About America's 250th
As America celebrates its 250th birthday, here’s how to enjoy—and endure—the festivities in the Washington area.
Brand-New Smithsonian
Big changes are underway across “the nation’s attic,” starting with the oldest of its museums. The Smithsonian “Castle” is in the middle of a years-long overhaul of its sagging ceiling, fading painted finishes, and aging cast-iron staircases, but renovations are stopping temporarily this summer to make room for an exhibit on the Declaration of Independence and the ideals of America’s founders. The building will also house a temporary visitors’ center, cafe, and shop. Down the street, the National Air and Space Museum—one of the country’s most visited museums—has been transforming for eight years. A few new galleries opened last year, and on July 1 five more are set to debut, including “Discovering Our Universe” and “How Things Fly.” Finally, a major glow-up of the Hirshhorn’s sculpture garden, including a subterranean connection to the museum running under Jefferson Drive, will open this fall.
The (Overdue) Beautification of DC’s Parks
In April, District residents saw something for the first time in years: water cascading down the 90-year-old fountain in Meridian Hill Park, the elegant urban oasis also known as Malcolm X Park. That was just a test, but the ongoing restoration work is part of an $866 million National Park Service–managed beautification project that aims to have Logan Circle, Sheridan Circle, Columbus Circle, Freedom Plaza, and other parks looking their spiffiest by July. Is our current administration weirdly fixated on one man’s vision of capital cleanliness? From the Reflecting Pool’s recent Miami-style paint job to the National Guard troops on gardening duty last summer, it sure seems like it! Still, the President isn’t exactly wrong to feel that DC’s elegant plazas and circles could use some sprucing up.
Lincoln Down Under
When the Lincoln Memorial was built, the construction of its stairs created a crypt-like vault with towering concrete columns supporting the structure. For a century, that cavernous space was largely hidden—tours were offered for a while in the 1970s and ’80s, until someone noticed asbestos—but in July, the undercroft will reopen as a 15,000-square-foot museum, thanks to a $69 million overhaul funded by philanthropist David Rubenstein. The new attraction will be devoted to the memorial’s construction and its role in civil-rights history.
Mount Vernon’s “Birthday Gift to America”
George Washington’s home on the Potomac is run by the oldest national historic-preservation organization in the country, and it has timed some major upgrades to correspond with the semiquincentennial. Washington’s mansion received some much-needed foundation repair—during the renovation, workers found bricks with handmade inscriptions by enslaved laborers—and his bedchamber has been restored to the way it looked when he died. Also given some TLC? A gutted and remodeled education center with new exhibition spaces (price tag: $20 million), a new shuttle from the King Street Metro, and a food court that no longer feels stuck in the 1980s.
A Gulf War Memorial
In the early months of 1991, a US-led coalition drove Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait during a six-week conflict that resulted in 382 American military deaths. The Gulf War has since been overshadowed by decades of conflict in the region, but in 2014 Congress passed a bill to commemorate the soldiers who served in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Desert Shield and Desert Storm Memorial, made up of two curving walls encircling a shaded fountain and featuring a carved eagle and falcon, is set to be dedicated in October near the intersection of Constitution Avenue and 23rd Street, Northwest, just north of the Lincoln Memorial. The oil-rich nation of Kuwait, represented by the falcon, was the memorial’s largest donor.
This article appears in the June 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
Brand-New Smithsonian
Big changes are underway across “the nation’s attic,” starting with the oldest of its museums. The Smithsonian “Castle” is in the middle of a years-long overhaul of its sagging ceiling, fading painted finishes, and aging cast-iron staircases, but renovations are stopping temporarily this summer to make room for an exhibit on the Declaration of Independence and the ideals of America’s founders. The building will also house a temporary visitors’ center, cafe, and shop. Down the street, the National Air and Space Museum—one of the country’s most visited museums—has been transforming for eight years. A few new galleries opened last year, and on July 1 five more are set to debut, including “Discovering Our Universe” and “How Things Fly.” Finally, a major glow-up of the Hirshhorn’s sculpture garden, including a subterranean connection to the museum running under Jefferson Drive, will open this fall.
The (Overdue) Beautification of DC’s Parks
In April, District residents saw something for the first time in years: water cascading down the 90-year-old fountain in Meridian Hill Park, the elegant urban oasis also known as Malcolm X Park. That was just a test, but the ongoing restoration work is part of an $866 million National Park Service–managed beautification project that aims to have Logan Circle, Sheridan Circle, Columbus Circle, Freedom Plaza, and other parks looking their spiffiest by July. Is our current administration weirdly fixated on one man’s vision of capital cleanliness? From the Reflecting Pool’s recent Miami-style paint job to the National Guard troops on gardening duty last summer, it sure seems like it! Still, the President isn’t exactly wrong to feel that DC’s elegant plazas and circles could use some sprucing up.
Lincoln Down Under
When the Lincoln Memorial was built, the construction of its stairs created a crypt-like vault with towering concrete columns supporting the structure. For a century, that cavernous space was largely hidden—tours were offered for a while in the 1970s and ’80s, until someone noticed asbestos—but in July, the undercroft will reopen as a 15,000-square-foot museum, thanks to a $69 million overhaul funded by philanthropist David Rubenstein. The new attraction will be devoted to the memorial’s construction and its role in civil-rights history.
Mount Vernon’s “Birthday Gift to America”
George Washington’s home on the Potomac is run by the oldest national historic-preservation organization in the country, and it has timed some major upgrades to correspond with the semiquincentennial. Washington’s mansion received some much-needed foundation repair—during the renovation, workers found bricks with handmade inscriptions by enslaved laborers—and his bedchamber has been restored to the way it looked when he died. Also given some TLC? A gutted and remodeled education center with new exhibition spaces (price tag: $20 million), a new shuttle from the King Street Metro, and a food court that no longer feels stuck in the 1980s.
A Gulf War Memorial
In the early months of 1991, a US-led coalition drove Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait during a six-week conflict that resulted in 382 American military deaths. The Gulf War has since been overshadowed by decades of conflict in the region, but in 2014 Congress passed a bill to commemorate the soldiers who served in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Desert Shield and Desert Storm Memorial, made up of two curving walls encircling a shaded fountain and featuring a carved eagle and falcon, is set to be dedicated in October near the intersection of Constitution Avenue and 23rd Street, Northwest, just north of the Lincoln Memorial. The oil-rich nation of Kuwait, represented by the falcon, was the memorial’s largest donor.
This article appears in the June 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
