John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum....

The following day, Sally and I took a long walk from a subway station...

...to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which was dedicated in 1979 to commemorate the 35th President’s life and accomplishments during his short presidency.

Designed by the architect behind the pyramid at the Louvre, I.M. Pei apparently considered this library “the most important commission” in his life.

While the outside was boxy and unremarkable, the huge windows soaring up 115 feet while overlooking Dorchester Bay were incredible.

It was crazy to realize that I wasn’t that far away from this spot when my parents first learned that Kennedy had been assassinated on November 22, 1963. I was just three months old when my mother found out while ironing and watching her soap opera in our apartment in Arlington, while my father was sent home from work at the MIT Instrumentation Lab in Cambridge. 

With so much toxic rhetoric in politics in the US today, it was nice to take a step back in time to hear such inspiring words. To be honest, I was nervous about how the museum would depict the assassination, but the tragedy was handled somberly without being graphic.

The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 during Kennedy’s presidency and he visited West Berlin in June 1963. Of course, he didn’t live to see the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but this piece of it was in his library.

While I had never learned much about Kennedy in history class and Sally isn’t even American, we both thoroughly enjoyed learning about this incredible man. While they haven’t even broken ground yet, I hope someday to be able to visit a similar library for Obama.

It was a gray day, but it was great to have a scenic walk back to the subway.