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|11.10.04 @ 5:28PM|#
Speaking of the security concerns of another era and L'Enfant's grand spaces, Washington, like Paris, has broad avenues.
My understanding is that the width of the avenues in Paris was set so that a cavalry formation of a certain size could turn and charge effectively against a mob.
Open the streets to guard against the rabble, close the streets to guard against the truck bombers.
Just let me get across town at rush hour ;)
Nathan|11.10.04 @ 5:40PM|#
Because, as we all know, DC = the Mall.
Warren|11.10.04 @ 5:50PM|#
Growing up in the 70's my memories of Pennsylvania Avenue is one of unending protest. On any given day (if the sun was shining) the sidewalks in front of the Whitehouse could be counted on to be sporting a greater or lesser number of sign wielders. I found that to be a grand symbol of American democracy in action.
I'm sad to see it go. I'm dismayed by the phrase "free speech zone" that we now contend with.
|11.10.04 @ 10:38PM|#
Considering that from outside the fence you could probably hit the doors of the Oval Office with a rock if you had a good arm, I have to wonder how closed off the public area in front of the White House will really feel once they reopen it permanently to pedestrians. When I think about it I have to be amazed that over the years some nutball hasn't tried to fire a bazooka at the White House from across the park, it seems like it would be so easy.
I suspect that these kinds of changes in DC will have little effect on anyone who can't remember DC before 1995, it'll probably in the long run be as important as, say, the closing of Scholl's cafeteria was to anyone except the locals. Then again, if they try to put a Kremlin-style wall outside the White House, that would signal a serious change in the spirit of things, I'd say.
|11.10.04 @ 11:09PM|#
So it's open to pedestrians, but not to people?
|11.11.04 @ 2:17AM|#
Not people in cars, apparently.
Brendan Perez|11.11.04 @ 5:21AM|#
Is this kind of access denial just a form of modern day moats and drawbridges designed to keep us from getting near the "centers of power"?
|11.11.04 @ 8:50AM|#
They've done the same thing on the streets around the New York Stock Exchange. I have to admit, the guard control booths look better than the pick up trucks that have been blocking all the streets for the past three years, but not much.