Here’s a report from a friend of Studio 34′s who lives in Washington, D.C., about his Inauguration Day experience. This is the original text and photos from late on Jan. 20, plus some updated material:
All,
The city has been crazy this weekend. So many people on the streets, a palpable festival atmosphere. “It’s DC’s Super Bowl,” one blog says, and that feels like a good comparison — at least on Monday night. By Tuesday night, it didn’t.
— Tuesday, January 20, Washington, DC —
Photo: 17th Street NW. Streets nearly empty, sidewalks pretty full.
7:30 a.m.: With dawn breaking, NPR reports major crowds downtown, temperatures of 17 degrees, and a few clouds. I shower and pull on thick corduroy pants, five shirts, and a bright yellow coat. My wife has left long ago, headed to her post as a volunteer inauguration worker at the Capitol, but she’s left behind Indian leftovers, which I wolf down. I grab my bike, and head out.
Photo: National Guard roadblock in Lafayette Square, 17th & K Streets, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2009
8:00 a.m.: It’s hard to overstate the effect on downtown DC of the security and traffic control surrounding the inauguration. All of the Potomac River bridges are closed to vehicles. Several square miles of downtown are closed or all but closed to traffic. As I leave the house, there are National Guard troops shutting down 17th Street at R, one block north of our building.
Photo: Gridlock in Penn Quarter.
8:15 a.m.: I am heading to 3rd Street SW, where I will get in line to enter a viewing zone reserved largely for Congressional staff. My wife has secured a ticket for me. The so-called Silver zone will hardly be front-row seats; the area starts a quarter-mile away from the Capitol steps where Obama will take his oath at noon. But most of the million-plus people who are expected to attend this inauguration ceremony will be even farther away. There are JumboTrons set up all the way to the Washington Monument, a mile away, and then a quarter-mile beyond that as well. On the streets, there are throngs of people, all headed south to the Mall. It would be sci-fi movie eerie, except everyone is in a buoyant mood. K Street is lined with vendors of food, drink, and all manner of Obamabilia. By the time I reach Chinatown, the crowds are getting thick. It’s tough to stay on my bike.
Photo: 3rd Street Tunnel, filled with waiting ticket-holders.
8:30 a.m.: I’m starting to wonder just how I’m going to get where I’m going. I had planned to go through the 3rd Street Tunnel, a highway spur that has been closed to cars, but when I get there, it is half-packed with people. This is starting to get quite scary — a half-mile-long tunnel half-filled with people waiting in line to pass through a ticket gate that is yet more blocks distant. I consider making my way through it, but there’s a queasy feeling growing. You can’t see the end of the curved tunnel — only people and more people. Time for Plan B: bike east, around the Capitol. (Update: many of these folks never got onto the Mall in time for the inauguration. MSNBC story. Some of them launched a Facebook group called Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom.)
Photo: Vendors and a TV truck on F Street NW.
8:45 a.m.: With the Silver gate scheduled to open in a quarter-hour, I bike past yet more vendors’ tents on the rise to Union Station. Grilling sausages, pallets of bottled water, Obama t-shirts, earrings, incense sticks, flags, pennants. Look, Obama mousepads! The crowd thickens around Union Station. A few blocks later, in the neighborhood of Capitol Hill, the streets are almost empty. Still, I begin to realize that only those who got up a lot earlier than I are going to get the good spots in the standing zone. This, of course, will turn out to be a ridiculously rosy view of the actual situation.
9:00 a.m.: Around the House (south) side of Capitol Hill, there are packed crowds. Yet there is a discernable flow in all but the right-hand side of the street, which turns out to be a huge viewing-area line along the House office buildings — is this Silver? Nope, it’s Blue. The crowd grows thicker. I lock my bike to a fence and push my way into the bottleneck of the 40-yard gap between a House building and a highway overpass. It takes 10 minutes to go 50 feet, and then we’re able to walk freely again. Oh, here’s the Silver line, on 3rd Street, behind Health and Human Services. The gate is two blocks to my right. The line stretches down 3rd Street to my left. Hey, there’s Samuel L. Jackson! Looking quite sanguine in his Kangol cap as people leap onto Jersey barriers to snap his picture. Time to find the end of the line.
9:15 a.m.: The line does not end at the corner of 3rd and E; that’s where the line turns westward. It does not end at the corner of 6th and E, nor at the corner of 7th and Independence. I am having trouble walking toward the end of the line; the streets are too crowded with people, police vehicles, and charter buses. But I can tell that I am walking backwards much faster than the line is moving forward. So in front of the Air and Space Museum, I have a chat with a friendly Inaugural Committee volunteer, who speculates that the security team at the Silver gate “might have to open another screening machine” to deal with the crowd. Uh-huh. He agrees with my reckoning that the line might be moving at a foot per minute. I aver that folks at the end of the line might still be standing in the streets of Southwest DC long after Obama takes the oath of office at noon. He nods. Where’s the nearest general-admission entry point to the Mall, I ask. He replies that the 4th Street and 7th Street gates are full and closed, but people are still getting in at 14th Street. (Update: The Silver line stretched, in fact, for 11 blocks, and some people in it did not get in. WashPost story)
Photo: A river of people flows west on Independence Ave at 12th Street SW, under the arches of the Agriculture Department.
