Tuesday Phillips Collection

This morning I walked NW from here to the Dupont Circle area. This is an upmarket area. I went to the Phillips Gallery which several people had recommended. Duncan Phillips, heir to a Pittsburg steel fortune, spent his money buying modern art. This is his collection in an ordinary ( if you are rich) home now with extensions. There are paintings by Degas, Renoir , Cezanne, Matisse etc plus more modern artists. There is a smallish room with a Rothko on each wall, purpose made for the room. They are linked by the colours. There is a bench in the room. It was strangely warm and comforting. Several of the rooms had different artists and styles but the paintings were linked by a common theme – eg trees. I enjoyed the whole exhibition. The watchers in each room were a motley crew without a uniform and greeted you when you came in which made my visit friendly.

After that I walked NE to U street and walked along to the street, 14th that I am in. The part of this street north of me is becoming quite trendy with small designer shops, a few run-down old places, building site for fancy apartments, restaurants. Like Lonsdale street. I had lunch in a done up old building, now a pub with a pressed metal ceiling.

Later in the afternoon I went to the main downtown area to a museum called the Newseum, which looks at 5 centuries of news history. Apart from many small theatres and lots of interactive displays they have several sections of the Berlin Wall, a piece of the antenna mast that was on top of the north Tower of the World Trade Centre, a section on news reporters who have died – a huge number – and a display of all the Pulitzer prize photos from 1945. There was a warning sign ‘ This exhibit may be too intense for young children’ - Not just young children!

On my way home I had a nice dinner at a place a bit like On Red or Ginger Room that has the one size plates . One of the dishes I had was of Quahog clams – quite large so you donot get many – about 6 from memory. One of them had not opened. I know that if mussels donot open, you should not risk eating it, but I did not know about clams. I asked the server ( her word when she introduced herself to me ) and she said she would ask the cook. She came back saying that ‘ no, I should not have been served an unopen clam and more were on their way’. Sure enough, a little while later 3 more open clams arrived.