When I was going through my Gettysburg photos the other week, I came across these shots of the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial and realized my series on the National Mall monuments to American presidents was incomplete.

Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States, was in office from 1869 to 1877. He was also the Commanding General of the United States Army during the American Civil War. I guess Grant is considered a “minor” president since his memorial isn’t nearly as noticeable or as impressive as the monuments to the “major” presidents scattered around the Mall. But, it is one of the largest equestrian statues in the world.

Located at the base of the West Front of the Capital, the memorial was sculpted by Henry Merwin Shrady over a period of 20 years and was dedicated in 1922, the centenary year of Grant’s birth. The sculpture consists of three parts: Grant is seated on his favourite horse, Cincinnati, and faces the Lincoln Memorial ― so designed in order that “the general who fought for the Union could forever sit facing the president who saved the Union.”

On either side of Grant are sculptures of Union soldiers: artillery soldiers to his left and cavalry soldiers to his right. Grant’s face is hard to see; it was the faces of the soldiers that grabbed the attention of my camera lens.

In honour of today being Inauguration Day, here is another photo of the Capitol. I was rather bemused to find out last summer that the swearing-in ceremony on Inauguration Day used to take place here, on the East Portico of the Capitol — which, as you can see, faces a parking lot. The ceremony wasn’t moved to the West Front (which faces the Mall) until 1981 when Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his first term as President.

I guess they were having trouble fitting all those spectators into the parking lot?

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial is quite different from the other presidential memorials I’ve already posted about.

For one thing, there are no columns!

For another, it’s made not of white marble, but of red granite from South Dakota.

And, lastly, it’s spread out over 7.5 acres, half-hidden by a small copse of trees. It’s not a DC landmark in the way the other memorials are.

The memorial was designed to be accessible to people with disabilities, out of respect for FDR’s paralysis from polio. There are no steps or stairs anywhere.

It’s also a new monument. Designed by a landscape architect named Lawrence Halprin, it took three years to build and was dedicated in 1997.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, was in office from 1933 to 1945, for a total of twelve years, one month, one week, and one day. The memorial consists of a series of outdoor “rooms,” one for each of his four terms in office.

Each room contains a waterfall, and each waterfall is progressively larger and more complex to represent the increasingly difficult problems FDR faced during his presidency. I entered the memorial from the “wrong” side, however, so the symbolism was lost on me.

In addition to the waterfalls are various sculptures of FDR …

… and of significant events during his time in office, such as …

… the Fireside Chats (the radio addresses FDR made between 1933 and 1945) …

… and bread lines.

Scattered amongst the sculptures, carved into the granite walls, are words spoken by FDR. The above quotation is my favourite.

There is also a monument to the First Lady. Eleanor Roosevelt stands before the United Nations emblem to honour her role as one of the first delegates to the UN.

FDR served his country during one of the most turbulent decades of the 20th century. Ironically, I found his memorial to be the most peaceful of the presidential memorials I saw in DC.

The Lincoln Memorial made a strong impression on me, but it wasn’t the kind of impression I was expecting. Of all the presidential memorials, it was the one I was most anticipating ― and the one I found the most unsettling.

I visited the memorial on the Sunday morning of Labour Day weekend. Whereas I had had DC to myself a few days earlier, on this long-weekend Sunday, the place was crawling with people. As I walked towards the Mall from the Foggy Bottom metro station, and witnessed the first of many tantrums I would see that day from a child too young to appreciate the sights of DC, I should have realized it might be a frustrating day.

The thing is, I have a hard time with crowds. Especially when I come across them unexpectedly. I didn’t approach the memorial from the Reflecting Pool side (see above photos). I approached it from the Potomac River side. There was no one there, as you see in this photo.

So to come around the memorial and suddenly be surrounded by so many people ― well, it took me by surprise.

I felt uncomfortable mounting the steps with the hoards of other tourists ― it certainly felt like we were pilgrims entering a place of worship. It’s even called that― a temple. Says so right there on the wall, above the statue of Lincoln.

And the statue! At 19 feet tall, it’s more than overwhelming ― it’s overpowering. If he were standing, Lincoln would tower 28 feet above us mortals standing below. The original design called for a slightly larger-than-life-size statue, but then the sculptor, Daniel Chester French, and the architect, Henry Bacon, realized that a statue only 10 feet tall would be dwarfed by the surrounding structure. They made the decision to go larger, but the result is this imposing likeness of the man Americans consider a martyr and whom they call the saviour of the Union.

I have no issues with honouring the memory of a great man. Sixteenth President of the United States, Lincoln was in office from 1861 to 1865. The Civil War began a month after he took office; it ended a month after his assassination. I doubt there is a politician in office today who has any inkling of how tough his job was.

It’s the religious symbolism I’m not comfortable with. He was, after all, just a man. But as I was editing the photos for this blog post, I studied Lincoln’s face long and hard. I didn’t get a good look while I was there ― the statue is just too high and the place was just too crowded. And I thought about that crowd and wondered if my experience hadn’t been affected by how many people were there with me, sharing what I thought would be a special moment for me alone.

I know. I’m being selfish.

There were many people posing for the obligatory photo in front of Lincoln’s statue. But there were many more people talking to their children, who were listening carefully― no tantrums here. I hope those children remember what their parents taught them that day.

The Lincoln Memorial took eight years to build and was completed in 1922. It’s modelled after a Greek temple, with 36 Doric columns (more columns!) ― one for each state in the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death. Inside, in addition to the mega-statue of Lincoln, are inscriptions of the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Speech.

I’d like to go back and visit the memorial again someday. I’ll just time it a little better and avoid the place on the Sunday of a long weekend.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

So wrote Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. These words form the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. (The original is on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives, which I ducked in to see on my last day in DC. Bit faded, and impossible to read in the dim light of the Rotunda ― the low light is necessary to preserve the document ― but it’s thrilling to see the original, none the less.)

The Jefferson Memorial is on the far side of the Tidal Basin from the National Mall. Jefferson was in office from 1801 to 1809, but his memorial (which took five years to build) wasn’t completed until 1943. The architect, John Russell Pope, also designed the National Archives. Both have lots of columns. What is it with columns in this town?

I have a whole whack of photos of the presidential monuments that surround the National Mall, which I will be doling out over the next few posts.

First up is the Washington Monument honouring George Washington, first President of the United States. He was in office from 1789 to 1797.

Made of marble, this obelisk stands at the mid-point of the National Mall, halfway between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. Its construction was begun in 1848, but the Civil War and other squabbles interfered with its completion, and it wasn’t finished until 1884. For a few years, it held the record as the world’s tallest structure (it’s 555 feet high), until the Eiffel Tower overtook it. It still holds the record as the world’s tallest obelisk.

Normally you can go up inside the monument for what must be a nice view over DC, but an earthquake in 2011 damaged the structure, and it’s closed pending the necessary repairs. The scaffolding is scheduled to go up sometime this fall, but luckily I was able to take my photos sans scaffolding.

The Washington Monument doesn’t look like much in photographs, but when you get up close, it’s rather impressive.