Matt Barrow wrote:
"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...

kontiki wrote:


Soon Washington DC will be like Berlin... barbed wires, tanks and

outposts.

You haven't been here recently, have you. It already looks like that.


I didn't look that way during World War II, but it started getting that
ambiance during the 90's already.

No, in WWII (and up until President Kennedy started reversing it),
Washington looked like a military base. The city is home and
business ground to a ton of service members. Supposedly temporary
munitions and other cheap military construction were thrown up on
the mall and other "vacant" land. Kennedy relaxed the uniform
requirements, which gave a much more civilian appearance to town.
The DC heydey was around the bicentennial when they finally removed
a lot of old WWII military stuff from the mall and generally
cleaned up the public areas.

The thing started to decline again after a few security incidents
around the White House. Pennsylvania avenue was closed (for good)
as well as many of the other streets around the White House.
Every public building is now ringed with a variety of barricades.
The real casualty has been the Washington monument which has been
surrounded with construction fencing for the past year (hopefully
the unveiling will be prettier than the ring of jersey wall that
they had previously errected around it). Throw in the ill-conceived
and Hitler-esque WWII memorial and the DC downtown is currently
under a blight only surpassed from the thirties when the mall
essentially was relegated to being a freight yard.