The Place: Library of Congress
Where: 1st and Independence Streets SE
Why Live Near Here: There must be something really really cool about living close to the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States/the largest library in the world even if you’re not a huge bibliophile because the architecture and design in the Library of Congress is enough to keep a person coming back time and time again.
Interesting Things to Know:
- The library is home to the largest collection of US telephone and city directories and of comic books in the world.
- The library spends approximately $100,000 each year on lightbulbs alone.
- Some interesting items housed in the Library: Rosa Parks’s peanut butter pancakes recipe, Bob Hope’s joke collection, George Gershwin’s piano, and the contents of Abraham Lincoln’s pockets the night he was shot.
- The Library has been collecting every single public tweet ever made on Twitter and has been archiving them digitally since 2006.