Jordan Pascale
The Navy intends to build a new $450 million flagship museum near its Navy Yard facility in D.C., Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite announced Tuesday.
The museum is slated to open by 2025, though the Navy hasn’t identified a specific site yet.
“The Navy is committed to working with the District of Columbia and other stakeholders through the necessary negotiations, environmental studies and legislative actions that must be completed before a land deal is finalized,” the Navy said in a news release.
The Navy said the new museum will be in a campus-style building outside the Navy’s security perimeter and will house “icons of naval history, showcasing artifacts that pay tangible tribute to the service and sacrifice of our Sailors.”
It also aims to highlight the human experiences of serving in the Navy with interactive displays and a 4D theater, which uses special effects like mist, fog or smoke, wind, temperature changes, vibration and more.
“We’re not the ministry of propaganda,” retired Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, director of the Naval History and Heritage Command at the Navy Yard told The Washington Post. “My job is to tell accurate history about the United States Navy. Much of it is glorious. But there’s also tragedy, defeats, buffoonery. It’s all there.”
“But on balance, I think the taxpayers of the United States have gotten their money out of the United States Navy.”
The Post reports the Navy is seeking a nonprofit fundraising partner to help raise the money.
The Navy says the museum would be free. It would also act as a center for ceremonial events for sailors.
The Navy already has a museum on the base at 736 Sicard St S.E. that opened in 1963 in an old gun factory, but so few people know about it that the Washington Post Express once described it as “D.C.’s secret Navy museum.” It’s currently closed because of the pandemic.
The new museum would be outside the security perimeter to allow unfettered access.
The current museum features vehicles, weapons and equipment that “provide a glimpse at the country’s military history and an opportunity to reflect on the evolution of combat,” according to DCist’s story on the Navy Yard neighborhood.
The Navy also has nearly a dozen other museums across the country, including the National Museum of the American Sailor, the National Naval Aviation Museum, the Submarine Force Museum and more.
The U.S. Army announced Tuesday that its new museum will open in Fort Belvoir on Veteran’s Day.
