For this installment of terrific trips to popular places, my destination was the District of Columbia. The first leg of the journey was covered by car all the way to the greatest city on the planet: NYC. Once there, I boarded Amtrak for a little taste of rust belt life served up bullet train style a la Americano. While in DC I spent two days walking around in searing 100-degree heat to bring home the black and white bacon.








Dropping an architect fan into NYC is like dropping a pedophile into Bangkok, but dropping him right into Stuyvesant Town is like dropping the pedo into a retirement home. The place instantly reminded me of China’s city sized housing developments with its massive low-rise blocks that all looked more or less the same and going all economies of scale on the bricks. I thought it used to be project housing or something foul, but it seems as though the place was always pretty decent for its 25,000 residents. The courtyard system between the buildings has street hockey and is well policed. Contrast Stuyvesant Town to SoHo just for fun:








The Acela Express train service from NYC to DC was very good, and made me think that anyone who flies between them must have a penchant for being prodded by the TSA. Having never been to Penn Station in my life, I was at street level 10 minutes before departure, and after some frantic running around was on the train with 2 minutes to spare. Plus there’s probably no safer way to see both Philadelphia and Baltimore’s gritty sides than from the safety of 200km/h and high impact glass.





On arrival at the train station in DC, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the station; actually I was little concerned I might have accidentally got off in Baltimore. It was just a bunch of steel beams and bright skylights, kinda modern functional design but disappointing for a train station in the most powerful city on the planet.





The station has three halls. First is the mediocre utilitarian junk you see above which leads to the actual platforms that are even more ghetto. Then I moved into the shopping arcade in the next room that had a ceiling made up of an infinite ode to the octagon and latticework. I wasn’t sure what to call it, it wasn’t really modern and it wasn’t really classical, more like a crossbreed of the two.





Finally I came into the original station, which had the grand Roman/Greek architecture I was originally expecting to see, and all was well. It wasn’t Grand Central, but it did make me feel a little bit like I was in that one scene of The Last Crusade where Indiana breaks through the floor in the library and ends up in the Sewers with all the rats. And that was just the buzz I was looking for.






Luckily my hotel was near the station, because everything you could possibly want to see is within a stroke inducing walk of there and the Capitol Building. Walking down Pennsylvania Avenue there is a plethora of museums and government agencies. The most hilarious one is below (not actually on Pennsylvania).



Yes that is the Federal Home Loan Bank Board! As you may have heard, things haven’t been going so smoothly for the poor bastards there in the past year or so. Notice the scaffolding/fence around the top of the building…I can’t help but imagine that’s to keep people from jumping.





The Whitehouse was the next stop. There is a massive throng of tourists that congregates in front of it for that classic picture, the one that shows that you too were in front of the building that some Northerners torched to the ground in retaliation for the USA trying to invade their country in 1812 and failing miserably. Too bad you can’t get anywhere near the house because it has a security perimeter like nobody’s business. You even get in trouble if you walk across certain parts of the grass. I was told there are motion sensors and Hoffa’s remains buried in there.





From there it’s only a short walk over to the monument in honour of the nation’s founder. You can actually go up in it, even though it looks like a piece of solid rock, but of course like the Whitehouse and Congress you need to book in advance, and like hell I’m going to do any kind of special planning to go stair climbing inside a giant sandstone toothpick.





Heading towards the reflecting pool and the Lincoln memorial, there’s the relatively new WW2 monument. An ongoing theme here and found in other monuments is plaques commemorating each of the states’ involvement. Somehow $192 MILLION was raised to build this thing. While the Washington monument was only $21 mil (2008 dollars) and actually had to stop construction because it ran out of money.









Forget about those movie scenes where you see people chilling out in solitude having a private conversation with Lincoln’s statue. This place is a fuckin zoo. I was in and out as fast as I could but grabbed a shot of the Gettysburg address:



I WONDER IF HE YELLED IT WHILE HE WAS SAYING IT.




Not far away is the Vietnam memorial. It’s amazing that it’s totally against the usual American trend of being big and flashy, and instead going for the subtle while commemorating everyone who died in the war.







Walking all the way back along the reflecting pool and around the Potomac, you get to the Jefferson, which I have to agree with the friend I was visiting, is the best memorial. Also we both agree that philosophically and ideologically his stuff was the most impressive out of all the presidents. Dude even wrote his own version of the bible. Basically got rid of 95% of the content and kept the important stuff like don’t steal your neighbor’s wife then beat him senseless with a canoe paddle.








Just outside of Washington is Arlington, Virginia, where I would definitely recommend a walk over to the Marine Corps War Memorial also known as the Iwo Jima Memorial. It pretty much commemorates every marine who has died in wars since 1775. Even the war of 1812 in which we kicked their asses. Not far from there you can walk down through the Arlington National Cemetery, I was lucky enough to arrive right on time for the changing of the honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Sounds simple, but it’s an incredibly complicated affair right down the every little movement the soldiers make that must be ridiculously hard to memorize and learn to do perfectly, in the scorching heat no less. Not to mention they do this every hour, 24/7/365.

Washington is definitely a great city to check out, just be careful to stay within the downtown scenic area. You don’t want to wind up in one of the bad areas.

Filed under: dragons