9:30 a.m.: I am shuffling westward on Independence Avenue, one of the broader streets of our nation’s capital, with so many people that it would be dangerous to try to stop. Progress is impeded by the occasional passage of an ambulance or 2- or 3-car motorcade, for which the police must part the crowd, squashing everyone for a few claustrophobic moments before the cars pass and the shuffle resumes.
9:45 a.m.: The 14th Street gate is closed, but people are pouring over the Jersey barriers just beyond, where a line of Portajohns has created a sort of breakwater that allows passage onto the Mall proper. But once into the viewing area, I realize that the crowds so far have been only loosely packed. Here on the grass, it’s the real thing — sardine-like masses of people. I can’t see anything but people, trees, people in trees, Portajohns, and a sound tower. But maybe 10 yards away, there is a tree without anyone in it. I head that way.
Photo: A packed crowd at 15th and Independence Ave SW
10:00 a.m.: It’s not easy to get through the crowd. I have a perma-grin slapped on my face, partly from adrenaline, partly as part of the charm that is my only hope for getting through this many people without incurring wrath. “I’m going to try to climb that tree,” I say, and most let me through, though one poor woman glares at me for several seconds. The people packed in around the tree are surprised by yet ultimately quite hospitable to my plan, though it means squeezing away into the crowd for a moment. I take a deep breath, wrap my arms and legs around the foot-wide trunk, and commence shimmying. My goal is a crotch of thick branches about 10 feet off the ground. Within a moment, I hear the crowd around me start to react. I come late to the realization that I am attempting to do this in full view of several thousand people who have been out here for hours with nothing more compelling to look at than the oblique slice of the JumboTron a hundred yards off. I am also wearing a bright yellow coat and a poufy fur hat. People start yelling — encouragement, I hope — and they keep yelling as I shin on up. By the time I reach the branches, it’s a full-throated roar, and then cheers erupt as I manage to wedge my foot and stand up. I am abashed. Arms and legs trembling in exhaustion, I come to another late realization: I am 40, and really, it’s time to stop climbing trees.
Photo: Washington Monument grounds, Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009
10:15 a.m.: It cannot be denied, however, that the view is better from up here. The first thing that strikes me is that the quarter-mile-wide hill that supports the Washington Monument is completely covered with people. Completely covered, without a blade of grass or bit of open ground to be seen. The little corner of 15th Street and Independence Drive is completely packed as well. I have a slightly better view at the JumboTron from up here, but the Capitol remains out of sight. (Update: Here is a Flickr photo of me in the tree.)
10:30 a.m.: Brrr. Up here in the wind, I feel like a Popsicle. It’s turning out to be a sunny yet blustery day, and here comes yet another late realization: that I’m not going to be able to hold on for another two hours, which is when Obama’s speech is to wrap up.
Photo: Um, I need to get down into that.
10:45 a.m.: I give up, and shimmy back down. Again, the folks near the tree are very nice about making way. But now I’m worn out, half frozen, and really can’t abide the thought of standing here for two more hours. Time to go. But the crowd has grown even more packed in the past half-hour, and my aerial vantage point showed that I am in a 50-yard cul-de-sac of security barriers. The only way out is back through 30 yards of sardines. I slap the big smile back on my face, and start pushing. Occasionally, I run into other lost souls who are shoving their own way through the crowd. When I can, I get in behind them and let them break trail for a bit.
11:00 a.m.: I’ve managed to get back behind the Portajohn breakwater, but Independence Avenue is still jammed. I edge over to a few National Guard officers to see if I can pick up any intel about crowd flow. Behind me, there’s a cry of “Make a hole!” and a few emergency personnel with a stretcher squeeze past. The day has got to be taking its toll on folks; I just hope everyone who needs help can get it. A woman comes up to the Guard colonel. “I’m extremely claustrophobic,” she says. “How can I get out of here?” The colonel asks her whether she knows what a rip tide is. Yes, she says, a bit puzzled. He asks, “How do you get out of a rip tide? “and then answers his own question: “You go with the flow, until you can make a right-angle turn and swim out of it.” In our situation, that means heading westward along Independence Avenue. I tell her that I’m getting out, too, and asks her if she wants to follow me. She says yes, and together we push through a Jersey barrier and onto the street.
