Best Smithsonian Exhibits?

Cafe Society
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My husband and I are taking a vacation to Washington, DC, to celebrate ten years together as well as the successful defense of his Ph.D. dissertation. This will be my first time in DC.

We are all about the Smithsonian, but perusing their website I can see that the complex is enormous, and that we won’t be able to see all of it in one weekend. I really don’t know how much is realistic to expect we can cover in at most a day and a half (since we want to visit other areas of DC too.)

So far I’m interested in the Natural History and the Black History museums. I’m definitely interested in prehistory, archaeology, science, and that sort of thing.

So, what shouldn’t we miss?

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Our favorite when we were there in March was the Museum of American History. We went there two different days. If you are looking to go somewhere other than the Smithsonian, we really, really enjoyed the International Spy Museum.

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The Smithsonian’s Black History Museum will not open until 2015.

American History, Natural History and Air & Space are all on the mall and all are great if they match your interests. The Air & Space gets the most visitors but that is irrelevent if you don’t want to see a lot of airplanes.

The National Gallery has a nice collection. A couple of blocks north is the American Art and National Portrait gallery - handy in your planning since they are open two hours later than the other museums.

Perhaps I’m spoiled but I didn’t think the Spy Museum was worth the cost. Too many free ones. If you do go, they do timed entry and the American Art Museum is across the street to fill your waiting time.

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The Sackler is a nice musuem and there are National Galleries East and West that are connected by a tunnel underground that contains a nice cafeteria. The American Indian museum is weak and not worth your time, but the cafeteria there is great. If you are there on a week day, crowds will be smaller and you can just pop in to anything that looks interesting and walk around. The Air and Space has some great IMAX movies from time to time.

If you come out of the Metro and there is a guy there trying to sell you a map of the mall, ignore him. The maps are free and available at a kiosk not 20 yards from the Metro, guys grab them in bulk and try to sell them to the tourists.

The Hirshorn has a great gift shop for presents to take back home.

July 16- August 6, there will be the Screen on Green on the Mall, which can be a nice evening: http://dc.about.com/od/specialevents/a/Screengreen.htm

I’m another one who doesn’t like the Spy Museum, a) you have to pay to get in, which is heresy in DC; and b) it’s not really an academic pursuit and is more aimed at pleasing the crowd, rather than educating and entertaining the people.

The National Zoo is also part of the Smithsonian Institute and is also free. If the weather is nice, you can park in Rock Creek Park and walk to it, it’s a nice stroll. There are some great bars and restaurants around the Conn. Avenue entrance to the Zoo.

I hope you enjoy your visit.

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Air & Space is supergreat if you like air or space. But, obviously, it’s narrowly focused on those pursuits.

Natural History has a newish oceans exhibit that’s quite rad, and I love the mammals exhibit on the other side of the first floor. I haven’t been to the new Human Origins exhibit there. It’s supposed to be good, although there is controversy as it is funded by David Koch, one of the infamous Koch brothers who fund the Tea Party, climate-change denial organizations, and right-wing think tanks; there has been some commentary that the exhibit itself downplays the significance of climate change. The rest of the museum is IMO inconsistent, but there is a pretty cool bug zoo upstairs.

American History has a lot of eclectic cool stuff as well, but I don’t think I’d send someone there off the bat. I just wanted to bring it up so I could casually mention that I once had a photograph on display there.

For fine art the National Gallery is a good bet, especially if there’s an interesting show on. But if you’re looking to do a small museum for an hour or so after spending most of the day elsewhere on the Mall, either the Sackler (rotating exhibits of Asian art) or esp. the Freer are excellent choices. The Freer is interesting – it’s got Asian art intermixed with paintings by James MacNeil Whistler and his circle. They were very interested in Asian art, and so they got their patron (Charles Freer) to begin collecting it.

Also excellent is the Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum (two museums, one building). It’s a bit off the Mall but easily accessible by Metro across the street from the Gallery Place stop.

To boil it down: Air & Space unless that leaves you completely cold. Definitely stuff to see at Natural History. Then I’d send you to the Freer, and/or the Portrait Gallery, but YMMV.

Finally, it’s worthwhile to check the Smithsonian website for the particular exhibits that will be up when you’re in town. There might be something so cool that it gets priority – for instance, if you’re coming this weekend, you’ll definitely want to hit the Sackler to see Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mt Fuji (and thanks for reminding me – I’ve got to get my ass down there this week), but it closes Sunday. Due to the sheer size of the Institution, the website is by necessity pretty damn overwhelming, but it’s still a useful tool.

–Cliffy

P.S. Skip the Spy Museum. It’s not awful, but it’s not great, and it costs $20. Compared to being able to see the Apollo 11 capsule or Gilbert Stuart’s Lansdowne portrait of George Washington for free? Hell naw.

