Music and Harvest

This bronze sculpture, by James Earle Fraser, is one of four erected in 1951 at the eastern end of Memorial Bridge. The sculptures were all cast and gilded by Italy as a gift to the United States. On the other side of Pegasus is a woman with a harp.

Photograph and post by Marie McC of Alexandria Daily Photo.

Crystal City

Crystal City’s 23rd Street has a lively restaurant district with an international flavor. Over a dozen different styles of cuisine from all over the world can be found in a one-block area. Crystal City is an unincorporated suburb of Washington DC near the Pentagon in Virginia.

Photograph and post by Marie McC of Alexandria Daily Photo.

Apartment Building Doorway

Passante had prepared posts for me to publish during her vacation. Today I discovered there is a Blogger setting we didn’t know had to be activated, so now I can’t access the posts she intended for me to put online. Fortunately, we live in the same area and I have a few Washington photos in my back pocket, so I’ll still be able to cover for her while she’s away. And you’ll get to see her photos in ten days.

Meanwhile, this is a doorway to an apartment building in Southeast Washington, DC. I thought the detail above the door quite attractive.

Photograph and post by Marie McC of Alexandria Daily Photo.

Must be the season of the witch

When I walk into the Alexandria Central Library (see yesterday’s post), I feel as if I am walking under a giant witch’s hat.

I am off to England and France for 10 days, and in my absence, Marie McC of Alexandria Daily Photo will be posting for me. I’ll be back on July 8.

And if you didn’t get the reference in the title …

Alexandria Central Library

The Charles E. Beatley Jr. Library—the central library in the Alexandria system—seems to be a building people either love or hate. I belong to the first group. The library is named for a former mayor of Alexandria.

Smithsonian Castle

What’s now known as the Castle was the first building of the Smithsonian Institution, designed by James Renwick Jr., and completed in 1855. Today it houses the administrative offices and an information center where visitors can watch a video orientation to the Smithsonian museums.

Bells

The Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon, seen from the National Gallery of Art East Building.

I’m delighted to welcome Marie McC of Alexandria Daily Photo as a team member on Picturing Washington. Marie and I not only blog in the same area (since Alexandria, Va. is part of the Washington, DC metropolitan area), but we discovered we also live in the same neighborhood.

Seeing stars

This is the Arlington County Public Schools Planetarium, which is also open to the public for some programs in the evening.

School’s out!

Well actually, school was out here a couple of weeks ago. But adult education evening classes are still going on in the local high schools, and yesterday evening (when I was in a high school for my French conversation evening class) the janitorial staff were opening the pupils’ lockers and cleaning out the abandoned rubbish.

Unrelated (though maybe not for those students who think of high school as prison), but visit Pierre’s post today on Venice Daily Photo. Most visitors to Venice (me included) unimaginatively photograph the Bridge of Sighs from outside—the perspective of the free. Pierre captures the reason for its name by photographing, from the bridge itself, the last view of Venice and the outside world that the majority of condemned prisoners would ever see. It’s a powerful image.

Statuary

The front garden of house in the Del Ray section of Alexandria, Va.