As Good As Being There

Watergate Hotel - Washington, DC

The Watergate Hotel is a luxury hotel in Washington, DC best known for being the site of the robbery that led to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon. It is located at 2650 Virginia Avenue Northwest in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood overlooking the Potomac River, adjacent to the Kennedy Center and the embassy of Saudi Arabia.

The Watergate was developed by the Italian firm Societa Generale Immobiliare, which purchased the plot of land on the defunct Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in the early 1960s. The last lock, which diverted water from the Potomac River into the Tidal Basin at flood tide, was known as the "water gate."  The hotel features 250 guest rooms and 144 suites. It is part of a mixed use complex opened in 1967. 

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White House - Washington, DC

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States.

It is a white painted, neoclassical sandstone mansion located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in Washington,D.C.   The property is owned by the National Park Service and is part of President's Park.

An image of the White House is on the back of the U.S. $20 bill.

Very few people realize the size of the White House, since much of it is below ground or otherwise minimized by landscaping. In fact, the White House has: 

55,000 sq ft of floorspace

134 rooms

35 bathrooms

6 stories

412 doors

147 windows

28 fireplaces

8 staircases

3 elevators

5 full-time chefs

5,000 visitors a day

a tennis court

a bowling lane

a movie theater

a jogging track

a swimming pool 

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Area 51 - Lincoln county, NV

Area 51 is a parcel of U.S. military-controlled land in southern Nevada, apparently containing a secret aircraft testing facility. It is also known as Watertown, Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, The Box, and The Directorate for Development Plans Area, and simply Groom Lake.

Area 51 is a section of land of approximately 60 sq. mi.  in Lincoln County, Nevada, USA.

The U.S. Government does not explicitly acknowledge the existence of the Groom Lake facility, nor does it deny it. Unlike much of the Nellis range, the area surrounding the lake is permanently off-limits both to civilian and normal military air traffic.  The base does not appear on US government maps; the USGS topological map for the area only shows the long-disused Groom Mine, and the civil aviation chart for Nevada shows a large restricted area, but defines it as part of the Nellis restricted airspace.

The tiny town of Rachel, Nevada (the nearest settlement to the base) enjoys minor celebrity status as being "the official home of Area 51". Located three hours from Las Vegas by car, Rachel receives a modest number of visitors year-round, and several small businesses offer food and lodging to visitors, together with aerospace and "alien" themed merchandising. The visitor numbers are swelled yearly with aviation enthusiasts hoping to catch a glimpse of the Red Flag exercises. A small museum sells maps, photographs, badges, and other Area 51 material, and a local inn proudly displays a time capsule received from the production crew of Independence Day movie.

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John F. Kennedy Space Center - Cape Canaveral, FL

The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is the NASA space vehicle launch facility at Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. The site is midway between Miami and Jacsonville, Florida.

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is home to a number of museums, two IMAX theatres, and various bus tours allowing visitors a closer look at various restricted areas than would otherwise be possible. Included in the base admission is tour-bus transportation to an observation gantry on the grounds of Launch Complex 39, as shown, and to the Apollo-Saturn V Center, a large museum housing a restored Saturn V launch vehicle and various other exhibits, including one theatre that reconstructs an Apollo-era firing room, where visitors can relive an Apollo launch, and another where visitors can relive the Apollo 11 landing.

The Visitor Complex also includes two facilities run by the Astronauts Memorial Foundation. The most visible of these is the Space Mirror Memorial, a huge black granite mirror through-engraved with the names of all astronauts who died in the line of duty. These names are constantly illuminated from behind, with natural light when possible, and artificial light when necessary. The glowing names seem to float in a reflection of the sky. Supplemental displays nearby give the details of the lives and deaths of the astronauts memorialized. Elsewhere on the Visitor Complex grounds is the Foundation's Center for Space Education, which includes a resource center for teachers, among other facilities.

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