Ed Tant
Visitors to Washington’s National Cathedral are blessed and impressed. The house of worship is one of the largest cathedrals in the world. It compares favorably with the Notre Dame Cathedral pictured in the Paris photos on this website. The National Cathedral combines classic Gothic style with contemporary Americana. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his last Sunday sermon from the National Cathedral’s pulpit just days before he was assassinated in April 1968. The cathedral’s stained glass windows are colorful and inspiring.
July 4 : DC is the Place to Be!
July 4 is always a fun time in the nation’s capital. Joy took this photo of me in my patriotic outfit as I saluted the holiday. A crowd of thousands celebrated “A Capitol Fourth” with entertainment on the West Lawn of the ornate old Capitol Building. Washington DC is the place to be as America celebrates its birthday on July 4.
History is a palpable presence in Washington and the arts are always alive in a city called “Paris on the Potomac.” In the photo at top left, Sunday strollers in LaFayette Park enjoy a view of the White House. In the next photo is St. John’s Church, “church of the presidents,” which has been visited by every American president since James Madison. A plaque at the historic Willard Hotel honors patriotic songwriter Julia Ward Howe. A model of the statue for the Lincoln Memorial is displayed at the National Gallery of Art to honor the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial. Sculptor Henry Moore’s “King and Queen” is on view at the Hirschorn Museum’s sculpture garden.
The Smithsonian Castle, completed in 1855, is the symbol and headquarters for the Smithsonian Institution, a complex of more than a dozen museums of art, history, science and technology on the National Mall in DC.
Near the Castle are two of the city’s most charming art museums, the Asian art museum and the African art museum. Old and new works of art from both continents delight visitors to the museums, which are connected by an underground passageway. In the photo above right, a beaming Joy poses with a fanciful elephant friend at the African museum. The mermaid painting is also from a show at the African art museum.
Historic advertisements and artifacts are on view at the gigantic National Museum of American History, including a 1939 school bus (above) and a poster for the 1969 Woodstock music festival. The beautiful carousel nearby is fun for both kids and adults.
Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, lived in this little row house in Washington’s Du Pont Circle neighborhood while he completed “Main Street,” the 1920 novel that catapulted the writer to fame and fortune. Inside the walls of the small house, Lewis labored on his book that changed American literature forever. He went on to write such must-read books as “Babbitt” and “Elmer Gantry.”
