Capitol Visitors

Dec. 3, 2009: We decided that it was time to check out the Capitol's new underground visitors' center. The front of the Capitol seems bare without the majestic trees that once framed one's approach.

Swigert, Kamehameha and Sacagawea:

The center is spacious and the staff is very friendly but efficient. Online reservations are recommended, but this time of year walk ins are fairly easy. Visitors view an introductory movie and then are divided into groups, outfitted with listening devices and led through the more historic area of the Capitol. The movie emphasizes the diversity of the country but doesn't give visitors a preview of what they will be seeing in the Capitol.

Today's tours are fairly rushed affairs. The guide tells you what you will be seeing, might mention historic names or legislation or issues (slavery, mostly) and then you walk single file through rooms without stopping for a good look. Foreigners and even many Americans will not know the names or legislation and thus are seeing rooms without any sense of what happened there.

The tour does not include a visit to the present House and Senate Chambers. For that visitors are directed blocks away to their representative's office (even foreigners who don't have a representative) to obtain gallery passes and then come back to view the galleries. [This requires going through security in the office buildings and again back at the Capitol. It's not easy for constitutents to confront their elected representatives!]

Hallway ceiling and the Old Supreme Court Chamber (right):












The Old Senate Chamber:












The Rotunda:













G. Gordon Liddy in the Old House Chamber:

The guides still point out the room's acoustic properties but do not have time to relate how John Quincy Adam feigned sleep at his desk to listen in on the opposition caucusing across the chamber:

Back in the visitors' center there is a museum (no photography) with good displays of the history of the building and of the Congress including a time line from the beginning to near the present. Looming over the entrance is the plaster cast to the Statue of Freedom that sits atop the tholos:

There are also gift shops and a cafeteria:

We took the underground passage from the visitors' center to the Library of Congress. Not only does this new passage connect the Capitol to the library but it permits visitors to avoid going through security twice.

Inside the Jefferson Building: