Saturdays are always a good time to visit Capitol buildings. The streets are usually pretty deserted and so are the interior hallways. We were fortunate enough to arrive just before the last tour at 3:00 p.m. While we were waiting for the tour to begin, we took a look up at the Capitol dome and noticed that other visitors were doing the same thing.
The official tour started with a visit to the Senate and House chambers. On the right, you can get a good look at the voting buttons. The Green button votes "Yes," the Red button votes "No," and the Yellow button votes "Present."
The tour included the gallery of governors, a hallway lined with portraits of all the former Illinois governors. The most recent ex-governor, Rod Blagojevich, doesn't have a portrait in place yet. It's not clear whether he will sit for that before, during or after serving his fourteen years prison sentence. Our guide noted that three others of the governors have been convicted of crimes and their pictures are hanging in the gallery. By the way, the senior Mayor Daley has a statue in the rotunda.
On a more positive note, there are statues of Lincoln and Douglas positioned in the rotunda as if in debate.
This is definitely one of the more impressive Capitol buildings from an architectural view.
A few blocks away, there is some Lincoln memorabilia including this building where he composed his inaugural address. Note the plaque in the center and near the bottom of the photo. It describes the building as being where Lincoln wrote his first inaugural address.
These buildings are across the street from the Old Capitol building. It was this building that was in use during Lincoln's time.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment