The story of American History put on pause

Living in Washington, DC, can sometime be expensive, well, a lot of times, but visiting the museums for the past 160 years has been free. The Smithsonian Museum has many buildings with many interesting exhibits and stories to tell. My favorite is the National Museum of Natural History, that is, until they're done building the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

One of the buildings, though, will be closing down for about two years as it renovates. The Smithsonion Museum announced that the National Museum of American History will close on Labor Day until summer 2008.

Be sure to visit the museum sometime over the summer. This is what we can look forward to in a couple of years:

By removing the marble panels that currently block the view to the museum's third floor, the architects will create a central core atrium with a new skylight that will dramatically open the building and a grand staircase will connect the museum's first and second floors. The central core area is defined as the three-story space encompassing the museum's two main entrances on the first and second floors and the third floor space immediately above the entrance areas.

Extensive 10-foot-high "artifact walls" on both the first and second floors will showcase the breadth of the museum's 3 million objects and a Welcome Center on the second floor will improve visitor orientation. There also will be new entrance vestibules at Constitution Avenue and Madison Drive which will help alleviate crowding. On the first floor, there will be an exhibition gallery for the museum's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, a new lobby for the 275-seat Carmichael Auditorium and new retail operations.

The renovation work will include replacing and relocating public and staff elevators, resulting in improved access to the lower level and the three exhibition floors; creation of several new restrooms, including four family restrooms; replacing heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems at the central core; upgrading fire and alarm systems; improving electrical systems; and improving security.