An Ode to Gift Shops

 
   For my final blog post of the Summer I wanted to talk about something near and dear to my heart, gift shops. Since I was a boy, I have been a gift shop fanatic with a primary interest in books and cheesy novelty items like Supreme Court gavel pens. Obviously, a city like Washington D.C. is one of the greatest gift shop destinations in the world, so to inform other I decided to create my gift shop power rankings for Washington D.C. If you are not familiar with the concept, power rankings are just rankings, but for some reason every sports commentator calls them power rankings so I am going to follow their lead.

 Gift Shop Power Rankings:
     1. Newseum: It speaks to the greatness of this gift shop that it is ranked #1 despite having to pay to even enter the building and have access to the gift shop. There are two floors, five rooms and pretty much everything you could ask for. Books of all types, t-shirts about different eras in history, cheesy gift shop items about the news and more. The undisputed champ.
      2. Supreme Court: A personal favorite has all of the books you could ever want on the history of the court, its justices and the law that they have interpreted. In addition, there are leather bound journals (a weakness of mine), glassware, great posters, a collection of ties and the aforementioned gavel pens. A must visit.
      3. National Archives/Library of Congress: Great selection in both couldn’t choose between them. The Archives obviously have a better selection of document memorabilia, but the Library has the best selection of books in a gift shop in D.C.
      4. American History Museum: Only one floor, but there is something for everyone. There is a great Republican/Democrats section, the best selection of posters in D.C. and some really cool glasses for each state that were handmade.
     5. Congress: The two gift shops in the Capital Visitors Center are a solid collection of clothing, books, pictures and glassware. The gift shops in the Congressional office buildings are much better, but those are not really available to the public.
     6. Air and Space Museum: Two floors and probably the most child friendly gift shop. The bottom floor has the best selection of shirts, cheesy gifts and collectables.
     7. Lincoln Memorial: I really like everything in the gift shop, it has a great selection of books, but there is room for like 10 people inside it. Found the coolest bookmark ever here.
     8. Washington Monument: Since the monument is closed the gift shop is in the hut at the bottom of the hill on the east side of the monument. It’s pretty small, but there is a good selection of Washington (the President) and Washington (the city) memorabilia.
     9. Jefferson Memorial: Similar to the Washington Monument, but smaller. Nothing really special to note of here.
   10. White House Visitors Center: I went to this gift shop the day it closed for repairs this summer, so it is in this final spot completely out of spite, I have no idea what it is like.

AH