Tudor Place

Washington has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to tourist sites. The monuments and memorials, the Smithsonian museums, the Capitol, and the White House can keep you busy for a weeklong visit. Next there is the second tier of places to see:  Arlington Cemetery, Mount Vernon, Great Falls, and myriad other museums off the Mall such as the Phillips Collection, Hillwood, and the Kreeger. 

And then there's Tudor Place, one of dozens of historic sites that, in the Michelin Guide parlance, is probably not "worth the detour" but maybe "worth a stop." This historic home, which occupies almost a full city block in Georgetown (with an entrance on 31st Street between Q and R Streets), was designed for Martha and Robert Peter by William Thornton, an amateur architect who won the first design competition for the U.S. Capitol. Mrs. Peter was the granddaughter of Martha Washington and the house's furnishings include many items from Mount Vernon.  It stayed in the family until 1983 when the last Mr. Peter died, after having set up a foundation to keep the property intact and open to visitors.

The mansion houses a somewhat eclectic collection of furniture, artwork, china, crystal and other items that date from the Federalist period to mid 20th century. Plus there are the grounds with formal gardens, a garage with a Pierce Arrow roadster, and an expansive lawn that once allowed the residents to see all the way to the busy port on the Potomac (trees and other buildings now impede that view). The guided tour nods to the site's original residents -- members of the Piscataway/Nacotchtank tribes -- and is forthright about its slaveholding past although offers few details on the lives of the dozens of enslaved people who lived there. The narrative mostly focuses on details of the Peter family's history, especially Britannia Peter Kennon, who lived from 1815 to 1911, many of those years onsite. There are colorful anecdotes about the explosion of the USS Princeton in 1843, Confederate cousins playing spy, and use of the property by Union officers during the Civil War.

I wouldn't drop everything to book your visit, but if your wanderings take you to Georgetown to shop, stroll, or dine, consider adding Tudor Place to your itinerary.  

Leonardo at MLK

We don't have free universal health care or higher education but one thing we do have in Washington are plenty of free museums and exhibitions. Although you may be thinking of the various Smithsonian museums (and you should -- they are great!), there are multiple other venues with intriguing and thought provoking offerings.  For example, at the MLK Library, the flagship of the city's public libraries, you can now view 12 original drawings from Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus, a collection of the great man's drawings and notes done between 1478 and 1519.  These are small pen and ink or pencil works detailing various mechanical works. It's a tiny gem of an exhibit that will make you wonder at the man's genius and marvel that he once held these pieces of paper in his hands.  And while you are there, check out the other exhibits as well as the beautifully refurbished building designed by Mies van de Rohe.

Imagining the Future is open to the public seven days a week through August 20th.

Capitol Hill

While the rest of the world knows Capitol Hill as the seat of the U.S. Congress, Washingtonians know that it's also a great neighborhood, at once both intimate and stately, yuppified and rough around the edges. It's where I lived when I arrived in 1983, jobless with little furniture, in a roach infested apartment where the bathroom was in the hall just beyond our locked front door, just above a corner grocery that had seen better days. And it's also the site of my first real Washington home, a rented room in a typical rowhouse, where the landlord quickly became my dear friend, the scene of late nights laughing, creative cooking, and Sade playing on the stereo. And then after that, it was the place where I had my very own apartment, albeit with a one-butt kitchen and no air conditioning.

When the time came to buy a house, my husband and I hopefully looked at several Capitol Hill properties and finally realized we could get more for our money and fewer home renovation worries if we bought a house in Upper Northwest. But my enthusiasm for Capitol Hill has never really waned and it was great to be back there recently, passing by the places I lived, seeing how the neighborhood had both changed and endured.

Green and low rise, lined with nineteenth century mansions and early 20th century rowhomes, Capitol Hill is kind of the place where you know your neighbors because you see them every day walking dogs, tending their tiny yards, and sitting on the stoop, watching the world pass by.   And though parking is at a premium, there's actually precious little traffic except for on a few main arteries like Pennsylvania Avenue and East Capitol Street.

Quiet streets

Great architectural details.

 

Amazingly enough, this quiet alley is just two short blocks from the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress.  It feels like miles and decades away from the hustle and bustle of lawmaking.

The Library of Congress

It's been years since I last visited the Library of Congress and to be perfectly honest, had I not had an urgent need for a pit stop while in the neighborhood recently, it might have been many more years before I got around to visiting again.  It's all too easy in a city full of monumental buildings to forget just what those buildings are all about.  In case you're wondering, although the institution itself dates back to 1815, when retiring President Thomas Jefferson donated over 6,000 of his own books to start the collection, the building that stands today across from the Capitol and the Supreme Court dates from the end of the 19th century.    Since that time, the facilities have expanded to include several more buildings to hold its massive collections.  According to the LOC Web site, "The collection of more than 144 million items includes more than 33 million cataloged books and other print materials in 460 languages; more than 63 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings."

Despite numerous past visits, to see the beautiful reading room or to take in the ever changing exhibits, I had forgotten just how lovely it is.  But don't take my word for it; see for yourself.

 

And if you're wondering where the picture of the famous dome might be, let me inform you that the main reading room is off limits to amateur photographers.  But there's plenty of snapping going on in the gallery.

My visit that day only allowed for a visit to two exhibits: one featuring objects and manuscripts belong to George and Ira Gershwin, and another of 19th century lithographs of Paris.  But there's lots more to see and with plenty of cold days ahead, I'll be back.

Cathedral Cataclysm

For those of you who scoffed at the earthquake that rocked the East Coast back in August, let me give you a little reality check. The Washington Monument is still closed. The National Cathedral, despite having hosted a high profile memorial service on September 11th, is also out of bounds to visitors with plans to reopen sometime in November. We're not talking Haiti here or even San Francisco. Much of the damage is only visible to the experts. But damage to the cathedral's Gothic pinnacles is (or I should say was because the repair work has progressed considerably since I took these pictures in early October) very much in evidence.

 

Although the technology is 21st century, I can't help conjuring up Ken Follett's Pillars of Earth with its vivid descriptions of how early Gothic cathedrals were built, the experimentation, and the tragedies that happened along the way.  I'm pretty sure that today's engineers have a better understanding of structural physics as well as more sophisticated technology to keep everything in place while the stone masons do their thing.  And yet, tinkering with a massive hunk of stone is not for the faint of heart.  Nor for the faint of pocket.  The repair bills are in the multi millions. 

Want to know more?  Check out this fascinating Washington Post feature on the damage and techniques for repair.  Really interesting even if you're not an engineer.

Remembrance of Things Past

You could say that the downtown area of Washington is lacking in soul and for the most part, you'd be right.  Block after block of stone and glass coupled with a relatively low height restrictions combine to make an uninspired streetscape.  All those office buildings are functional for their tenants but not so interesting for someone out for a stroll. 

Every now and then, though, you might happen upon a scene like this, a relic of a time, perhaps at the end of the 19th century when this block was all stately town homes with interesting architectural details.  Some times it's the result of a stubborn home owner, refusing to give way to the developers, despite the completely changed character of the neighborhood.  It's a scene that can bring to mind the children's classic, The Little House, although happily this building is in much better shape than the main character in that book was at the height of urban development.

I'm pretty sure that no one lives here anymore.  Still, it's fun to imagine what life might have been like behind those doors.