Dozens of monuments and similar type structures line the streets, parks and seemingly everywhere one can be stuffed in the DMV area. Big, bigger and biggest; interesting and not, moving and forgettable. We’ve got ’em all. Something most have in common is non-interactivity. That is, standing at the foot of the giant Theodore Roosevelt statue on Roosevelt Island provides minimal information about the president. Oh, there’s the multiple giant walls with words of wisdom spoken by the president and simply based on its location one can surmise a few things important to him. But even with these things it’s difficult to learn about the man and his time in office. One example of many, if not most of such memorials. Sure, many of the memorials provide a little space to collect your thoughts, perhaps even recall a smidgeon of the 10th grade U.S. History class you didn’t sleep through. Forgive me Mr. Bremer!
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| Theater in Wilson Center Memorial |
Conversely, walking into the typical oversized and yes, wand-armed security entrance to the Reagan Building you turn a corner and are immediately greeted by walls and placards teaching us about President #28, Woodrow Wilson. After making your way through all of that information you turn another corner and enter the heart of the Wilson Memorial–a two-room section brimming with information and a small theater. A circular timeline of his life surrounds one of his suits encased in glass. Interactive touch-screens are packed into the space; I suppose one could spend hours reading through every option and tab on the screens.
I spent awhile going through the year-by-year of his terms as well as the interactive issues kiosk. That particular display is so impressive—I even clicked on the –send more information– button and within a couple minutes I had, you guessed it, more information delivered to my inbox. Overwhelming at worst, unbelievably informative at best.
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| Touchscreen Request for More Info |
Naysayers might say it’s not the right way to honor a president, not grand enough, that it costs too much to maintain, that it’s too far off the beaten path to generate traffic. I can see pieces of each of those arguments, particularly the last. In fact I had to ask a couple people how to get to it and during the (admittedly too brief) amount of time I spent inside I was the only guest. That part does make me a little crazy~~dozens and hundreds of people cram into buses to take a photo of Lincoln or fight for positioning to be in a photo on the Jefferson steps–even in inclement weather. Yet few of them will walk away with more knowledge about them than they had before snapping the photo. I’d debunk much of the expense argument—-Wilson doesn’t need someone mowing around him or armed guards directing traffic twelve hours a day. Although I’d argue the others don’t warrant the show of force they exhibit–but that’s another for another day. No, Wilson simply needs a little electricity, someone to run a vacuum for five minutes and software updates every once in awhile.
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| Inbox, Minutes After Request Submitted |
Ironically I did my tour the same day as Times columnist
Maureen Dowd would be having a conversation about Wilson later that evening; subsequently turning said discussion into a piece this past weekend. I didn’t stay at the memorial long enough to learn all this about the President—Dowd’s piece added an unforgettable bit to my newly created inventory of Wilson information. Many former Presidents have expansive libraries, I’ve not visited any old enough to know firsthand if they’ve undergone updates to make them more interactive. Regardless—DC remains the singular destination for tourists to absorb political history and the Wilson Memorial folks sure got it right, I hope others follow the lead in the future. Perhaps a tiny fraction of the tens of billions of funds going toward domestic spying can be moved into domestic education; something surely we can all agree would be non-controversial.
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| Part of Life Timeline |