This Memorial Day weekend, my family visited “The Big Picture,” the inaugural exhibition at the DC History Museum. What we found there really blew me away. It inspired me enough to write a short entry on my brother’s terrific family history blog, as I finally felt I had something to contribute.
The sparkling new museum space–all marble floors, mahogany walls, and massive skylights–is located on the second floor of the beautifully renovated Carnegie Library, across from the DC Convention Center at 8th and K St. The building, dedicated in 1903, has a storied history. It was the first public library in DC, and functioned as the city’s central library for 70 years. It was also the first desegregated public building.
In May, 2019, Apple completed a $30 million renovation of this beaux art architectural masterpiece, so the first floor of this building is now an Apple Store.
“Apple Carnegie Library”
The exhibition was a series of panoramic photos, taken in the last 120 years or so in DC. Some were spectacular, like a massive row of black debutantes posing in the old U-Line arena, or a shot of an old Washington Senators line-up; both these photos were backlit, and about 20 feet wide and 8 feet tall. Others were more mundane, including about 6 or so school graduating class photos.
Our first big surprise was a picture of the Alice Deal Middle School graduating class of 1994, featuring 15-year-old Uncle Joe! We couldn’t believe it. It was so nice to see our own DC-proud Joe featured so prominently, rocking a Red Hot Chili Peppers tee-shirt. My son Nicky, who is currently a 13-year-old Alice Deal student, thought it was especially cool.
Around the corner, unbelievably, was another school panoramic. This time, it was the Wilson class of 1987! My own class!
Sadly, neither me, nor, ( I noticed), the majority of my punk rock friends, were present when that particular photo was taken. Hm. Maybe we all got sick that day? Serves me right! I could have been enshrined as a part of DC History, 32 years later. But it was exciting to see so many old friends, and what a crazy coincidence, out of the many thousands of classes that could have been selected for this exhibition, both mine and my brother Joe’s were there.
But the biggest surprise of all came right at the end.
The curators picked 5 beautiful historic black and white photos, from the first half of the 20th century. They digitized them and put them up on an enormous screen, and the camera did slow pans across them. A group of Western Union motorcycle couriers, from 1918, the Capitol behind them. A line up of baton twirlers in 1920s downtown DC. Each photo remained on the huge screen for about 30 seconds, so we could take in all the details. A group of Armory workers posing. A group of Filipino college students, from 1921, on a picnic at Great Falls, VA.
Wait, what? a group of Filipino college students? No way.
I waited impatiently as the image panned from left to right. And, like a lightning bolt, there he was, all the way at the end, staring out at me from across 100 years.
That young man in the West Point uniform is Lolo! Our Filipino collegian grandfather. He lived in New York, so was probably only in DC briefly, for this gathering, which was dated August 6, 1921. For some reason, I started crying–I was overcome with emotion seeing him there. I have definitely never seen this photo before, and it is mind-boggling to consider the odds of the curators selecting this photo from the thousands they had to choose from. But I felt I was absolutely meant to see it today, and even more perfect that it was Memorial Day weekend.
So DC History=Guevara History. The proof is in the museum.
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