Nearly two million people coursed through the District of Columbia yesterday. Many of them didn't know where to go or how to get from one place to another. So they asked the folks who were manning security checkpoints and other crowd-control stations.
Professional crowd controller Jim McClory got a lot of those questions. Too bad he [...]
T-shirts are as common a sight as cops. Hats, too.
But two women from Brooklyn are claiming a corner on the Obama commemorative water supply. "I haven’t seen anyone with water like this,” says 23-year-old Julie Harris, one of the Brooklynites. “It’s not really for public use. You supposed to keep it, not drink it. But [...]
Traffic deadlocks. Detoured buses. Jammed Metro. The city’s roads and railways are completely inundated and it’s gridlock-inducing. But if there’s one traffic channel that hasn’t experienced unendurable congestion (unless you're trying to go from the swearing-in to the parade route), it’s the bike lanes. D.C. Pedicab recognized the inauguration for its unique chance to drum [...]
A City Desk series chronicling the inaugural working class
Woe betide the D.C. street vendor who sets up shop on the sidewalk without a license. Competitors narc, and cops swarm. Pretty soon, the scofflaw vendor is packing his wares.
But this is the inauguration, and the authorities have real menaces to worry about.
So Ismail Jones and Jamar [...]
A City Desk series chronicling the inaugural working class
The intersection at 18th Street and Florida Avenue NW is a classic L'Enfantian gaffe, a place that was not designed for a world of fast-moving automobiles. This is a modern infrastructural clusterfuck, and "18th and Florida" doesn't adequately convey the confusion of the crossroads. U Street and [...]
