Restoration
The United States Bicentennial brought about the decision to restore the room to its antebellum appearance. At present, much of the room is furnished with reproductions with the exceptions of the gilded eagle ornament located above the chair of the President of the Senate (the Vice President of the United States), which is also original. Above the eagle ornament on a third-story gallery resides an original portrait of George Washington by Rembrandt Peale.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the chamber was closed to tourists for almost two years due to security concerns; tour groups would have to pass close to the current Senate chamber and the office of then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. It was later reopened after tightened security measures were put into place, with visitors being observed by two Capitol Police officers posted outside the room and allowed to "quickly file through the room" only when the Senate is not in session (usually Monday mornings and Friday afternoons).
Read more about this topic: Old Senate Chamber
Famous quotes containing the word restoration:
“The King [Charles II] after the Restoration accused the poet, Edmund Waller, of having made finer verses in praise of Oliver Cromwell than of himself; to which he agreed, saying, that Fiction was the soul of Poetry.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)
“In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despite the fact that the American Revolution was successful—realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime—while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.”
—Irving Kristol (b. 1920)