Newseum, a Developing Story

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At the Newseum, News Is the Attraction

At the Newseum in Washington, visitors can take in the history of news, then create some of their own by taking on the job of a journalist.

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At the north side of the complex are the 135 apartments. About half have been rented so far. Studios start at $1,720, one-bedrooms at $2,500, two-bedrooms at $3,875.

The Source restaurant, with an entrance next to the apartment lobby on Sixth Street, is one of Hollywood chef Puck's first ventures on the East Coast. It offers fine dining with classic-rock background music (Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground) and a sleek bar with ambitions of power-hipness.

Newseum officials say they anticipate at least 500,000 visitors to the museum in the first 12 months. That's slightly more than visited the Newseum annually in its more modest incarnation in Rosslyn -- where admission was free. About 55,000 tourists have already booked group visits through December.

The estimate of a half-million visitors may be conservative. The International Spy Museum, three blocks north of Pennsylvania Avenue, also charges admission and draws more than 700,000 visitors a year, says Peter Earnest, executive director.

Unknowable for now is how many dollars and visitors the Newseum will take away from existing attractions and how much new spending and visitors it will generate.

"The Newseum is a spanking new addition, and I think it will appeal to a similar demographic as ours -- people interested in current events and history," Earnest says. But "it's not totally a zero-sum game. The Newseum, the Spy Museum and other attractions are part of Washington's attraction as a destination city."

Hopes are soaring among the region's professional boosters.

"I'm an expert in tourism, and this is a product people will love," says Bill Hanbury, chief executive of Destination D.C. (the new name of the Washington D.C. Convention & Tourism Corp.). "It'll do two things. It's going to extend the visits of current visitors, the urban explorers, American families, weekend travelers. People will want to spend additional time in Washington, D.C. But the really great news is, this will tap into new visitors. This will really be a demand generator unto itself."

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On a recent Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., nearly every table in the Newseum's food court (called "the Food Section," of course) is occupied. The Penn Quarter Neighborhood Association has been hosting these monthly breakfasts at different local establishments for 16 years.

The turnout for this pre-opening visit is 336, shattering all previous neighborhood breakfast attendance records. Wearing name tags, the people identify themselves as residents, restaurateurs, merchants, developers, theater staff, museum managers -- folks drawn from all the cohorts that make up the mosaic of this part of town. (The neighborhood is bounded roughly by Pennsylvania on the south, New York and Massachusetts avenues on the north, Third Street on the east and 15th Street on the west.)

Before touring the Newseum, they take turns at a microphone to hype what's up in the 'hood: the farmer's market, new pre-theater menus, new dance productions, new happy hours, new exhibits, new businesses.