Driving back into the city today after visiting family members in Virginia I noticed all the tourists in town and how they were enjoying themselves looking at all the spectacular monuments and buildings that there are to see. In particular, I seemed to get stuck behind at least three open air double decker red buses loaded with lolly-goggling out-of-towners looking at all the sights. I'm not sure if these buses give an audio tour for them but judging from the number of times I got stuck behind one of these red former London city buses, it would seem like the tour goes all over the Mall area, where most of the critical sights are located. Even though it was past sunset the tourists were on the bus, cameras flashing from the bus upper deck, at the views of Congress and the Korean war monument nearby. I just don't see how they got a picture at all! Earlier in the day, on my way out to Virginia, I'd seen crowds of tourist groups all over the Mall. One group of 12 year old girls, all dressed in lime green T-shirts (so they could find each other?) crossed Constitution Avenue in unison while there were also families pushing children and babies in strollers in the 90 degree heat, standing at intersections, wondering which way to go next. I marveled at their willingness and persistence in clambering up all the steps at the Archives building and the Lincoln Memorial, both of which seemed to attract many visitors today. After spending most of the day in the green rolling fields and suburbs of Virginia, I thought how interesting and pleasant and historic Washington, DC looked in comparison. I'm so glad to live in this city sometimes!
It took me 45 minutes on the bus this morning to get to work because of some tie-up along H Street NW just before Chinatown, but it did give me time to look out the window and notice how the building height limitation in D.C. (less than 10-21 storeys?) means that the streets haven't become canyons and you don't get the sense of being in a "downtown" area. That is, since all the buildings for the several square miles of DC are about the same height, there is no concentration of sky-scrapers. By the way I love the french word for skyscrapers (les gratte-ciels). All the streets have the about the same height and the a rchitecture is quite varied. The Kennedy Center and the Watergate apartment buildings are examples of older styles of "modern" architecture subject to the same limitation and I snapped them together recently using the miracle of a cell phone camera.. However, now there's a lot more glass and modern buildings than when I first came to DC 25 years ago. There's still lots of older brick and stone buildings and quite a few churches scattered about downtown but it's changing. Apparently, at one time, the churches were the tallest buildings in town! Chinatown is always interesting as that corner is looking more and more like New York City with the live video screens and huge crowds crossing the road and the general hurly-burly there. I do remember when that section of the city was quite run-down and bedraggled, that is, before they built Verizon (used to be MCI) Center and restored some of the buildings on 7th street. Growth and change is not so strange when its incremental!
