On Tour, He's at Home

One of the things I like about this project is the chance it gives me to think about American history as a thing that happens in a place; since four of the first five presidents were Virginians, as am I right now, I've taken the opportunity to go to the same places they went (Monroe's Ashlawn-Highland, you're next). There's a certain frisson I feel as a history dork when I look into the room at Mount Vernon where Washington entertained Jefferson, or look at the blots of ink on the floor of James Madison's office.

I haven't been able to do that with either Adams, though, since Boston's a little too far away to get to on a day trip, and most of our weekends are spent trying to catch up with the week. So I was pleased to get the chance to visit this John Quincy Adams site:



If you're a fan of international typefaces, you'll recognize these signs as Berlin city streets, and this intersection--not too far from Unter den Linden, one of the great streets of Europe, and even closer to an H&M, one of the great European department stores (their collaboration with Sonia Rykiel covered a massive, several hundred feet tall building in Potsdamer Platz).

We were there because of a single paragraph in Nagel's biography, referring to Louisa Adams's difficulties in pregnancy; not long after their arrival in Prussia, where JQA would serve as the American Ambassador, she miscarried. Nagel writes: "To comfort his wife, John began a search for an apartment more convenient and comfortable where she could feel at home. He found one near the Brandenburg Gate, with a landlord who played an overpowering game of chess. Eventually, they would move again, this time to the corner of Frederic and Behren Streets."

So there we were, at that same intersection. It was raining, and cold, rush hour in Berlin, and for some reason I was only wearing a single mitten (I hadn't lost its mate, but nevertheless, just had one on). And part of me wondered: here we were, a pair of Americans on a grand tour of Europe (we'd continue on from Berlin to Munich, Prague, Vienna, Venice, Kobarid, and Rome), and we were finding a spot where another pair of Americans had been. Was this the historical equivalent of finding the McDonald's near the Spanish Steps or the Hard Rock Cafe on the Via Veneto? After all, Berlin is a city with enough layers of history to overwhelm (in a way, that's what I like about it). Napoleon and Hitler had both walked through the Brandenburg Gate, but we were more interested in one of our own, a minor president.



Too much to consider, and too rainy that day. We went off in search of Haribo instead.