Just For Fun - Hitting Some Locations In DC

I recently had the opportunity to visit Washington, DC, for a few days this spring. If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it - there's so much history, and art, and museums, and monuments. Many of the activities and attractions are free (including all the Smithsonian museums, including some real gems like the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery of Art), getting around is pretty easy (the Metro is a handy way to travel around DC, as well as the currently free DC Circulator bus - although there are some places that are tough to get to with public transit, like the Jefferson Memorial or Georgetown).

A key part of DC's history, at least for me and those of you who follow this blog, would be the locations used in filming episodes of The West Wing. I took a little time during my trip to visit some of those places we've seen in the first two seasons - I wish I had more time to get to places like the street we see Sam and Toby walking down as they're heading to breakfast in Mandatory Minimums, or Mandy's office where her car got towed from in "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc," or Laurie's apartment that we see in Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics, or the spot in Rosslyn where the shooting took place in What Kind Of Day Has It Been. I was very near the place where Mandy drove her car up on the curb in "Post Hoc ..." and where she got pulled over on the National Mall in Pilot, but I didn't have time to find the exact spots (or deal with the food trucks blocking those views). Heck, I wish I had the energy to get to the east side of the Capitol Reflecting Pool by the Grant Memorial to get a better angle of sites used in Five Votes Down and In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part 1 (or that there wasn't construction or some type of event happening in that spot, as well), but I least I got something from the other side of the pool.

Anyway, thought this might be kind of fun ... I didn't always get the exact right angle or spot, but I'm in the ballpark. Maybe I'll get another chance sometime to go back, and hit things more precisely! In any event, enjoy.

"Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc"

The entire scene after Sam walks in on Laurie's group at the restaurant, causing her to go outside, was filmed near the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street NW. While they use a fictitious name in the episode, the restaurant at that corner is The Capitol Grille. They cross Pennsylvania Avenue to the south, then go east across 6th Street and have a conversation by the Andrew W. Mellon Memorial Fountain, right across the street from the National Gallery of Art. Here's the couple walking away next to the fountain, with the (scaffolded) Washington Monument in the background:

And here's me in almost the exact same spot (looks like they've trimmed down those hedges since 1999):

Five Votes Down

Josh and Congressman Katzenmoyer have their face-to-face conversation at the Grant Memorial, just west of the Capitol Building (a scenic spot, easily closed off for filming without actually inconveniencing Congress with a great view of the Capitol, and a place The West Wing comes back to again and again). Here they are walking north-to-south at the memorial:

And here they are as the conversation is wrapping up, just before Josh tells him the President doesn't hold grudges - "that's what he pays me for":

As I said, I wasn't able to get on the Grant Memorial surface myself (there was some kind of group event going on the north side, and construction on the south end), but I did get shots from across the reflecting pool. This shows most of the memorial, including the statue on the north end where these two first are seen (it's tough to see, but it's on the very left edge of this picture) and the Grant statue in the center, which is where the scene ends:

Here's a bit more centered shot of the Grant statue - the little area right behind the orange crane arm is where Josh laid the boom on Katzenmoyer:

The Short List

We all know and love Gail, CJ's goldfish, right? Well, this is where it all started. Danny was talking to Josh about how to get things started with CJ, and Josh told him she loved goldfish. He actually meant Goldfish crackers, but he wasn't clear, and Danny took the literal meaning of a fish, and that's how CJ got Gail. This conversation was right outside the Old Executive Office Building (now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) on 17th Street NW, immediately west of the White House:

And this is where I got a picture pretty close to where the scene was shot:

(Looks like I was just a bit too far down the street - Josh appears to be closer to the columned area you see to the right in my picture.)

In Excelsis Deo

The Season 1 Christmas episode had a lot of location shots, including the emotional funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in the closing scenes. I didn't get out to Arlington this trip. I did, though, get to the Korean War Memorial, which is where Toby comes to talk to the police when they find the body of a homeless man wearing a coat with Toby's name in the pocket:

And here is almost exactly the spot Richard Schiff was walking on:

(Isn't it amazing the difference camera lens focal lengths can make? This is the spot, that is the bench - yet see how much different the Washington Monument looks between a cellphone picture and the television shot.)

Speaking of exact spots, later in the episode Toby goes back to the memorial:

And I was able to find that very same spot:

(Again, my failing memory has me looking in the wrong direction ...)

20 Hours In L.A.

I've mentioned how the headquarters of the Daughters of the American Revolution (just southwest of the Capitol on 17th Street NW, across from the Ellipse) is a favorite location for West Wing producers. It's a non-government building that looks like a government building, with huge columns and porticos, and the DAR was agreeable to allowing filming there (including the interior, with their library standing in for the George Washington University Law School library in Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics). It first appeared in this episode, as the building Vice President Hoynes is coming out of when Leo meets him on C Street NW to talk about taking the fall on the ethanol tax credit vote:

Here are those same steps today (that tree has grown a lot in 20 years):

The two have a conversation in the snow under their umbrellas, actually standing in the street:

I wasn't going to stand in the middle of the street, but this is close to where they were:

Mandatory Minimums

There were quite a few locations used in this episode, too (as I mentioned above, the entire breakfast situation where Sam and Toby were walking along N Street NW near the General Winfield Scott statue), but the one I got to was the spot where Toby and his congresswoman ex-wife Andy Wyatt were having a picnic talk along the Tidal Basin:

This is darn near that exact spot:

In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part 1

While I wanted to get out to the location in Rosslyn where they filmed the shooting at the end of Season 1 (it's called Freedom Park on North Kent Street in Rosslyn, near where the Newseum was located at the time), I did not make it there. I also did not get to the areas near George Washington University Hospital, where scenes for the first two episodes of Season 2 were filmed. However, one of the flashback scenes from this episode was shot at the Grant Memorial again. When Leo is talking Josh into taking a trip to New Hampshire to hear this Jed Bartlet guy speak, who's trying to run for president, they walk along that memorial:

And again, I got a shot of that area from the other side of the reflecting pool (Josh and Leo were walking in the area to the left of this picture, where the large crowd of people wearing blue shirts are):

Galileo

A good portion of this episode takes place at the Kennedy Center, where President Bartlet has to attend a performance of the Reykjavik Symphony Orchestra. I had the good fortune to attend a performance of The Who's Tommy at the Kennedy Center during my visit, so I got to see quite a few familiar sights. Here's the Grand Foyer, with CJ and Charlie coming down the stairs from the Presidential box of the Opera House:

And here's a shot of those very same stairs in 2019. Things look very much the same:

After that scene, CJ walks out onto the plaza facing the Potomac River, talking to Toby on her phone:

While I was there in the daylight, it looks very similar (although the fountain wasn't as extravagant):

When CJ is going back inside, as she turns to have the final word with Tad Whitney ("I'm great in bed") a stray leaf smacks her in the face:

This could be that very tree branch:

The Leadership Breakfast

And we're back to the Grant Memorial. A key plot point in this episode is Ann Stark's outmaneuvering of Toby, insisting the press conference following the breakfast be held outside the Capitol instead of at the White House. Well, this isn't exactly the Capitol steps, but given the limitations of where a film crew could set up, it's a nice looking spot:

And as for me, at least for this spot I was in kind of the right angle, across the reflecting pool. The drawback here, though, is the construction work going on right in the way:

And there you have it - a small part of my visit to Washington, wrapped up in stops at locations we've seen in the first two seasons of The West Wing. I hope you enjoyed sharing these views! I'll be back to my episode recaps real soon.