White House
Every president since 1800 has snuggled down in the White House, ensuring that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is the nation's most famous address. The White House is a cozier-than-it-looks Neoclassical manor which has survived a torching by the British in 1814, a Jacqueline Kennedy redecoration campaign in the 1960s and Ronald Reagan doing broomstick reruns of the Kentucky Derby through the 1980s. Presidents have customized the property over time: Jefferson added toilets, FDR Roosevelt put in a pool, Truman installed a second-story porch, Bush added a horseshoe-throwing lane and Clinton put in a jogging track and a seven-seat hot tub. Some residents never leave: it's said that Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman both sighted the ghost of Abe Lincoln in Lincoln's old study. Daily tours herd visitors through eight interior rooms but the grounds are only open on Easter Monday for the traditional Easter Egg Roll.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The most visited memorial in DC is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a stark, powerful structure designed by Maya Ying Lin, whose design was selected from a national competition when she was a 21-year-old architecture student at Yale University. Two walls of polished black marble that come together in a V shape are inscribed with the names of 58,202 veterans killed or missing as a result of the Vietnam War. Names are inscribed chronologically from date of death; alphabetical rosters are available nearby. On request, volunteers will help you get rubbings of names from 'The Wall.' The most moving remembrances are the notes, medals and mementos left by survivors, family and friends since the memorial was completed in 1982. Opponents to the design insisted that a more traditional sculpture be added nearby; a memorial to the women who served in the war was another later addition.
Independence Hall
As well as being one of the country's best examples of understated Quaker-influenced Georgian architecture, Philadelphia's Independence Hall was the site of many of the fledgling nation's early twitterings. It was built between 1732 and 1756 as Pennsylvania State House, the colony's headquarters, at which time it was on the outskirts of the city. The Second Continental Congress met here from 1775 to 1783. The Assembly Room is where the delegates from the 13 colonies met to approve the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776), where the design of the US flag was agreed upon (1777), the Articles of the Confederation were drafted (1781) and the Constitutional Convention was held that produced the US Constitution (1787). The assassinated body of President Abraham Lincoln lay in state here on 22 April 1865.
Paul Revere House
The Paul Revere House, a small clapboard affair originally built in 1680, is worth a visit - and not just because it's the oldest house in Boston. The blacksmith Revere was one of three horseback messengers who carried advance warning to American rebels on 18 April 1775, of the British night march into Concord and Lexington that sparked the War of Independence. He lived here right through the revolutionary period, managing to father a dozen kiddies when he wasn't out riding for the righteous.
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty, the most enduring symbol of New York City - and indeed, of the USA - can trace its unlikely origins to a pair of Parisian Republicans. In 1865, political activist Edouard René Lefebvre de Laboulaye and sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi went to a dinner party and came away with the notion of building a monument honoring the American conception of political freedom, which they would then donate to the Land of Opportunity. Twenty-one years later, on October28, 1886, the 151ft (45m) Liberty Enlightening the World, modeled on the Colossus of Rhodes, was finally unveiled in New York harbor before President Grover Cleveland and a harbor full of tooting ships. It's a 354-step climb to the statue's crown, the equivalent of climbing a 22-story building, and if you want to tackle it, start early to avoid the crowds - it's hard to contemplate the American dream with your nose to the tail of the person in front.
Times Square
Dubbed the 'Great White Way' after its bright lights, Times Square has long been celebrated as New York's glittery crossroads. The Square went into deep decline during the 1960s when the movie palaces turned triple X and the area became known as a hangout for every colorful, crazy or dangerous character in Midtown. These days the sleaze has mostly given way to an infectious vibrancy, and the combination of color, zipping message boards and massive TV screens makes for quite a sight. Up to a million people gather here every New Year's Eve to see a brightly lit ball descend from the roof of One Times Square at midnight, an event that lasts just 90 seconds and leaves most of the revelers wondering what to do with themselves for the rest of the night.
