If you’re visiting Washington, DC and find yourself standing at the southern edge of Lafayette Square, chances are you’re there to get a view of the White House. But take a few minutes to look around and you’ll also see the park contains some fascinating statuary. There are some great stories behind those statues.
I’ve visited Gettysburg on five separate occasions over the years. But the most memorable of these was the time a ranger was giving us a tour of the National Military Cemetery and decided to go off script and do something a bit different. Suddenly we were off on a graveyard adventure!
It’s hard to overstate how much difference a good interpretive guide can make to your experience of a historic monument. I’ve had visits to great monuments spoiled by poor interpreters and visits to less well-known sites really brought alive by inspired historical interpretation. Longfellow House is a happy example of the latter category.
I used to be a big fan of “The West Wing” on TV, and the term has become synonymous with the presidency. But there are West Wings and West Wings. The one that is attached to Independence Hall in Philadelphia isn’t as famous or as deserving of fame as the one stuck to the Executive Mansion. But it is a bit of a hidden gem in terms of what it contains inside.
In Philadelphia’s historic district, just south of the Second Bank of the United States, stands a statue to Robert Morris, someone most of that city’s current residents will never have heard of. But Morris was a very important man in the country’s early history. If Robert Morris had had his way, the nation’s capital today wouldn’t be in Washington, DC. It would be in Philadelphia.
The JFK Library and Museum is like a physical evocation of Kennedy’s “New Frontier.” The whole place so evokes the optimism of that period in American history that I found myself wishing I could be transported back in time to see it for myself.
Lunch counters seem like a quaint piece of early 20th century Americana, and I have long loved them for that. But as with so much of the iconography of Americana, the ugly shadow of racism has tainted our memory of lunch counters and their place in the culture. And when I say lunch counters, I’m really thinking about one lunch counter in particular: the one that once stood in the Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina.
One of the less well-advertised walking tours available at Independence National Historical Park takes visitors to a section of Philadelphia’s Old City loved by local residents but usually overlooked by visitors on their way to see Independence Hall or the Liberty Bell. This is a Philadelphia city park, just yards away from these more famous sites, that combines a quiet, shady respite from city hustle with an intriguing historical monument to the dead of the Revolutionary War.
Dougie Does Monuments 