Since the Smithsonian museums closed their doors just after the new year, the number of federal workers who have visited the Phillips Collection—where one can contemplate life from within the confines of a 6-by-7-foot room made entirely of wax—has quadrupled over the previous week of the government shutdown. In the past week, a representative says, 400 visitors have used their federal ID to receive free admission to the museum.
Other privately run museums say they’ve also seen an uptick in attendance as disappointed tourists and furloughed federal employees look for alternative ways to spend their days. Over at Lincoln’s Cottage, more than one third of visitors on Friday were federal employees.
A number of historic sites and parks have been closed since before Christmas. The National Zoo, National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonians managed to stay open until early 2019 using past year funds, and tourists scrambled to get there before they shut their doors.
Places like Lincoln’s Cottage and the President Woodrow Wilson House—both of which are run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and are offering free admission for furloughed workers—are feeling the impact.
“We have DEFINITELY seen increased attendance, even before we announced that we would offer free admission to feds with ID,” Sarah Andrews, a spokesperson for the Woodrow Wilson House, told DCist via email. The historic site is seeing double the number of visitors as the same time last year—a combination of government workers and “out-of-town visitors looking for anything open.”
While the Museum of the Bible declined to release attendance figures, a spokesperson said that the attraction has “seen a steady flow of guests during a traditionally slow time for D.C. museums.”
The National Museum of Women in the Arts similarly says it has seen “healthy attendance numbers,” which they say is likely a combination of the shutdown and people visiting the popular Rodarte exhibit and newly reinstalled galleries.
And a spokesperson for the Newseum says it “always sees an uptick in attendance during shutdowns. This one is no different.”
Meanwhile, the National Park Service is taking an unprecedented financial step to get some of its employees back to work at parks that are seeing overflowing trash and human waste.
This piece has been updated to correct the last name of Sarah Andrews. Natalie Delgadillo contributed reporting.
Rachel Sadon