As President Trump and the inaugural parade made their way from the Capitol to the White House today, all the excitement was going on a few blocks to the north.
On K Street’s Franklin Square — just two blocks down from the Washington Examiner‘s old offices and a few more from our new ones — anarchist anti-Trump protesters were throwing stones and bottles at police, breaking storefront windows, setting limousines on fire, running around naked and generally creating havoc.
The last time they descended on this part of D.C. en masse was during the 2011-2012 Occupy protests. At the time, our offices were directly across the street from McPherson Square, which they utterly destroyed after it had just been restored by a $400,000 stimulus grant. When they arrived, the square was looking good for the first time in years. By the time they left, it had become an enormous mud bowl.
Anyway, here was the Examiner‘s Liz Farmer with an account at the time:
A spokeswoman from the National Park Service says the federal agency hasn’t yet determined whether it will re-sod McPherson Square after the Occupy DC protestors have killed much of the new grass planted there earlier this year as part of a stimulus-funded project.
Federal stimulus dollars paid for about $437,000-worth of new grass, concrete curbs, refurbished benches, new light poles, water fountains, new paint and chain fencing, 12 new trash cans and new light meters, according to spokeswoman Carol Johnson.
Johnson said she didn’t know how much of the stimulus money went toward the new sod, but the industry standard price is $5/square foot and the park received 53,610 square feet of sod, which works out to about $268,000. It’s likely, however, that NPS got a deal and the cost of sod was closer to half the total project, or about $212,000.
The Washington Post still has before and after photos on its website.
