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.

In fairness, the Witherspoon statue isn’t exactly accommodating. Unlike the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow statue half a block away, there’s no place to sit around Witherspoon. Besides, no matter how esteemed the plot was when the statue was dedicated in 1909, it now stands primarily as a safety base while crossing Connecticut and 18th Streets.

It’s also not very impressionable—made of unremarkable bronze and a little short—so it’s easy to walk right past. Even one of the tellers at the adjacent Citi bank didn’t remember it immediately. “What statue?” she said. When reminded that there was indeed a statue there, right out the window, she recovered. “Oh right. Well, I don’t think there’s anything special about it.”

Without getting too Barney the Dinosaur here (every monument is special!), it would be hard if not downright wrong to patronize John Witherspoon. After all, people are enshrined into national consciousness for a reason, and part of what’s so great about the less famous monuments in D.C. is the way in which they force us back in time.

Photo courtesy of dcMemorials.com