New U.S. Capitol Visitor Center Makes Trip Easier for Tourists
VISITORS
Worcester Telegram and Gazette
Rachel Kolokoff
Boston University Washington News Service
December 10, 2008
WASHINGTON — After 18 years as a history teacher at Forest Grove Middle School in Worcester, Fred King is no stranger to the U. S. Capitol building.
As a chaperone on the annual class trip to Washington, he has accompanied his students as they have toured its halls about a dozen times, witnessing history firsthand in the legislative chambers and viewing the paintings and sculptures as grand as the national ideals they reflect.
But despite his best efforts, Mr. King said, there is one thing he has yet to discover beneath the cast-iron Capitol dome, something his students have always, inevitably, needed – a bathroom. In fact, throughout the building, there are only five public bathrooms.
But for Mr. King, his students, and millions of annual visitors who have stood in line for hours waiting to tour the Capitol, convenience has finally arrived with the opening of the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. The 580,000-square-foot underground addition, which took seven years and $621 million of taxpayer money to construct, opened in early December. And it has 26 restrooms.
The idea of a visitor center dates back to the 1960s but was thrust forward in 1986 when a legislative committee began planning its construction and again in 1998 when a gunman breached Capitol security, opening fire and killing two Capitol police officers.
In 2002, after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City, construction began with a cost estimated at close to $360 million.
Tom Fontana, spokesman for the center, said the facility, built almost entirely underground on the east side of the Capitol, improves security by establishing a buffer zone between the Capitol and its visitors.
Truck services to the Capitol now also take place underground in a tunnel, the construction of which was partly responsible for the center’s delays and cost overrun. Previously all delivery trucks pulled up to the east front of the building.
“All that activity occurred right near the face of the building in the morning hours,” Mr. Fontana said, “and that’s not appropriate for any building, let alone the nation’s Capitol.”
But the center, which is protected by the U.S. Capitol Police, does much more than shield the Capitol building, according to Mr. Fontana. At roughly three-quarters the size of the Capitol building itself, the center can hold up to 4,000 people and includes additional congressional office space, two theaters, exhibits, gift shops, a cafeteria and the 26 restrooms.
More than 2,000 people per hour can be screened through the center’s entrance, a descending stairway on the Capitol’s east lawn, which some say mars a once unobstructed view of the Capitol building itself.
“People are now waiting minutes outside where it would have been hours before,” Fontana said.
U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, said that the more efficient entrance is a welcome way to keep people out of long lines and bad weather.
“People get heat stroke waiting to get into the Capitol in lines with hundreds and hundreds of people,” Mr. McGovern said. Until the new center opened, tourists would wait in line outside to go through security and were allowed to enter only in controlled numbers.
For people like Mr. King and David J. Twiss, a chorus director at Burncoat High School in Worcester who is taking his select chorus to Washington in January, the center offers not only shelter from the weather but also the chance for a hassle-free educational experience.
“Certainly when you’re trying to get on a bus with a time schedule, you’re going to appreciate 26 bathrooms,” Mr. Twiss said.
Mr. Twiss said he expects his students to enjoy the center’s displays about the history of the Capitol and Congress in the new 16,500-square-foot exhibition space. Designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the dimly lit exhibition hall, in which photography is barred, has an 11-foot-tall model of the Capitol’s rotunda and dome; models of Capitol Hill’s evolution from 1814 to present times; interactive, touch-screen kiosks with panoramic virtual tours of the Capitol and more.
Displayed artifacts on loan from the National Archives include the trowel used by President Washington to lay the Capitol cornerstone in 1793, the gavel used in the 1941 declaration of war against Germany and Italy and the American flag that was flying over the House on Sept. 11, 2001.
U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, said the exhibitions are important because they offer people a chance to better understand America’s history.
“I think the obligation here is clear,” Mr. Neal said, “and that’s to remind and better acquaint the citizenry with the marvel of the documents that help produce our democracy.”
Also on display are the original 19-foot-tall, white plaster Statue of Freedom, cast in bronze in 1861, and more than 20 other statues chosen carefully from the National Statuary Hall Collection to “represent the diversity of the country equitably,” according to Mr. Fontana.
“In the entire national statuary hall collection there are 100 statues, but only eight are women,” Mr. Fontana said. “We have five of those in our Emancipation Hall.”
Mr. Fontana said each statue was placed meticulously throughout the vast sandstone and marble-walled showroom, which boasts a 36-foot ceiling, two massive skylights and floor space large enough to contain five football fields.
The statue of King Kamehameha, who has an elevated status in Hawaii, must out of respect rest in a place where no one walks over his head, Mr. Fontana said. Sacagawea must face the West in honor of her westward journey with Lewis and Clark.
While waiting to tour the Capitol, visitors not admiring priceless artifacts and statues might watch a 13-minute orientation film on the history of Congress in one of two theaters accessible from Emancipation Hall.
But with the center’s advance reservation system in place, most visitors will not find themselves waiting for long, Fontana said. Using the center’s Web site, visitthecapitol.gov, visitors can book a tour with the Capitol Guide Service days or weeks in advance and plan accordingly. Tours led by congressional office staff members are still available and visitors can contact their member of Congress directly or through the Web site.
It costs nothing to enter or to reserve tickets for the theaters and tours. A limited number of tickets are available daily for people who have not made reservations.
Mr. McGovern said he thinks visitors will not be disappointed by the center, which he called a magnificent addition to the Capitol campus.
“From some vantage points, when you look up through the glass ceiling, you see that incredible view of the Capitol dome,” he said, “It’s breathtaking.”
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