A visit to fascinating Mount Vernon, George Washington's Virginia home for many years, is second in popularity only to the White House as a visited historic house. The country estate of this quintessential country gentleman has been meticulously restored, giving an insight into late-18th century plantation life. Although the grounds are immaculate and the house more than stately, all is not ostentation: there are many glimpses of the farm's working nature and regular living history presentations. George died here in a four-poster bed on 14 December 1799, and both he and his wife Martha are buried in an enclosure on the south side of the 19-room mansion.
Monticello
Everybody knows Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, probably because it is on the back of the nickel coin (the perfect souvenir?). The house is very much the embodiment of its creator, Jefferson, who oversaw all stages of its development over a period of 40 years and incorporated many of his fascinating if somewhat eccentric ideas in the design. The president's private chambers were set up so that he got out of the right side of his bed to write and on the left side to get dressed. Other unusual features include a concave mirror in the entrance hall that greets visitors with their own upside down image, hidden and narrow staircases (Jefferson considered ordinary staircases unsightly space wasters), the two-pen 'polygraph' used to duplicate correspondence and an indoor compass connected to a weather vane on the roof. Jefferson died here in 1826 and is buried on the estate where his favorite oak tree once stood.
Jamestown
Jamestown, Virginia, was founded in May 1607 when Discovery, Godspeed and Susan Constant moored in deep waters off the peninsula between the James and York rivers and 104 men and boys disembarked. It was the first permanent English settlement on the continent but was doomed to failure because of starvation, disease and attacks by Native Americans. In 1619 the first representative assembly met and Jamestown served as Virginia's capital from then until 1699. When the statehouse had been burned for a fourth time, the settlers accepted that they had chosen a poor site and they moved inland to what is now Williamsburg. The original Jamestown is now a collection of ruins, historical markers, visitor centers and ongoing archaeological digs.
So we see now that USA is really fascinating country that has a lot of sights to be visited.
Off the beaten tracks
For somebody who is already see all that wonderful things in America might be interesting to discover something new, where the tourists are not so common and whereyou can meet only native sitizens, but they are also the sights of USA.
Highway 395
Out where the Sierras drop straight down into the sagebrush of eastern California's Owens Valley, truckers, hunters and road-trippers cruise Hwy 395. Though the road runs several thousand miles from the northern fringes of the Los Angeles basin to the Canadian border, the best leg stretches 250mi (400km) between Lone Pine, in the shadow of 14,500ft (4350m) Mt Whitney, and Carson City, Nevada. You can reenact scenes from Gunga Din and How the West Was Won, both shot in the Alabama Hills just west of Lone Pine, where's there's a film festival every October.
The Manzanar National Historic Site, about half an hour's drive north of Lone Pine, consists of the remains of one of the infamous 'relocation' camps in which American citizens of Japanese descent were imprisoned during WWII. A little farther on is the funky
Eastern California Museum, a mixed bag of displays on natural history, Paiute Indian basketry and ancient Milk of Magnesia bottles. If you've still got a nest egg left when you reach Carson City, east of Lake Tahoe just over the Nevada border, let it ride at one of the town's many casinos.
Flagstaff
If the strip-mall chintz of small-town Arizona leaves you dry, drop in on Flagstaff, a cultural oasis in this otherwise arid landscape. The historic downtown area, harking back to the town's early days as a railroad whistle stop, comes as a welcome relief from the region's dusty motels and truckstop diners. In this neighborhood, antique inns sidle up against vegetarian cafes, and you're more likely to hear strains of a local jazz combo than any rumble of RV traffic. And as the novelty of nontouristy downtown wears thin, there's always a visit to the Lowell Observatory, where in 1930 the planet Pluto was discovered, or a stroll through the 200 blissfully green acres at the local arboretum.
Flagstaff makes a great base for day trips, since the Southwest's greatest attraction, the Grand Canyon, is less than a two-hour drive away. Within an hour of town you can explore ancient Anasazi and Sinagua Indian pueblos; marvel at the site of a mile-wide meteor crater; hike, bike and ski some of the state's most pristine mountains and forests; and even have your chakras realigned in the New Age mecca of Sedona.
