A financially struggling museum set to close its doors at the end of the year and a social-justice-themed hotel called the “wokest place to wake up” in D.C. are two local spots included on a new list of the “World’s Greatest’s Places” released by Time magazine.
The Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue and Eaton DC on K Street in downtown D.C. are among the 100 destinations around the world “to experience right now,” according to the Time list, which included attractions, hotels, and bars and restaurants.
The Newseum, which honors and celebrates the role of journalists and the role of a free press, has been beset by financial problems for years. In January, the company that owns the Newseum, the Freedom Forum, announced it was selling its instantly recognizable Pennsylvania Avenue location — featuring a massive facade emblazoned with the First Amendment — to Johns Hopkins University.
But the museum remains opens to visitors and features new exhibits through the end of the year.
“Some places you see because they’re new, others you visit before they’re gone,” Time magazine reporter Abby Vesoulis wrote. “The Newseum is one of the latter.”
Until the Newseum closes its doors, “wander the hall of Pulitzer Prize — winning photographs, see pieces of the Berlin Wall, and stand atop the Hank Greenspun terrace for panoramic views of the Capitol building and the capital city while you still can,” Vesoulis wrote.
The Eaton DC hotel, which opened in downtown D.C. last year, was also named to the list. The hotel, founded by filmmaker Katherine Lo, is billed as an “inclusive gathering space for changemakers and creatives” and includes shared work spaces, a community radio station, artist studios, meditation rooms and hosts book talks with authors and activists.
The hotel, at 1201 K Street, was described in a New York Times article as the “wokest place to wake up in the nation’s capital.” Instead of Gideon Bibles, the hotel hands out copies of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the Times reported.
Other spots on Time’s list include geothermal sea baths in Husavik, Iceland, the Zakouma National Park in Chad, which features one of the largest populations of wild elephants and the Statue of Unity — the world’s tallest statue — in Gujarat, India.
This is the second year Time has released its “greatest places” list. The magazine gathered nominations from its editors and correspondents as well as industry experts and evaluated them based on quality, originality, sustainability, innovation and influence.
The magazine acknowledged its picks weren’t necessarily based on hard metrics but on “something that many travels aspire to experience: the sense that one has stumbled upon the extraordinary.”
See the full list of places on Time’s website.
