Images: 360 @ 7 On Washington's Mall

Perhaps to make up for the fact that all its public memorials glorify revolutionaries, warmongers and war dead, DC tries hard to emphasize culture as well. Central to this effort is the National Mall, a broad pedestrian avenue that stretches from the Capitol Building to the Lincoln Memorial, with the Washington Monument about halfway along its length.

Last Sunday, the Mall’s Sylvan Amphitheater was the venue for “To Diz With Love”, A tribute to Dizzie Gillespie that was part of the week long 2007 Duke Ellington Jazz Festival.

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Some of the standing room only crowd at the Sylvan Ampitheater, which is next to the Washington Monument. The marble monument is two different colours because construction was halted when money ran out in the years before and during the Civil War.

As the sun was setting, the concert came to an end, and I chanced to get these four photos of its autumn glory by turning in a circle while standing at a spot about halfway between the Monument and the Capitol.

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The Smithsonian “Castle” is one of the Institution’s many buildings on the south side of the Mall. This is the first one that was built, in 1855, and it houses the Smithsonian Visitor Center and the tomb of benefactor James Smithson, a wealthy British scientist who never set foot in the US but thought it could do with “an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

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The Capitol building’s dome is the source point for the District of Columbia’s subdivision into NW, NE, SW, SE districts. I learned very quickly to pay attention to those two little letters in any DC address, because 13th Street SW is a long, long way from 13th St NW, both physically and culturally.

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On the north side of the Mall, between the National Museum of Art and the National Museum of American History, is the distinctively domed National Museum of Natural History. Most museums in DC are free to visit.

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And here behind me is the source of all those rich colours and sparkling Capitol windows: the sun setting beside the Washington Monument.

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--PEACE--

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