Chapter 22 



Outside 

 the Building 



No PLACE, WITH THE EXCEPTION of the floating city 

 of Gulliver's third trip, exists without a physical 

 setting. When the walls of the Museum were in place 

 and the collections moved, more remained to be done 

 "for the completion of the new building of the United 

 States National Museum and its surroundings, namely, 

 the construction of roads and walks, grading and sod- 

 ding, construction of a waterproof granolithic platform 

 along the outer walls of the building, and the painting 

 of the interior walls." Writing in the Annual Report for 

 1911, Rathbun stated the cost as seventy-seven thou- 

 sand dollars.' 



At the turn of the centiny, the Department of Ag- 

 riculture had gardens on part of the Mall. These in- 

 cluded grafted trees, and near the Museum was a tree 

 that blossomed on only one side. Other areas of the 

 Mall were moderately wooded, but during 1934 many 

 of the trees except those adjacent to the Museum were 

 cut down to improve the vista from the Capitol to the 

 Washington Monument. Some of the largest and oldest 

 trees remaining on the Mall side of the Museum are 

 two bald cypress {Taxodium distichum) across Madison 

 Drive from the south steps. They have not developed 

 the "knees" typical of native cypress growing in south- 

 ern swamps, and as a result many people do not rec- 

 ognize them. 



"Uncle Beazley" 



Not far away from the cypress trees stands "Uncle Bea- 

 zley," a life-size model in fiberglass of the dinosaur 

 Triceratops, made in 1967 for a television show that 

 featured many Museum employees as extras in a few 

 scenes. Uncle Beazley was presented to the Museum 

 the following year, and except for one trip to the An- 

 acostia Museum, he has remained in place on the Mall. 

 It is a tribute to the strength of fiberglass that Uncle 



Vendors at the B Street Centre Market, looking southwest 

 from the present site of the Department of Justice building. 

 The iron fence and large stone gateposts in front of the 

 Museum may be seen. Post-1 9 10 and prc-1931, the 

 photograph was probably taken before World War I. 



Beazley has withstood the effects of thousands of chil- 

 dren climbing up and sliding down. A few years ago a 

 Victorian-style metal link fence was put around him, 

 but this was entirely for the aesthetic effect. Uncle Bea- 

 zley is the only part of the Museum that can be visited 

 by the public very late at night. 



A sarcophagus that used to stand near this spot was 

 moved to the south side of the Mall in the 1940s or 

 1950s. It puzzled tourists, as did a monumental urn 

 dedicated to Andrew Jackson Dowling, a landscape gar- 

 dener generally given credit for the first attempts at 

 beautifying the Mall. The inscription was badly worn, 

 and tourists were left to wonder. The urn was removed 

 in the 1960s, and now sits in front of the Castle. 



Below the south steps of the Museum is a large stor- 

 age vault, mostly used for drums of alcohol. Few people 

 go into the vault, but the drums of alcohol are all care- 

 fully accounted for; years ago, one disappeared and 

 the FBI was called in to catch the thief. In the early 

 1960s Buildings Management carted out of the vault a 

 number of wooden boxes that belonged to the O. C. 

 Marsh dinosaur collection. After several hours of heated 

 exchanges and searching of files, Lewis Gazin found 

 an agreement arranged by his predecessor Charles Gil- 

 more, stipulating that the boxes were to be brought to 

 the new building and stored luider the steps. The boxes 

 quickly were piU back. 



The vault opens into the side of a short auto pas- 

 sageway that runs below the south steps, connecting 

 the east and west parking lots. Across from it, on the 

 other side of the passageway, is a door into the Museum 

 that has been used occasionally to let dignitaries into 

 the building, as in the case of President Truman. It was 

 originally designed so that ice could be taken out of 

 the adjacent ice rooms and moved to the other build- 

 ings. The passageway is called "the tunnel," and was 

 designed for a horse and wagon. During the 1960s it 

 became a macho event to drive a small car like a Volks- 

 wagen through it as fast as possible. The tunnel is short, 

 but visibility is limited. After one close call, speed bumps 

 ("Boardman bumps," in some circles) were installed at 

 either entrance to the tunnel, and the sport stopped. 



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