Pensions and Punishments

Hello,

Somebody told me that I should check out the National Building Museum while I was in DC. I think it was the band director where I teach. By coincidence, he also is a tour bus driver and has taken groups to DC. Anyway, I am going to give him the credit and thank him when I get back to school. This really is a neat place! The above pictures show you a little about it. The building was originally the Pension Office, and it was designed by Montgomery Meigs--the same guy who designed Arlington National Cemetery. It was the largest brick building in the world at the time-15,500,000 bricks. The band running above the door is a frieze of the Civil War as this was where veteran and their dependents came to get their pensions. Maybe you have heard the story about how their pension records were not kept in file folders but were bound together with red tape-hence, you had to cut the red tape to get anything done! Many of their records were also kept in a warehouse that the government bought from a family of three brothers named Ford after their business was forced to close. Yep, for a while after President Lincoln's assassination Ford's theater was a warehouse that housed pension records, but then the floor collapsed killing several workers and they had to be housed somewhere else. You may also know the Pension building because there have been 19 inaugural balls held there since Grover Cleveland had the first one there in 1885, and Barack Obama had one here too. The best exhibit was one showing how the city of DC has changed over time. Because I have been to many of the areas of the city that they highlighted, it was interesting to me, but I don't think anyone who doesn't know the city would find it as cool. However, they do have the biggest, cheapest, best tasting chocolate cookies I have ever had, and everyone can get excited about that! :)

I also found the Crime and Punishment Museum. I really think my students would like this place. It traces the history of punishment in America starting with things that look more like instruments of torture in the colonial period all the way to lethal injection. It also has a really neat CIS lab and a case for people to solve. A lot of it is interactive which is fun to play with, also. There were a couple of references to the Natalee Holloway case which is a bit eerie considering the authorities just arrested the man they think did it in connection with another murder in Peru.

All in all, a good day!
Love,

Tami