If you haven’t been to the Newseum, you only have a few days left.
The Newseum opened in 2008 and focused on how journalists have covered history. Located down the road from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, the museum with a focus on the First Amendment will be closing on Tuesday, Dec. 31.
“We really want people to take advantage of all the 15 galleries and 15 theaters and all the programming that we have available before we close our doors,” said Sonya Gavankar, the Newseum’s director of public relations.
The building has been sold to Johns Hopkins University and is expected to house a number of the university’s graduate studies programs.
Among the current exhibits are the 9/11 gallery, “Inside Today’s FBI,” “The Berlin Wall,” “First Dogs,” “The First Amendment Gallery” and “Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs.”
A Newseum ticket is $25. But if you want to go in its final days, and go online first, you can buy discounted tickets.
Though the Newseum may be closing its doors, many of its exhibits will live on.
“Our work will still continue online,” Gavankar said. “The Freedom Forum, the parent organization of the museum, will continue doing the important convening and educating work about the First Amendment, and that will continue on into 2020 and beyond.”
She added that the gathering of the day’s front pages from newspapers nationwide, displayed in front of the building, will continue online.
“It’s a great resource for people to see what’s happening around the world and how the world covers the biggest stories of our lives,” Gavankar said.
Some of the Freedom Forum’s physical exhibits will be traveling: Berlin Wall exhibits are already on display at Reagan National and Dulles International airports. The gallery of Pulitzer Prize pictures and the “Rise Up!” exhibit on LGBTQ history will be on display in various places as well.
The museum has had financial struggles for years, and in the end, running it became too much. One likely problem is that the Newseum charges admission in a city full of museums that are free.
The Newseum is open 9 a.m. to 5.a.m. Monday through Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
