Hey there, I'm Johanna Mayer, I am the producer for this episode.

Quick update here.

We just learned that the capital stones, which are the subject of this episode, are about

to go away.

They've been sitting in a park in Washington, D.C. for decades, but just this week, officials

confirmed they're getting ready to move the stones to a storage facility that will not

be accessible to the public.

It's going to take some time for this change to happen, probably a couple of years.

So in the meantime, we wanted to re-share this episode before the stones are totally gone.

You might be able to get in one last look.

Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. has all the usual city park things.

Biking, golf, tennis courts, but if you wander just a little bit off the path, you'll

find something unexpected, something we can say for sure that no other city park has.

Stones, gigantic, gigantic stones.

They are in 20-foot stacks piled up behind a maintenance shed.

And some of the stones are simple sandstone, some are marble, some have ornate cornices

and decorations, some are just big plain old slabs, and they look like the ancient ruins

of some lost city, which in a way is kind of what they are.

Because they aren't just any stones, they're pieces of the capital building.

Yes, the United States capital building in Washington, D.C.

I'm Dylan Theras, and this is Alice Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

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