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WHILE ON A TOUR of San Francisco's Alcatraz Island a few years ago, Orlando businessman John Morgan looked around at the infamous prison and had an idea: "I was thinking, 'What if you married the Smithsonian with Walt Disney ... with a real emphasis on the attraction side?'"

The result is the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, which is scheduled to open just a stone's throw from the Verizon Center in early spring. A partnership with John Walsh of "America's Most Wanted," the museum will use artifacts and interactive exhibits to tap into the public's fascination with crime.

"We think if we do this the right way, it'll be a major attraction," Morgan said in a interview earlier this week. What's planned for the 22,000-square-foot facility at 575 7th St. NW?

» A series of interactive exhibits that creep into the worlds of ne'er-do-wells like pirates, serial killers, gangsters and white-collar criminals, plus the kind of crime lab you might see on "CSI."
» Studio facilities to allow Walsh and "America's Most Wanted" to film at the museum, including special phone banks for the Alexandria-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
» A collection of crime- and punishment-related artifacts, including an electric chair and the car used in the filming of "Bonnie and Clyde."

While Hollywood has long shaped U.S. perceptions of crime and punishment, don't expect a bombastic photo wall featuring scenes from 1983's "Scarface," one of the nation's most popular cinematic drug-and-crime epics.

Said Morgan: "When John Walsh started laying out this attraction, he had some hard-and-fast rules," which included avoiding the glorification of crime and criminals, all underscored by "a strong message that crime doesn't pay."

But will the museum, which is considering a $16.95 admission fee for adults, thrive in D.C., a city where locals and visitors alike are used to free attractions like the Smithsonian museums?

Morgan's answer is yes. He said his team is looking toward the International Spy Museum, which charges admission and sits a just steps from the crime and punishment museum site, as a model: "I am big fan of the International Spy Museum. ... It is as well done as was possibly hoped for."

And he said creativity and technology will help his museum outshine its more traditional counterparts. Take the technically advanced simulations it will offer, such as target practice in a faux FBI shooting range or driving in a police chase. Morgan said each of them would be worth the price of admission alone.

"You go in a wax museum, you have your statue of George Burns and ... it's all well and good," he said. "Museums in D.C. are static. You look, you read, you look, you read, you look, you read."

Nonetheless, Morgan is wading into a crowded field of attractions in downtown's Penn Quarter neighborhood. Aside from the International Spy Museum, the Smithsonian's Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, the Bead Museum and the Koshland Science Museum, three new museums plan to open nearby. The Textile Museum on S Street NW will open a second location on 7th Street NW next year; and a few blocks to the east at Judiciary Square, the National Law Enforcement Museum is scheduled to open in 2011. Meanwhile, the Newseum is prepping to open in its new Pennsylvania Avenue home next year.

Is there room for another museum? Absolutely, said William Hanbury, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C., Convention and Tourism Corporation.

"It's another great downtown attraction," Hanbury said of the crime and punishment museum. "The neighborhood is ready and able to assimilate these types of attraction."

And more competition means a boost for efforts to revitalize the 7th Street NW corridor and its adjacent neighborhoods, Hanbury said.

For his part, Morgan said his museum will be ready to jockey for visitors' attention.

"We're familiar with competition," he said. "We have to deliver a product that'll be a 'wow.'"

» "National Museum of Crime and Punishment" [Official Site]

Renderings courtesy National Museum of Crime and Punishment

Posted by Michael Grass at 11:22 AM on November 28, 2007
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