Crowds make official DC tours a disappointment

As democracies go, the UK is arguably a lot more representative than the United States.  The average member of parliament supports 92,000 people, the US congressional representative 700,000.  Despite those numbers, the US reps have a fine machine for helping their constituents to visit Washington:  multiple tour opportunities requested through a web page, with a congressional aide getting back to you personally with details once tours are assigned.  Drop by offices in person for passes to the galleries of the Senate and the House.  

But get to the tour sites themselves and you see the problem of scale.  In general, the higher profile the attraction, the less we enjoyed it, because jostling crowds dominated the experience more than history or architecture.

Our White House tickets advised us to show up half an hour early for security.  We did, and found ourselves waiting more than 45 minutes in a long, slow line up to the security hut itself.  Once past two check in desks, two types of scanner and one keen-nosed Alsatian, we discovered that the "tour" is no such thing.  Instead, you get to shuffle along a defined trail with the pack, pushed at the group pace, referring to the brochure you receive at the start for information.  It reminded me of the moving sidewalk they've installed to view the crown jewels. Necessary to handle the crowds, I suppose, but the result was impersonal, uninteresting and a long way from the fact-filled guide who took us around in 1983.  Sure, this is partially the impact of 9-11, but I think it also must simply be the increase in modern tourism.

The guards posted in each room redeemed the experience.  They look like Secret Service heavies but are, in fact, deeply knowledgeable about everything around them. I had a lovely chat with one about Duncan Phyfe furniture, and with another about the snooty Mrs. Monroe, who felt the whole institution of the presidency was far too democratic and downmarket, and thus purchased some decidedly imperial furnishings to kick things up a notch (see photo at left).  Should I ever return for another tour, I now know the drill.  Go to the visitors' centre first, then once in the mansion step aside from the crowd and pepper the guide in each room with lots of questions.  Sadly, we didn't have time for much of that as all the queuing had already put us far behind our plan for the day.

Ignoring the discomfort and the crowds, the White House delighted me as an architectural showpiece.  Its main reception rooms ... the Red, Green and Blue ... are perfect jewels of Federal style (the American parallel to Regency), perhaps my favourite decorative look of all time.  It is in pristine condition ... unlike most of the English country houses that are its closest stylistic companion ... and is built on a manageable scale ... unlike the palaces that would be its functional equivalent.  In addition to those three rooms, you see the East Room (familiar from many press conferences and televised events), the State Dining Room and the North Portico (essentially, the entrance hall).  The tour takes in a few rooms in the ground floor but, sadly, the round Diplomatic Room with Jackie O's magnificent landscape wallpaper is no longer open to the public.  All in, the place is just not that big.  

The capitol building, on the other hand, is massive, and you're suitably awed and dwarfed from the outside.  Sadly, the crowds kill that impression once you're in.  They government has tried to deflect this with a massive visitor centre, around which you mill until you are channelled into a multiplex-sized cinema, and out into lanes to be given headsets and assigned your tour guide.  All very Disney.  After the White House, it was a great joy to have a guide.  But she doesn't guide you through much.  The crypt, the rotunda, the national statuary hall (formerly the House of Representatives' chamber) and out.  

From an artistic point of view, the capitol isn't as successful as the White House.  The art in the rotunda is monumental but, let's be honest, it's not very good.  And I have to think George Washington, who was so careful about remaining a humble private citizen, would be mortified that his apotheosis (a grand assumption into heaven) decorates the dome.  I'm sure the crush of bodies had something to do with it, but the rotunda seemed gloomy and not nearly as large as it appears from the outside.  

More fun, though still too crowded, is the statuary hall.  (Better when empty, as the photo shows.)  When the capitol was under construction there wasn't enough cash to furnish it properly, so each state was invited to supply 2 statues of prominent citizens.  The tradition, and the 2 statue limit, continues today, though the 100-statue total now spills out of the hall.  These are not the people you might expect.  For whatever reason, be it political correctness, the desire to please interest groups or the choice of the state legislators, some mighty quirky people end up here.  Florida, for example, has a statue of the guy who invented air conditioning.  Appropriate, since few would be able to live in the state without it.  

It was thus that I found myself standing at the feet of Illinois' Frances Willard, founder of the Women's Christian Temperance Union ... the dear ladies who opposed alcohol and drove the movement towards prohibition ... and first dean of women's studies at Northwestern.  We used to celebrate her birthday each year with a great progressive drinking party in the dormitory that bears her name.  I admit to feeling a bit guilty in her marble presence.

Things got a bit better over at the Supreme Court, where the crowds slacked off.  The tour here was simply access to the main court room and a talk about how things work.  Sadly, the talk was by a chirpy intern who made a big point of saying how she wasn't a lawyer and, when trying to answer a question from my darling, detailed husband, said she didn't know much about "static" law.  (She meant statute.)  Still, it was fascinating, as were the displays in the basement.  I decided that the best gig to have in the three branches is definitely Supreme Court judge.  Great offices, lots of power, much lower profile.

Ironically, the one tour we were offered but passed on was the most impressive of the buildings.  The minute we walked into the Library of Congress, we fell in love.  (The proposed tour was at 8:45, just too damned early for a vacation day.)  An ornate, Italianate villa on steroids, encrusted with literary decorations, the library offers multiple galleries filled with different displays.  The most impressive is Thomas Jefferson's library, but we also enjoyed the section on the Caribbean and central America, where I gazed lovingly at a first edition of Exquemelin's Buccaneers of America, the book that defined most of the myths of piracy that have come down through history.  You can't get into the main reading room, but you can gaze down on it from a gallery.  It brought tears to my eyes.  Any civilisation that builds something this magnificent to preserve and protect learning has to be great, right?  And the best thing about the view?  No crowds.