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Photo: User:Raul654, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Possibly the hardest memorial to find on the Mall—perhaps fitting for the least known founding father memorialized here. George Mason is best known in the D.C. area for the nearby university named in his honor. Ideally, though, he would be better known as the drafter of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, which served as the basis and inspiration for the American Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, as well as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's a beautiful memorial, and can be empty even in the height of tourist season.
The George Mason Memorial is a memorial to Founding Father George Mason, the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights that inspired the United States Bill of Rights. The Memorial is located in West Potomac Park within Washington, D.C. at 24 E Basin Drive SW, which is a part of the Tidal Basin. Authorized in 1990, with a groundbreaking in 2000 and dedication in 2002, the memorial includes a sculpture of Mason, a pool, trellis, circular hedges, and numerous inscriptions. It was the first memorial in the Tidal Basin area to be dedicated to someone who was not a former President of the United States.
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Thomas Jefferson played an outsized role as one of the republic's founding fathers, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president. Accordingly, he has an enormous statue in a circular, neoclassical, open-air building, based largely on the design of the Roman Pantheon (and Jefferson's Monticello and University of Virginia), and standing prominently on the bank of the Tidal Basin. Quotes from Jefferson's writings, including the Declaration of Independence, are reproduced on the walls.
Filled with sculptures, wartime and depression era quotes, and numerous waterfalls (beautifully lit up at night), the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial is one of the city's most peaceful and contemplative places for a walk. It is divided into four sections, each dedicated to one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's four terms in his twelve year presidency.
Paddling around the Tidal Basin, admiring the monuments and the surrounding parks has got to be one of the best ways to laze about on the Mall. It's also one of the best ways to get sunburnt on the Mall, so bring lotion!
Two lamps were sculpted in 1651 and placed in Tōshō-gū temple, in Ueno Park, Tokyo. In 1954 the governor of that city gave one of those lamps as a gift to the people of the United States.
Not a museum; this is where the Treasury prints money. Free 1-hour tours run every 15 minutes on weekdays, but no, they do not give out free samples. It's plenty worth it to come, if only to drool at the millions of dollars created literally in the space of your tour.
The newest of the Mall's memorials, dedicated to the fallen civil rights leader. You enter between two slabs of granite that symbolize a "Mountain of Despair" before standing before the "Stone of Hope", both named based on a line in King's "I Have a Dream" speech. A 30-foot likeness of King is carved out of the Stone of Hope overlooking the Tidal Basin, while a nearby wall contains inscriptions of quotes from many of King's speeches.