Visitors flock to interactive USMC museum
Nearly 600,000 have visited in last year
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 12, 2007 21:47:51 EST
Shots ring out from speakers above; a breeze blows cold from behind; and the temperature drops 15 degrees while the voices of battle-hardened leathernecks fill the room.
No, these aren’t special effects on a ride at Disney World. It’s the National Museum of the Marine Corps’ TokTong Pass immersive exhibit in the Korean War wing.
“People don’t want to go to museums and just look at things; they want to be entertained,” said museum director Lin Ezell.
A look inside the National Museum of the Marine Corps
Ezell and her staff’s modern spin on the traditional museum helped it blow past initial attendance expectations of 350,000 to approach the 600,000 visitor mark for its first anniversary Saturday.
Not only are people coming to the museum in droves, they are staying much longer than officials expected. “I thought maybe people would stay maybe an hour or two, but many visitors are spending three to five hours here,” Ezell said.
Washingtonian Magazine featured the museum in July in its Ultimate Museum Guide, and not just because commuters on Interstate 95 can’t miss the massive architectural rendition of the second Iwo Jima flag-raising.
“We’re hoping people don’t just drive by and ask, ‘What is that thing?’ but also stop and check us out,” Ezell said.
As for the two flags raised over Mount Suribachi, the museum currently displays the first — less famous — one in a case near its interactive Iwo Jima exhibit, which puts visitors in a virtual amtrac and surrounds them with film of what Marines saw as they approached the Pacific island.
“I have seen vets come out of there with tears in their eyes,” said former Marine John Stewart, who volunteers at the museum.
The second flag raised over Iwo Jima, made famous by Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, was rotated out of its display last June to ensure it isn’t exposed to too much light, but it remains in the museum, Ezell said.
Officials look to build on their early success as they move into the museum’s second phase of construction.
The addition will include 80,000 square feet for a large-screen theater, classrooms, storage and galleries to help expand on the post-Vietnam War era. Phase II is on pace to open by spring 2010, Ezell said.
The extra space will help accommodate the museum’s larger-than-expected audience, which has surprisingly included not only Marines, but also soldiers, sailors and airmen.
“A lot of members of other services have visited here and wistfully think: When is fill-in-the-blank going to do this?” Ezell said. “I think we’ve set the bar quite high for services’ museums.”
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