Reading for comprehension

Read the text and check your comprehension in Exercise 10.

Washington

(a visitor's impression)

My own image of the city is deeply entangled in political drama of the kind or another: the poignantly moving freedom March, the wintry Inauguration of President Kennedy and his untimely funeral thereafter.

It is said that some three quarters of the population of Washington are wholly or indirectly involved in the administrative machine and the general process of government; they are either politicians or civil servants, or foreign diplomatists.

It is possible to take a stroll round Washington at 9 o'clock at night and see practically no one but watchful coppers. Conventional citizens do not take strolls at 9 o'clock; they are at home watching the television or earnestly discussing the current Middle Eastern situation. You, as a visitor, are struck with the Institutions.

Without any doubt at all the best way to come into Washington is for Virginia-side by the Arlington Memorial Bridge and on a night of the full moon. In this way you suddenly come upon an almost archaic scene of theatrical splendour when you reach the spectral marble of the Lincoln Memorial, by night the brooding statue behind the Doric columns in Potomac Park has an uncommon majesty.

You may well conclude that the whole of the United States capital is composed of tastefully illuminated mock-Classical edifices. Personally, I find it makes a nice change from what one finds elsewhere.

If you do have a go at the street-plan you will find that, probably uniquely in America, Washington still mirrors its original design. Everything is criss-crossed with a grid of streets (called by simple letters or numbers) and the grid is overlaid by avenues radiating from traffic-jamming plazas. It is like living on a chess-board.

After some hours of exploration visitors tend to realize a very unusual thing, an impression hard to pin down; it is just that they have hardly encountered a single dwelling. Monuments, yes, spectacles and sights, to be sure, public buildings, but homes – where are they? Does anyone live in Washington? The answer is: Yes, poor people live in Washington, somewhere. Prosperous people live in Maryland or Virginia. Or they live in Georgetown.

Another lived-in residence is the White House – a very remarkable pad, if only for the fact that considering its symbolic importance it is so unremarkable. It suggests a very nice country house, composed of an agreeably random architectural mixture. Only 14 years from the time it was put up the British burned it down, in 1814. After it was rebuilt, nothing much happened until1948 when Margaret Truman's piano began to fall through the floor, and it was discovered that the whole place was falling to bits. Four years and five and a half million dollars later all was remedied, and there it is today, opulent but not arrogant, by Washington standards. In South Lawn no longer grazes the incumbent's sheep, nor does the First Lady still dry out the Presidential laundry in the East Room as Mrs. John Adams did. If you feel like it you can take a swing through the public rooms most mornings, observed by the valuable portraits on the walls. But it is a rather swift whiz; you are in and out in 20 minutes.

As an interesting residence, the White House may be a rarity in Washington.

God knows there are enough of them. Some are pretty awful to contemplate; some are sincerely beautiful; they all have meaning. Go up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. The immense building is the Department of Justice: do you want to do a tour of the FBI? It is possibly the only Bureau of Investigation in the world that takes you round. (Then you guess how much they didn't show you.) Just past that you can nip into the National Archives and see the first copy of the Constitution in a glass case, if such is your will. You can have a go at the Library of Congress (the biggest existing library on earth, I am told) and if you have 400 years at a loose end I believe you might be able to glance at perhaps half of its collection of books.

It must be admitted that Washington has another face, one that is not part of its diplomatic image or its institutional face, though it is fast becoming part of its social and political one. The slums to which you will not be taken are sad indeed. They have made this urbane center of the Western world uneasy and unstable. The city, 60% populated by black Americans, is policed by a large police force. All cities are "encampments of strangers", but none more so, in every sense, than this. It would be unreasonable to deny this aspect of America's capital. Because this is America's dilemma.

Find statements in the text which were surprising for you and give your reasons.

Read some more information about Washington’s famous sights and be ready to do the tasks below.

The Jefferson Memorial. This monument is dedicated to the 3^rd president, Thomas Jefferson. It was designed by John Russel, and it was erected in 1943. Inside there is a statue of Jefferson by sculptor Rudolf Evans.

The Lincoln Memorial. This beautiful monument is dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th president of the United States. It is made of marble, and it was built in1922. In the great hall there is a huge statue by Daniel Chester French.

The National Gallery of Art. The National Gallery contains one of the world's best collections of European and American painting and sculpture. The newest buildings, the East Building, is made of pink marble and glass. It was designed by I.M. Pei, and it was opened in 1978.

The Washington Monument. The Washington Monument was completed in 1884. It is dedicated to the first president, George Washington, and it is 555 feet high. You can take an elevator to the top or you can climb 898 steps!

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16