Nutgraf

Habitat. Just like nature.

I have longstanding love affair with DC’s National Aquarium. Now, if you’re thinking of the luxe, massive, well-funded landmark aquarium in Baltimore, think again. Its location, the basement of the Department of Commerce building, is an unlikely one for one of DC’s hidden treasures. But the aquarium is the real deal, and has been in operation since 1931. Incredible.

When I first went, it seemed halfway abandoned. The entrance is in the side of one of those major monolith buildings downtown. One big, dark room of tanks with a bunch of boring, boring fish. It looked like something that was a temporary exhibit that just never got dismantled. Hard to find, harder to fathom.

Much to my delight, the kind people at the aquarium have agreed to answer a few questions for Nutgraf. So I went down on Saturday to see what they’ve been up to since my last visit a couple of years ago.

Recently remodeled, it maintained roughly the same shape as in its previous incarnation, but it seems bigger somehow. The aquarium is now in partnership with the one in Baltimore, which I suspect has opened them up to a whole new world of resources. While I’m sure the DC Aquarium doesn’t intend to be a feeder tank, as it were, for Baltimore, this partnership has to be a great help.

On my way through security (Commerce building, remember), I passed a family on their way out who said “This is the smallest aquarium in the world.” But, unlike my last visit, they didn’t sound perplexed and disappointed.

I was really glad to see that the octopus is still there. He (no, I didn’t check) has a beautiful, dark habitat with a special sign forbidding photography. I guess the flashes make him nervous. The last time I visited, he floated in the middle of a starker tank, staring straight ahead (as near as I could tell) and obsessively dismantling a Mr. Potato Head doll. I love that octopus. Beautiful, delicate and mysterious. And kind of neurotic.

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