Superstar architect Frank Gehry unveiled his designs for the future Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. more ›

Capitol Hill's Lincoln Park was the first public space named in honor of President Lincoln, in 1867. A few years later, a statue commemorating the emancipation of American slaves was placed in the park, with none other than Frederick Douglass speaking at the unveiling. Thirty-five years ago the orientation of the statue -- originally toward the U.S. Capitol -- was reversed, so that Lincoln now faces the more recently installed statue of Mary McLeod Bethune, which was officially unveiled on July 10, Bethune's birthday, in 1974. more ›

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Last night the Pentagon Memorial, which honors the lives of the 184 people who died when a hijacked airliner crashed into the Pentagon during the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, officially opened to the public. The permanent outdoor memorial, which is made up of 184 benches, each with a name of a victim, will now be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. DCist photographer Meaghan Gay and many of our Flickr contributors were there last night for the opening ceremony, and captured these images. more ›

Afraid you'll run out of time to show off our city's most prominent phallus to your out of town guests? The Washington Monument is making it easier by extending visiting hours for the rest of the summer. more ›

The WWII Memorial just celebrated its fourth anniversary, and a little meme has popped up on several blogs over the last couple of days that paints a picture of almost universal loathing for its design. more ›

If you’ve been down to the Tidal Basin to see the Cherry Blossoms, then you’ve probably already revisited the Jefferson Memorial. more ›

Now here’s an interesting development: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has gone online. Again. more ›

When we went over to revisit the John Witherspoon statue at Connecticut and N Streets NW yesterday, someone had beaten us to it. An older man was reading the inscription at the base of the statue. When asked if he had ever seen it before, he acted as if he suddenly realized he was late for a super important meeting. “Yeah, I always knew it was here,” he said, fleeing. more ›

What’s weird about revisiting the Albert Einstein Memorial at the National Academy of Sciences is, shamefully, that we had never visited there in the first place. more ›

When David Glasgow Farragut yelled, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” he probably didn’t think it would propel him into history. Actually, given the circumstances, it might not even have been the smartest of orders. But sure enough, Farragut’s ballsy command helped the naval commander get a huge statue and two metro stops plus a square named after him. more ›

Roll Call had a subscriber-only story up yesterday about today's kick-off of an effort on the part of non-profit Trust for the National Mall to raise $350 million to revitalize Washington's top tourist destination. Students from Ann Beers Elementary School in Southeast are getting things going today by planting 3,000 daffodil bulbs in Constitution Gardens. Citing maintenance needs due to heavy use like cracked walkways and patchy grass, the Trust will be working alongside the... more ›

We're pleased to congratulate the winners of the first ever WalkingTown DC Photo Contest, sponsored by DCist and Cultural Tourism DC. On September 29, the staff behind the twice yearly free walking tour weekends challenged local photographers to come out to their event and snap photos that best captured the spirit of WalkingTown, and then judged the entries to pick their top three. First place winner: David Pike won for his "walk on" shot... more ›

Usually in our Revisiting Series, we like to talk about the monuments and memorials you pass on a regular basis; this time, by revisiting the District’s boundary stones, we thought we’d point out something you might never have even seen. In fairness, they’re easy to miss. Of the 40 original stones, two have been lost, and the rest have been marred and eroded from sitting outside for 216 years. Some sit in no trespassing zones,... more ›

Written by DCist contributor Benjamin Schuman-Stoler Last week in our “revisiting sites we’ve walked by a hundred times" series we presented the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This week, we’ll look at that huge phallus in the exact center of the original D.C. map -- the Washington Monument. Screaming nothing but glory and testament, it is the classic D.C. monument. But we know its background isn’t as simple as its geometric profile. The National Park Service commissioned... more ›

Thanks to a tipster for forwarding us an invite to a seemingly bizarre press conference to be held this Friday by Jeffrey S. Abramson, part of the Abramson clan who runs The Tower Companies, a relatively major local developer that was responsible for such projects as Washington Square at Farragut North and the Millennium Building at 19th and K. Abramson, it seems, would like to build a new monument. A monument to "Invincibility." From the... more ›

Written by DCist contributor Ben Schuman-Stoler. You have probably walked by the modest Old Stone House on M Street countless times while in Georgetown, perhaps wondering when it's going to be converted for the next Starbucks. The House, actually run by the National Park Service, has seen nearly two and a half centuries on what used to be known as Bridge Street during colonial years. The plot was purchased for one pound and ten shillings... more ›