11:15 a.m.: It’s slow but steady going, and we pop out of the sardines in back of the Holocaust Memorial. Phew. My claustrophobic new friend lives near Eastern Market, so we loop around the U.S. Mint and start heading back east, picking our way along the now-pedestrian-only highways and limited-access roads of Southwest DC. There are groups of would-be inauguration-goers here and there, and we reflect on the disappointment they must feel to have come from far away only to wind up so far from the action.
11:30 a.m.: Crowds are definitely lighter on the streets, and I angle us back toward the Silver gate. What, I wonder, became of the huge line? A friendly cop informs us that “Eventually, people just kind of rushed the barrier, and they all got in.” I’m not sure I would have wanted to be around to see that. But mirabile dictu, there is an open path to the Silver zone, and only a moderately heavy crowd in there! We head that way.
11:45 a.m.: We find an odd lane into the viewing area, kind of a channel created by what appears to have been a randomly installed security fence of orange plastic. We follow it, and wind up right-center on the Mall, no more than 1,000 feet from the dias. What an odyssey! We settle in and break out snacks as Joe Biden is sworn in as vice president. I snap some photos, take some photos of other folks around us, haul out my binoculars. Yo-Yo Ma is easily identifiable at 8-power magnification, but it’s a bit difficult to tell one non-cellist from another at this distance. I hand the binoculars around to some nearby folks, and everyone has fun trying to pick out Obama in the giant amphitheatre that has been grafted onto the west face of the Capitol.
Photo: View of the Capitol from the Silver zone
Noon.: Obama takes the oath. The biggest cheer of the day comes when he says, “I, Barack Hussein Obama.” People start crying. Everyone cheers, then cries, then cheers.
12:30 p.m.: Obama is wrapping up his speech. There were fewer applause lines than in a standard State of the Union speech, and much of the policy stuff sounded like a dry list. The new president slams all of us Americans for failing to make the hard choices that would have prepared the country for the new century, but tells us that we will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and move on. There’s just a bit about the first-black-president-historic-moment and a lot about getting the country going again. I am delighted by his description of security-vs.-ideals as a false choice. The biggest cheer of the speech, and to my ear, the one he put the most emotion into, is the declaration that Americans will outlast and defeat the terrorists. Odd; I would not have predicted that.
12:45 p.m.: Obama closes his speech; people start streaming out of the viewing zone. As we go, we realize that someone is still speaking on the dias; oh well. It’s of a piece with this whole day that large masses of people are wandering around without much of a clue. Anyway, the crowd is not too bad by the day’s standards — I’d compare it to the exit of an NFL playoff crowd from Giants Stadium — and we make our way back to unlock my bike.
1:15 p.m.: My friend and I are heading to her house on Capitol Hill when the Marine One helicopter flies overhead. “That’s Bush’s aircraft,” I guess, and a few minutes later, the same helo flies overhead again, this time heading east to Andrews Air Force Base, where the presidential 747 waits to fly Bush to Dallas.
1:45 p.m.: We watch a bit of CNN’s inaugural coverage with some of her housemates, drink hot chocolate, and warm up. Presently, I get going again.
2:15 p.m.: The streets are still crowded, with plenty of roadblocks and wandering crowds on the way up Massachusetts Avenue. The inaugural parade is getting ready to go a few blocks south on Pennsylvania Avenue. At 6th Street, a man calls out, “Hey, it’s the tree guy!” He points to his wife and kids and proclaims, “We were 10 feet away from you!” It’s celebrity of a very odd sort.
2:45 p.m.: I stop into Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee, where a television is showing the inaugural luncheon. Someone on the screen says something about Ted Kennedy. Oh, no. I rush back to the apartment and flip on our TV. Kennedy has had a seizure. Oh, no. (Update: A few hours later, the hospital announced that he collapsed from fatigue and is expected to be released tomorrow.)
4:05 p.m.: The parade is underway. The Obamas are out of their limo, and walking up Pennsylvania Avenue. Screams and cries from the crowd drowns out the CNN reporter who’s trying to deliver a standup from the street. What a day.
My wife has had her own adventure, seeing all manner of former presidents, high officials, and celebs as a volunteer in the Capitol. As the ceremony got under way, she slipped into a seat in the bleachers within a stone’s throw of the Obamas. She’s got great pics, too.
Photo: My wife's photo from the Capitol during President Barack Obama's inaugural address.
Of course, the day is not over yet. There is a Smithsonian art exhibit opening to attend, then the Eastern Inaugural Ball, where Obama will show up for a dance and a quick speech. The poor guy; in his parade-reviewing stand on TV, he was already looking a bit tired. If he gets through today, he’ll no doubt be tested with tough days. But there won’t be too many with such a packed schedule.
Inaugurations, by the way, are not DC’s Super Bowl. They are sui generis, and this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal.
Hope everyone enjoyed their Inauguration Day.
