The Washington Experience

It's one thing to report on what one does on a vacation-type trip, it's another to really think about what happened, what the trip was about. The reporting is usually kind of shallow, but it serves a purpose in helping me remember things I might have lost over the course of time, but I'm not sure how interesting it is.

What spurred me to think about this was a brochure that I seem to have brought home called "The National Archives Experience." The brochure contains the sort of stuff one would normally find at an attraction, a map of exhibits, some verbiage on same and scattered pictures of happy visitors enjoying the premises. It just struck me as odd that they're equating a list of what there is to do with the experience itself. There are lots of things to do at the Archives, but I can tell you exactly what most people's experience is:

You walk in, you go through a metal detector, as you do pretty much anywhere you go in Washington. In fact, if I had to summarize The Washington Experience it would be a kind of serial airport security activity, except with exhibits instead of airplanes. I was pleased that they didn't need to search me when I went to Trader Joe's. After passing through security, you look for signs that say Rotunda, because that's where the famous documents are. Follow them and then find yourself in a very long line with markers like at Disney World about how long you would have to wait from any given point.

You wait in line anywhere from 15 minutes (us) to over an hour (any busier time). This gives you the opportunity to watch the provided introductory video 8 or 9 times. Eventually, they let you in with a group of around 40 people  and you all make a beeline for the Declaration of Independence, then move clockwise to the Constitution while you complain that the Declaration is so faded you can't see it and that it's too dark in the room. Then maybe to the Bill of Rights if you're still interested. This takes around 15 minutes. You then go to the gift shop and buy a facsimile copy of the Declaration and then you leave.

I can assure you this is not the experience described in the brochure. I'm sure some people visit the other exhibits, but not when I was there.

Archives aside, Washington was summarized for me once by a friend who'd gone to school at GWU with "You gotta like your big white buildings." This could not be more true. After we got out of the Holocaust Museum and wanted to get lunch, the entire next square block, which is probably 3 square blocks anywhere in Philadelphia, is taken up by the Department of Agriculture building. It's very impressive, but you have a hard time convincing me that you need a building that big for anything. The Mall is other side of the street, so the area is completely barren of anything to see, do or eat. Much of downtown Washington is like that, and though I'm always a willing walker, it's a bit much to deal with a half mile walk just on the chance there might be something on the other side (especially since there might not).

Thank goodness for the Starbucks app, which though we never set foot in Starbucks, would lead us to areas where there might be something to eat or drink. As city people, this was distressing to both my daughter and me, because some level of street life is part of what defines a city. I know enough about urban planning to know that you can't have any sort of street life if there's no reason for anyone to be on the street. That's why downtown parking lots are awful, they're just dead space. Large parts of Washington are nothing but dead space for that exact reason. It's more attractive dead space than a surface parking lot, but no better in many ways.

The only pace we saw real street life was in Georgetown, which has lots of things going on at street level and the landscape is not dominated by cars. Though they do have those odd Walk/Don't Walk signals that start counting down from 50 or 60. Those are a function of wide streets, which are also not so good for street life.

Overall, I guess Washington is okay to visit. The quality of the attractions makes up for its negatives, at least for a short visit. But since I tend to divide places into "could live there" versus "couldn't live there" this would have to fall into the couldn't live there category.