Via PreservationNation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has started a campaign to save the original Tomb of the Unknowns, or Tomb of the Unknown Soldier as it's commonly called, at Arlington National Cemetery. Who would want to mess with the tomb? According to the National Trust, it's the folks who run Arlington National Cemetery themselves, as well as Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) -- perhaps one of the senate's most famous military veterans and fathers... more ›

A new statue is heading to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol -- but it's not either of the long-requested two statues to represent the District of Columbia. Alabama has decided to replace one of its two statues, of Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, a former congressman, Confederate general and professor who advocated for free universal education, with one of Helen Keller, the famed Socialist Party activist and the first deaf and blind... more ›

Samuel Gompers is one of those names you vaguely remember from AP U.S. History, along with The Grange and the Know-Nothings. They fit in somehow, but you don't exactly remember why. While he may not be on the tips of people's tongues, he does have a rather large monument on Massachusetts Avenue NW near Mount Vernon Square. Gompers, born in London in 1850, was a major figure in the American labor movement, organizing and... more ›

Preservation of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is something we've discussed on DCist a number of times before -- usually in reference to the library and street that share his name. One thing the city's still missing is a memorial to the civil rights hero. The memorial's design was approved in 2005, with the remaining hurdle that plagues so many projects of this nature: money. Fundraisers have been hard at work... more ›

A new permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is already making its own history as the first to require entrance fees. One part of Butterflies and Plants: Partners in Evolution, planned to open in November, will cost visitors about $5. Much of the exhibit will be free, but an admission fee will be attached to a two-tier butterfly pavilion, similar to New York's American Museum of Natural History butterfly habitat. We're... more ›

As we mentioned earlier this week, sometimes we don't envy Washington's urban planners. Their challenges often encompass issues as varied and complicated as economic development, land use planning, sustainability, design and social justice. Add to that the design politics associated with the symbolism invested in the nation's capital, and planning for D.C. becomes a unique urban problem to tackle. Not that it stops us from trying. Yesterday, the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission... more ›

In a city of monuments to great Americans, it's easy to think that the more recent monumistas began the trend of honoring foreign heroes. But for nearly a century, a statue of Polish freedom fighter Casimir Pulaski has made its home at 13th St. and Pennsylvania Ave., in what is now known as D.C.'s Freedom Plaza. The plaza, designed in 1980, is mainly a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement,... more ›

Yesterday was Budget Day, which is one of those big deal days for official Washington that no one else notices. It's the day when the President formally submits his budget for the next fiscal year to Congress. Sexy, right? If you happen to work for an appropriator or one of the budget watchdog groups, it is. Each Department holds its own budget roll-out event complete with powerpoint, Secretarial speechifying, and usually some sort of bunting;... more ›

When architects, developers, and laborers set about transforming the former Columbia Hospital for Women into the massive Columbia Residences complex at the intersection of 25th Street, L Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, they placed the area within a protective cocoon of chain-link fences. Inside the fences, just across L Street from the back door of Marcel's restaurant, went a little-known monument commemorating a joint international agreement to reduce military forces patrolling the Great Lakes. With... more ›

Washington is full of monuments to famous people -- Washington, Jefferson, Einstein, Hahnemann. Hahnemann? Not a forgotten vice president or a general, Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was the founder of homeopathic medicine. His impressive monument, located at 16th and Massachusetts NW near Scott Circle, isn't too helpful -- it says "HAHNEMANN" on the top, as if everybody knows who he is. There are also a few Latin and German sayings (he was born in Saxony... more ›

It's no secret — the National Mall, for all its historical significance, isn't exactly the prettiest place in the world. Broken water fountains, patchy grass, ugly security fences and totally nasty restrooms are amongst some of the many problems with what should really be a gorgeous space. The National Park Service is here to change that, and they're going all Web 2.0 on our asses through an online campaign asking the public their opinions on... more ›

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund announced yesterday that their proposed Visitor Center received the final go-ahead from the National Capitol Planning Commission, which oversees the approval and design of monuments and memorials in D.C. The privately funded, $100 million complex will supplement Maya Lin’s 1982 Memorial Wall, with exhibits and programs to tell the story of the Vietnam War and commemorate the soldiers who fought it. The Visitor Center will be built just west of the Wall in the area between it and the Lincoln Memorial; however, NCPC requires that it be completely buried and hidden from view, in order to preserve the openness and visual order of the Mall. The Polshek Partnership, architect of the Clinton Library and the Newseum/Freedom Forum, was selected in 2004 to design the Center. more ›