The Best (and Strangest) of D.C.’s Museums
The National Mall and the Smithsonian institution are inimitable classics in the museum world; Natural History and Air and Space will always be tourist favorites. However, amid Washington D.C.’s torrent of museum culture, some oddities exist. The following are the most compelling, strange, and niche-specific of the District’s exhibitions.
The Spy Museum is one of D.C.’s favorite privately-owned attractions, beloved for its inventive exhibits and dedication to the realities of reconnaissance. Guests immerse themselves in the espionage experience by studying “cover” identities and choosing one to adopt for themselves. After completing their tours through the museum, visitors can choose to “debrief” by testing themselves on the details of their assumed persona. Attractions along the way include extensive displays of spy gadgets, explorations of spies in wartime, videos on the C.I.A. and the K.G.B.’s most infamous, and various interactive exhibits. Kids can even crawl through air ducts to spy on their parents’ museum-browsing.
An oft-neglected branch of the Smithsonian, the Hirshhorn displays some of the National Mall’s strangest holdings. Unlike the rest of the Mall’s museum buildings, the Hirshhorn’s cylindrical structure resembles a spacecraft. Current displays include a technicolor film tribute to “digital noise and computer anarchy” that explores what the artists refer to as the “secret lives” of magnetic fields. While this might sound confusing, the visual result is stunning and wild. Other exhibits, especially the museum’s permanent collection, are primarily sculptural, and visitors will certainly enjoy the Rodin sculpture garden.
The immense Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue contains twelve galleries, fifteen theatres, two broadcast studios, a towering atrium, and an interactive newsroom. Its glass elevators are the tallest in the world, relaying guests to its seven stories of exhibit space. Its theatres screen news and sports documentaries daily and occasionally host high-profile performances, while its exhibits include photographic galleries devoted to Pulitzer winners, the Berlin Wall, and 9/11, historic explorations of journalism, and a journalists’ memorial. Perhaps its main draw is the fully interactive NBC newsroom, where visitors can engage in tutorials and sit at the anchor desk “hot seat.” It’s sponsored and curated by leading network news personalities, and it’s definitely unique to D.C.
National Museum of Health and Medicine
Due to the graphic nature of its holdings, the NMHM is a little less than family-friendly. However, for the bold and strong-of-stomach, it’s D.C.’s most exciting museum venture. Its most famous displays are also its most gruesome: patrons can view the pistol that killed Abraham Lincoln, the probe that the Surgeon General used to find the bullet, pieces of Lincoln’s skull and hair, and a shirt cuff stained with his presidential blood. Other famous displays explore infectious diseases, skeletal anatomy, preserved organs, neuroanatomy, and developmental anatomy. For anyone with even the slightest morbid curiosity, the NMHM is a must-see.
National Museum of Crime and Punishment
This Penn Quarter museum invites its patrons to, “test your Wild West shooting skills, crack a safe, and try to hack into a computer.” In other words, it offers burgeoning young criminals a chance to hone their skills. Favorite exhibits include a gallery of Medieval punishments, a Pirate hall of fame, a mock crime scene, an electric chair, and the CSI experience. In case those young criminals are too enticed by illicit glamour, the museum offers an authentic showcase of prison life and capital punishment: displays include a jail cell, a rebuilt guillotine and gas chamber, and a genuine lethal injection machine from a Delaware prison.
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