Yep - and even hotels that aren’t walking distance to a Metro station often run shuttles to the nearest ones. So that opens up places like Alexandria and Falls Church (on the Virginia side of things), and similar places in Maryland.
Your nic is lawmonkey and you are not going to tour the Supreme Court? Shame!
I sat in on an oral argument way back in 1975, say some greats of the Court. Thurgood Marshall, CJ Warren Burger, Potter Stewart, William Douglas, William Rhenquist, Byron White and Harry Blackmun.
The A&S museum has a moon rock you can touch. It is right on the National Mall not really that far from the Smithsonian exit on the subway.
The Wright Brothers Kitty Hawk flyer used to hang from the ceiling as you walked in, but is now on the 2nd floor.
The Apollo 11 Command Module is on display also.
The Natural History Museum is basically adjacent to the American History Museum, which a must, if you can.
In the NH museum, they have a sliver of rock from MARS you can touch, that’s right, Mars.
The new underground visitor center is complete at the Capitol building, when I was there last, it was still under construction. If your tour the Capitol and want to sit in the Senate/House galleries, there is generally a 15 minute-1/2 hour wait.
The Archives is a MUST for a Lawyer. In the center case of the Rotunda is the Original 7 Articles. To it’s right is the badly faded Declaration of Independence, 26 Dunlap Broadsides are known to still exist. To the left of the 7 is the Bill of Rights, all 12 Article’s as proposed to the states.
When I was there they had on loan a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta.
The original arrest warrant for Susan Anthony for voting in the 1872 (?) Presidential election is on display also.
Many places require a run through a metal detector, especially the Capitol building.
Philadelphia and Independence Hall of course is between NY and DC.
DC has many other worthwhile attractions, for sure. Oh be sure to at least walk by the White House, traffic is closed to Pennsylvania ave. I toured it also, but not since the 1970’s.
Oops mixed up the planogram, the BoR is on the right, DOI on the left.
Oh I forgot, there are 3 President’s buried close, Woodrow Wilson in the National Cathedral, and JFK and Wiiliam Howard Taft in Arlington cemetery. RFK is buried just a hop and skip away from JFK.
WW is the only President with a home in DC, toured that. I guess you could call the Octagon a president’s home, as Madison stayed there when the WH was burned in 1814.
I have stayed at the Phoenix Park Hotel, and liked it very much. It is walking distance to the Capitol.
Other options are:
Alexandria, VA, especially if you can get close to the Metro. If you’re on the King Street corridor in Alexandria, I believe there’s a bus that goes from the Metro station down to the harbor that shouldn’t be too bad.
Fairfax, VA. This is an old storied town in Virginia that saw action during the Civil War and now has been swallowed up in surburbia that is choking the historic district. George Washington’s will is at the Fairfax County courthouse here iirc, not out of any special arrangement but because he was a county resident. The city has a fairly decent bus system that goes to the Vienna Metro Station (which is at a terminus), so you should be able to get into DC but it may take a while, possibly two hours.