A Capital Trip

To some Americans, Washington, D.C., is simply a dateline center of power, politics -and, lately, peccadillo. Yet it stirs a sense of pride in most people; it is the only city in the country that belongs to everyone, and to see it, to wander among its monuments and enjoy its green vistas is to receive the palpable touch of nationhood. Last week TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angela roamed the city on a pilgrimage of rediscovery and sent this report:

In this Bicentennial year, Washington has flowered into something far beyond its old self -into the city that Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant envisioned at his drawing board in 1791.

The fixed points on the tourist compass are, traditionally, the Capitol and the White House. One can stand at the White House fence and wave to Henry Kissinger or visiting potentates as they come and go; one can jump aboard a Senate subway car with lawmakers whose faces will be on the evening news. Last week the Capitol was unveiling a major new restoration -the old Senate chamber has been returned to its 19th century splendor, replete with red plush benches and coffered half-dome ceiling -just as it was when it rang with the debates of Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.

At the White House, this year's innovation is mercifully practical: gone are the weary hours spent waiting in line to enter the Executive Mansion. Now tourists are given time slips, and can then rest tired feet in a red-and-white striped tent on the adjacent Ellipse.

The most exciting flowering of Washington is at its Bicentennial best on the Mall, the vast greensward that sweeps from the new reflecting pool at the foot of Capitol Hill to the landmark pool stretching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. Nowhere in the world is there an equal to the burgeoning cluster of the Smithsonian Institution's showcases that now flank the Mall. In late 1974 the Hirshhorn Museum of Sculpture opened to great fanfare; on July 1 the huge new National Air and Space Museum will open, encompassing the history and artifacts of flight within its walls; next comes the new annex of the National Gallery of Art, an architectural jewel that will open in stages over the next two years beginning July 4.

For this Bicentennial season, the museums and galleries of Washington offer a feast of exhibition -not mere displays in glass cases or pictures on walls but presentations that stir the imagination, transport us in time, evoke faded memories, envelop us in motion, sounds, even smells.

qed

At the Lincoln end of the Mall, past and present come alive in the American folk-life festival, a recent tradition expanded this year to run throughou-the summer. More than 5,000 musicians and craftsmen from all parts of the nation and 36 other countries will fill the place with the music, dance, food and arts that enrich the American mosaic. Directly across the reflecting pool (watch out for canoe races) is another new feature: the sprawling Constitution Gardens -a graceful lake, paths and more than 2,600 trees -replacing the ugly "temporary" buildings that have blighted Constitution Avenue since the days of World War I.

As the summer heat lays siege to Washington, the people fight back. Tourists shuck their shoes to cool their feet in the scores of splashing fountains; kids wade in the reflecting pools. Nor is it only the tourists who cast off shoes and dignity to enjoy the squares and triangles of green that dot the city. It is parc du jour for the young professional denizens of midcity who eat their lunches among the geranium patches in a kind of civilized informality that is a special mark of the American capital.

Until five years ago, Washington could be written off as a second-rate capital, a 9-to-5 company town of no redeeming artistic merit. Then the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was completed, and while few except the architect like the look of the building, it works. Its three theaters have been the catalyst for a cultural renaissance in Washington, and visitors by the tens of thousands swarm through the center just to see the place, its red-carpeted expanses, spectacular chandeliers and the terraces that overhang the Potomac.

Many people tend to fix their attention on the marble heart of Washington, but they should not fail to savor its soft green edges. The serenely beautiful Potomac is neither an urban aorta like the Seine nor a pulsing expressway like the Rhine. Nor is it even a practical river; it is simply a decorative necklace at the throat of the city, embracing fearsome cascades of great falls, the untouched Theodore Roosevelt Island refuge, and romantic views that would have defied the brush of Corot. Wedged between the wide river and the city is a tamer waterway, the historic Chesapeake and Ohio Canal -surveyed by George Washington, protected by Justice William O. Douglas -a woodland walk unseen, though only a stone's throw from rush-hour traffic, and offering the passive traveler a mule-drawn barge.

There is, of course, much more: the exotic embassies, the exquisite Moslem mosque, Georgetown's antique elegance and contemporary beat, Mount Vernon with its Bicentennial sound and light drama, the lovely new rose window in the Washington cathedral, the great memorials to the makers of the nation -in short, a panoply that reflects the soul of America. Whatever the disaffection or doubts that the people may feel for their mortal politicians, this grandeur of Washington sustains hope because it has kept its promise.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.