Hotel lobbies remain one of the last great bastions of just…sitting, without having to buy a cup of coffee.
The Willard remains the king of them all. Although a hotel has sat on the site since 1816, and has been some form of “Willard’s” since 1847, the current building dates to 1901 with a major renovation after a 1922 fire.
When you’re sitting in the lobby, look up at the ceiling: the twelve coffers surrounding the chandelier each contain four Great Seals of the 48 continental states. As far as I can tell, there is no order to their location, neither chronological nor alphabetical. There is something charmingly democratic about this.