A Washington, D.C. wax museum opened a gallery, Thursday, filled with the likes of 44 presidents and other features intending to give visitors a lesson in American history.
“We wanna be sure to give a little bit more to the experience and not just have the presidents in a big room by themselves,” said Dan Rogoski, general manager of Madame Tussauds Washington D.C.
The staff at Madame Tussauds Washington D.C., which has an original location in London, made an announcement on Presidents Day, last year, of their intent to create a three-dimensional gallery filled with the wax figures of all 44 presidents. Twelve months and 2 million dollars later, the gallery is complete.
I like to think of it as the only place in the world that you can interact with al 44 presidents in wax, of course,” said Janine DiGioacchino, divisional director of Midway Attractions, USA. “It’s really immersive education. Historical. It’s something were really proud of.”
The gallery consists of seven rooms, hosting wax figures of all 44 presidents in settings common to them, as well as interactive features, such as touch screen surveys and tangible props.
“We can hop in a boat with George Washington as he’s crossing the Delaware River during the American Revolutionary war,” said Rogoski. “You can hop in a sand bunker, put on a military helmet and a military jacket and get some great snap shots of you sort of in a bunker in World War II.”
“This gives somebody the opportunity to go through American history and learn a little bit about famous things that happened along the way.”
Originally, the gallery was supposed to open in the fall of 2010, but Rogoski admits “that was a bit aggressive,” and then decided before Presidents Day was “the perfect sort of introduction” into the holiday weekend.
There has been some confusion about the pronouncement of 44 Presidential wax figures, when there has only been 43 individual men to hold office, but Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president and Barrack Obama is the 44th president, so it is considered appropriate to say that there are 44 presidential wax figures.
Each figure costs between 50,000 and 300,000 dollars to complete. A studio team in London spends three to four months on each figure, trying to make them as precise as possible, even including minute details, such as freckles.
“Our studios team sculpted the figures, 24 hours around the clock during a six month period to make sure that we had them here in time for Presidents weekend,” DiGioacchino said.
Thursday’s visitors were children as well as adults.
Madame Tussauds Washington D.C. invited a group of students from Watkins Elementary School to attend the opening. The children seemed to be most fascinated with William Howard Taft, the approximately 332 pound president that got stuck in a White House bathtub, saying “Can we take a picture with the fat guy?” The wax figure of Taft is placed adjacent to an old-time weight scale.
The first visitor to the gallery was Albert Mochener, an Australian native and businessman currently residing in New York, who said he read about the opening from a brochure in his hotel.
Upon his visit to the gallery, Mochener hoped to figure out which president was once a mining engineer working in a gold mine in Australia.
“Yes, I try to figure out, but nobody so far I have spoken to knows. I may have to get a larger book that writes all the history of each president,” said Mochener.