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I haven’t seen anyone mention the gems and minerals exhibit at the natural history museum. If you like that sort of thing, it’s great; a bit of science, history, and art/fashion combined.

Also, see if there’s anything interesting on display at the library of Congress. One of the coolest things I ever saw in D.C. was an exhibit of just random stuff that they pulled out of their archives, like the contents of Lincoln’s pockets the night he was shot and Maya Lin’s original design submission for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. And they have a Gutenberg Bible on display, and a small room with some artifacts from George and Ira Gershwin (or they did, fifteen years ago).

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But don’t forget that you also get to touch a piece of the frickin’ Moon! That’s something cool. I told my daughter the other day that I had touched a Moon rock - she was most impressed.

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They’re all great depending on what you’re interested in. I heard the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy annex to the Air and Space museum is awesome, though I missed it when I was there. The main museum can only house a very small percent of the total collection. I hear its just shoulder to shoulder airplanes, 6 times larger than the main location.

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Yeah! Screw the science, its the friggin Hope Diamond!

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Your mileage may certainly vary, but for me the highlight was seeing Archie Bunker’s chair in the American History Museum.
mmm

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One tidbit about Udvar-Hazy, admission is free but parking is $15. However, after 4:00 parking is free and in the summer the museum is open until 6:30. I suspect that if you want to look at aircraft for more than 2.5 hours it is worth $15 to park.

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nm

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There was a forensic anthropology exhibit at the Natural History museum. I think it was called “Written in Bone”. Very good exhibit. I’m not sure if it was temporary or if its still there.

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Thanks so much for the suggestions, guys!

Based on your suggestions it seems the Natural History museum is a must. We’ll consider the air and space museum, but we did something like that on our honeymoon (Cape Canaveral, FL and the Kennedy Space Center.)

We’ve actually agreed to go to the zoo if the weather is nice. We hear it is a very good zoo.

I’m so excited! Two days!

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Pfft. My family history formed the centerpiece of a historical puzzle in the exhibition on First Ladies’ dresses. My freakin’ name was up on the walls of the Smithsonian.

Still though, that’s pretty cool. Your work was on display, mine was just an accident of birth.

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There’s a plane hanging in the Udvar-Hazy museum that I think I may have flown in.

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Be aware – it is good, but it’s not all that big. Also, if you’re going to take the Metro, take it to Cleveland Park and walk downhill to the Zoo, then when you’re done you can walk downhill again to the Woodley Park/Zoo Metro station. That’s in contravention of what it says in the Metro guides b/c Woodley Park is closer, but it’s a pretty unpleasant hike on a hot day.

My name was there too. I was the artist, after all. :slight_smile:

–Cliffy

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I’m a sucker for the National Archives.

As much as I LOVE Natural History Museums, you can look at stuffed Elephants and meteors and dinosaur skeletons at Museums in New York, or Chicago, or London, or anywhere – and I don’t think DC’s is a particularly amazing example of its type. OTOH You can only look at the Declaration of Independence in one place in the whole entire world, at that’s the National Archives.

There are a lot of interesting things at the Zoo but the most interesting to me is that the Orangutans participate in totally voluntary research studies. When they feel like it, they take special overhead cables hand-over-hand to the lab. You can sometimes see them on their “commute.”

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And other pop culture touchstones: Jerry Seinfeld’s puffy shirt, Carrie Bradshaw’s computer, Carol Burnett’s charwoman outfit, Charlie McCarthy (one of), Kermit (one of), Kunta Kinte’s chains, Dorothy’s ruby slippers (one set of), etc..

To me, the Hope Diamond is extremely overrated: it’s a big dark blue rock. It’s beautiful of course, but I think the problem is that the mind doesn’t perceive “this is a diamond”- it looks more like a sapphire, or a nice chunk of costume jewelry. However, the emeralds in the same area are breathtaking and so are many other stones, and then there are the animals (dead/stuffed) on display.

And if you’ve never been to the (already mentioned) Library of Congress it’s an absolute must. Please know that this isn’t sending to a really big city library, it’s a large museum space in and of itself connected to a white marble and “explosion of color” temple connected to the world’s biggest library reading area. (The library itself is scattered all over the city.) Things that are on permanent display include the Gutenberg Bible and the contents of Abraham Lincoln’s pockets on the night he died (included a Confederate $5 bill and nobody knows why [lots of theories, and probably a mundane ‘it was a souvenir’ answer, but if Doctor Who had an American counterpart we’d know for sure.;))

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Aside from exhibits, The Library of Congress is notable for its sumptuous Beaux Arts architecture, rife with symbolism. There arefree tours.

The Freer Gallery includes Whistler’s notorious Peacock Room–which appealed to my inner aesthete. Then, I also loved the Air & Space Museum…some aesthete!

Damn, it’s been years; I’ll be wasting some time on the website!