Archive for the ‘Monumental’ Category
Monumental: Mount St. Fenty
‘glacial dome’courtesy of ‘philliefan99′
Rising high above the streets of DC, seen here with a height on par with the Capitol Building, is Mount St. Fenty. The monument, in which is carved the sorrow of all District residents, was erected in the early part of 2010 by the District’s Department of Transportation on the orders of [...]
Monumental: Robert Emmet
Emmet statue in DC by Corinne Whiting
On a recent return trip to Dublin, Ireland, I happily killed some time strolling through the city oasis of St. Stephen’s Green. On my way out of the lush park, I meandered past a statue so familiar it brought me to a screeching halt. There stood a petticoat waistcoat-clad [...]
Monumental: Albert Einstein
‘Albert Einstein Memorial Statue’
courtesy of ‘bbmcder94′
Tucked across the street near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall and completely overshadowed by the nearby Lincoln Memorial sits a memorial to Albert Einstein. Located on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences on Constitution Avenue, the bronze statue lounges in a small grove of elm and holly trees [...]
Monumental: Fort Marcy
Driving the George Washington Parkway north along the Potomac, you can almost miss the entrance to Fort Marcy Park. It’s not a well-known Civil War fortification, not being a sight of one of that war’s destructive battles, but it was one of the key components of the Union’s defense of the capital. (It’s also known [...]
More »Monumental: Pershing Park
‘Film! – Canon A-1 – Pershing in Focus -11-7-08′
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’
Few people think much of Pershing Park. I’d wager that most walk by without noticing it. In spite of Pershing Park being DC’s largest World War I memorial, it serves primarily as a napping place for the homeless and a thoroughfare for tourists walking from [...]
Monumental: Eastern Market
While Monumental is traditionally the realm of the markers and monuments and memorials left throughout the city, Council Chairman Graham said something at this morning’s re-opening of Eastern Market that stuck with me. He said that Eastern Market was DC’s own Monument, more so than any of the Washington monuments. He couldn’t be [...]
More »Monumental: West Potomac Park
‘Tidal Basin path’ courtesy of ‘brianmka’
Don’t laugh, but it could be that Nirvana is something like sitting in West Potomac Park on a beautiful day in spring. This past Sunday was one of those near-perfect days in DC: Bright warm sun, low humidity, slight breeze. I sat facing the river, the encouraging cheers of softball [...]
Monumental: National Japanese American Memorial To Patriotism During World War II
Crane and Barbed Wire 2 by tbridge
The National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II stands on a small triangle of land just north of the Capitol between D St NW, New Jersey Ave and Louisiana Ave. The beautiful bronze crane in barbed wire rises above the low cement landscape, a 14-foot [...]
Monumental: Cherry Blossoms
On March 26, 1912, probably the most famous ‘monument’ in the Washington DC area arrived from Japan: 3,020 cherry trees.
Year after year, these trees bloom in a beautiful display that gives us a sure-fire sign that spring is upon us. It’s also the time of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival and probably brings the [...]
Monumental: Enjoying inside
‘Solitude’
courtesy of ’sashapo’
Our weather seems to be doing its best to find painful and interesting ways to whipsaw between different combinations of wind, cold, rain, gloom and shine. It can be discouraging to try to plan an outdoor trip more than five minutes in advance and downright unpleasant to be out there sometimes. So in [...]
Monumental: The American Meridian
Longitude is probably one of the most important scientific solutions of the modern era. It was easy to work off a set of common star charts and figure out how far north or south of the equator you were. Take a couple readings at sunrise, midday and sunset, chart a few stars, and [...]
More »Monumental: Dumbarton Bridge
Tatonka! Tatonka! Tatonka! Tatonka! This week’s Monumental goes by the aliases of the Buffalo Bridge and the Q Street Bridge, however the correct DC nomenclature is the Dumbarton Bridge. Constructed between 1914 and 1915, the bridge spans high above Rock Creek Park and connects Georgetown to Dupont Circle. However, bridging these two DC neighborhoods turned [...]
More »Monumental: John Ericsson Navigation Memorial
John Ericsson, a Swedish inventor, has a beautiful monument just south of the Lincoln Memorial on the median near the intersection of Ohio Drive SW and Independence Avenue SW. The beautiful pink granite statue was placed on its current location in 1927, at a cost of $60,000. $35,000 of that was federal funds, [...]
More »Monumental: Nathanael Greene
In the center of Stanton Square in Northeast, stands Revolutionary War Hero and native son of Rhode Island Nathanael Greene. His controversial advice (including burning New York City to the ground as part of a retreat in 1776, which, to me, sounds like the wisdom of the sages) won him favor with General Washington, [...]
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