Pennsylvania Avenue Freedom Plaza
Freedom Plaza is on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. It is a large paved park, with a striped covering set up in one area to shade visitors and hold special events.
General Highway History
Pennsylvania Avenue John A. Wilson Building
The New Post Office Building is just across 12th Street and the District Building is between 13th and 14th Streets. That is the home of the city government.
Pennsylvania Avenue Statue of Benjamin Franklin
After taking a few pictures, you go back down to the street. You pass a statue of Benjamin Franklin, the American printer, diplomat, and inventor. The statue is outside the Old Post Office because Franklin was a postmaster. King George III appointed Franklin in the years before the Revolutionary War.
Pennsylvania Avenue view from the Bell Tower
When you finish your drink, you take an elevator to the tower above the Old Post Office. At the top, you get a long range view of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Pennsylvania Avenue Old Post Pavilion
This old building was going to be torn down, but instead it has been converted into a little shopping mall with an eatery. The eatery has a small stage. You buy another soda and listen to a five-piece band performing rock songs. The band is from a school in Virginia.
Pennsylvania Avenue Old Post Office Building
Shops and offices line the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue, but you cross the street to the south side to look at the row of street vendors. You can't resist anymore. You dig into your pocket and pull out some of the strange-looking American money to buy a Washington T-shirt for yourself, a Washington coffee mug for your teacher, and some Washington postcards to send to your friends. The vendors have set up shop in front of the Internal Revenue Service building. This is the agency that collects our taxes.
Pennsylvania Avenue FBI Building
As you continue your stroll along Pennsylvania Avenue, you reach the Department of Justice on the left and the J. Edgar Hoover Federal Bureau of Investigation Building on the right. You stop to look at the large panels on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the Hoover Building. They tell the story of some of our Presidents: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. Above the panels fly replicas of the American flag as it looked at different times in our history.
Pennsylvania Avenue U.S. Navy Memorial
Between 7th and 9th Streets, you pass the U.S. Navy Memorial on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue. A low waterfall lines the avenue and a bandstand is in the center of the memorial.
Pennsylvania Avenue Temperance 2 Statue
Right behind "Temperance" is the National Bank of Washington. A huge banner on top of the building and a small sign near the door tell you this is Washington's Oldest Bank. It was organized in 1809.