Apparently, they’re charging twenty rapidly depreciating American dollars for entry into the Newseum, the nearly half-a-billion-dollar shrine to journalistic self-regard in Washington, D.C. Jack Shafer is having none of it.
I cannot decide which is sillier: The Wolfgang Puck restaurant on site or The New York Times–Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News. Great Hall of News! It’s Disneyesque!
From their press release:
NEWSEUM ANNOUNCES APRIL 11 GRAND OPENING
Free Admission on Opening Day
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — The Newseum, the world’s most interactive museum, will open its new $450 million, seven-level museum in the nation’s capital on Friday, April 11, Newseum officials announced today.
In 250,000 square feet of exhibit space, the Newseum will offer visitors 15 theaters, 14 major galleries, two state-of-the-art broadcast studios and a 4-D time-travel experience. The building features a glass-fronted “window on the world” facing Pennsylvania Avenue and a 74-foot-high, 50-ton marble tablet emblazoned with the 45 words of the First Amendment.
To repeat, that’s a 50-ton marble tablet, 74 feet high. For comparison, the Jefferson Memorial is only about 95 feet from the floor to the top of the dome.