Would you be willing to pay $25 for a photograph of yourself standing next to someone who looks eerily similar to your favorite celebrity? That’s the question you’ll want to answer before venturing in to the new Madame Tussauds wax museum at 10th and F Streets NW, which opens to the public today. Last night, DCist attended the opening party for the attraction. We say attraction purposefully, because Madame Tussauds isn’t a museum at…

If you haven’t made your way down to Gallery Place today, you’re missing quite the celebration. The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery opened their doors today after a six year renovation. Dancers, puppet-masters, Andy Warhol impersonators and live bands are ushering in the new era for the former Patent Office Building. Oh, and the free ice cream is nice, too. After the ribbon cutting ceremony this morning, residents and tourists…

MONDAY >> E.L. Doctorow has had a storied career — a National Book Award for 1986’s Ragtime, a pair of film adaptations, and a prestigious position at New York University. Keep this in mind and don’t ask him about whether that story you heard about your Spring Breaking friends getting pulled over in Atlanta and tossed in the clink for joking about General Sherman’s relative velocity is an urban legend or not. He’s just got…

FRIDAY: >> Put on your robe and wizard hat…Harry Potter’s coming to town! The sixth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, will be released tonight at midnight, and don’t think we don’t know. Watch this space for more info on tons of crazy HP events going on around town. For one, Politics and Prose will be hosting a party in their parking lot with magicians, a costume contest with prizes, and…