On Friday, with temperatures in single digits and winds whipping them below zero, I took the inaugural parade route. No way I will get near Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday. Will anyone?
My trip answered two pressing questions:
Will there be enough porta potties? Why are Mayor Adrian Fenty and our elected officials allowing the U.S. Secret Service to turn our city into a DHZ, as in de-humanized zone?
To get a sense of how “dehumanized,” check out the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies Web site: inaugural.senate.gov. There you will find maps that show you how the powers that be have made it virtually impossible to get anywhere close to the U.S. Capitol or the National Mall on Jan. 20.
And should you be early enough and lucky enough to get to one of the few pinholes in the map that will allow you onto the Capitol grounds or the Mall, prepare for the frisking of a lifetime.
You think getting into a Redskins game at Dan Snyder’s FedEx Field is rough? Prohibited items include: packages, backpacks, large bags, thermoses, coolers, strollers, umbrellas, signs or posters. And: “Other items that may pose a threat to the security of the event as determined by and at the discretion of the security screeners.”
Let’s say you have a ticket to see the swearing-in ceremony, and you make it to the only gate that accepts such a ticket, and you pass through the security — and you have to go to the bathroom. Will that be possible?
My uneducated guess is yes, if you are on the Mall between the Smithsonian museums and the Capitol. Reports from the city and suppliers is that there are about 5,000 portable toilets; they come in teal and forest green and robin’s egg blue; they line the Mall on both sides with no break for a quarter mile, which makes me wonder of they are not yet another brick in the security apparatus: a potty wall!
However, try to avoid getting an urge near the Washington Monument. For some reason, both sides of the sidewalk around the monument are walled off with chain link fence. The potties lie inside the fence. Which lead my colleague Leslie Milk to say: “You gotta go, but you can’t go there.”
On the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, our local elected officials will have no problem reaching toilets, staying warm and observing the Inaugural Parade in style.
Fenty and his council colleagues have built themselves an enclosed palace across from the open stands on Freedom Plaza.
Attached to the front of the Wilson Building, the enclosure is covered by a peaked, white roof and encased in Plexiglas walls.
The cost, according to my sources, is in the neighborhood of $250,000. Four years ago, a similar viewing stand cost $100,000 less. Inflation, or inflated egos?
Tommy Wells, who represents Capitol Hill on the council, told me: “I want to keep it as a homeless shelter after the inauguration.”
That would make at least one lasting legacy of the day.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
