Museum at National Harbor, but after going once I won’t be in a hurry to return. For starters, entrance for two adults and one kid over 12 months will run you $30. That’s a lot of dough in the city of mostly free museums. Once we got in and poked around we realized the museum is really small without all that much to it. It kind of reminded me of a large, fancy daycare. They’re trying to give the “exhibits” an educational spin, but really they’re run of the mill children’s activities. For instance, one exhibit is about what people wear around the world, but it’s just pictures of kimonos, saris, and the like with cheap cotton kimonos, etc. the kids can try on. The next area over features what people eat which is, again, just pictures and a few puzzles of international food along with a kitchen play area. It felt chintzy and way overpriced, like paying to hang out at that one friend’s house whose parents bought too many toys.
I should say that the kids all seemed to be having a good time and my daughter, who was probably a bit young for it at just under ten months, enjoyed the outing. However, if you’re looking for an incredible children’s museum and don’t mind a drive, I highly recommend the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond instead. Now that is an awesome museum which, for about the same price, is huge and has real educational exhibits as well as a nice IMAX theater. In contrast, the National Children’s Museum (much like everything at National Harbor, as far as I can tell) was just designed to part you from your money.