Crazy Horse Memorial
Rising out of the foothills in the southwestern corner of South Dakota is a massive statue of Crazy Horse, the Sioux leader famous for orchestrating the demise of General George Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn. The statue, carved out of the mountainside, already dwarfs Mount Rushmore, while providing a revisionist twist to the latter's celebration of dead white males. Begun in 1948, the memorial is still in progress. There's a museum on the site, which is just north of the town of Custer.
Wrigley Field
Built in 1914, Chicago's Wrigley Field is the third-oldest baseball park in the country and a quirky slice of America's sporting pie. Known as 'The Friendly Confines,' the tiny ivy-walled pillbox is one of the most agreeable spots to while away a day consuming hot dogs and beer, and undoubtedly the best place to learn the meaning of die hard. The home team, the Chicago Cubs, haven't won a World Series since 1908, but you'll never meet anyone in the world as loyal as a Cubs fan. The neighborhood around Wrigley stands as a testament to this, with private houses donning additional rooftop bleachers, and every bar within a three mile radius serving as a secondary house of worship.
Wrigley Field is probably the only baseball diamond left in America where the score-by-innings and pitchers' numbers are changed by hand, and where putting in modish things such as floodlights caused a backlash. One of Wrigley's traditions is to fly a flag bearing a 'W' or 'L' atop the scoreboard after a game. The white flag with a blue W indicates a victory; a blue flag with a white L (all too common) means a loss.
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Janis Joplin may have wanted a Mercedes Benz, but instead she got a Porsche - a kaleidoscopic, candy-colored acid trip on wheels. You can see it at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in Cleveland, Ohio, along with Elvis Presley's black leather 'Comeback Special' suit and Ray Charles' sunglasses. Why Cleveland? Because it's the hometown of Alan Freed, the disk jockey who popularized the term 'rock and roll' in the early 1950s - that and some heavy lobbying by the mayor. If you're a fan of IM Pei's architectural style, you'll love the record-player shaped building.
Appomattox
Appomattox, Virginia, was the site of Confederate General Robert E Lee's surrender to Union commander Ulysses S Grant, which ended the US Civil War. The surrender took place at the Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865. The court house is now part of a national historic park, which includes restored period buildings, self-guided walking tours, audiovisual presentations and informative rangers.
Preservation Jazz Hall
The Society for the Preservation of New Orleans Jazz was established in 1961 to provide hard core jazz musicians with a home and jazz devotees with an appropriate place of worship. In a tiny former tavern off Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the hall brings together veteran jazz musicians twice a night to pay homage to the art of Crescent City-style improvisation. The most accurate words to describe the experience include 'sweaty,' 'overcrowded' and 'unforgettable.' The amount of space is so limited that patrons are forced to flow out onto the sidewalk, where they fight to hear and see through a fogged window that faces the musicians' backs. Every set's combo of trumpet, clarinet, trombone, drum and piano player is different, while a touring group has been going out on the road for over 30 years, spreading the virtue of Preservation Hall jazz.
Better time to go.
The US is most popular with travelers during the summer, but this is when American families pack everything up and head out to visit Aunt Tilly. To avoid mobs (especially throughout the national-park system), it's better to go during autumn or early spring.
Autumn is an especially good time to visit New England and the upper Great Lakes because fall colors are at their best. Most of the country east of the Rockies is hot and humid during summer, especially the south. The deserts between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada are very hot and dry during the summer, especially in the southwest. California's southern coast is comfortable year-round, but if you want to experience the beach scene, it's best to visit between June and September.
Списоклитературы
Brownlow K., The parade’s gone be..., L., 1970.
Chanin A. L., Art guide to New York, N. Y., 1965
A guide to the architecture of Washington, N. Y., 1965.
Loung I. P., San Francisco, a history of the Pacific Coast Metropolis, v. 1-2, San Francisco, 1989
Larkin O. W., Art and life in America, N. Y., 1977
Contemporary american philosophy, ed. by J. Е. Smith, L. - N. Y., 1970