‘Life is opening up again’ in D.C. after inauguration

Downtown Washington was reopening Thursday, after weeks of heightened security for the inauguration and pandemic-related restrictions had slowed or halted business, travel and recreation in the heart of the city.

The network of metal fences that had shielded federal areas was being dismantled, concrete barriers that had blocked streets were being removed and bridges that had been closed were allowing cars, trucks, bikes and pedestrians to pass once again.

“That feels like ‘woo hoo!’ Life is opening up again,” social worker Sheryl Walden said Thursday.

She and her husband, Jeff, have lived just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol on and off for the last six years. Their home lay within the city’s days-long security perimeter that encompassed roughly 4.6 square miles of the central business district.

“[W]e could just barely get in our building,” said Mr. Walden, a retired Department of Defense employee.

What has been particularly frustrating over the last few days is that his commute from home to meet his wife at work near the National Mall took much longer than usual, he said.

“I’ve had to walk 3½ miles behind the [U.S. Supreme] Courthouse, the Capitol Building [and] Eastern Market. It’s taken me, like, an hour and a half just to get to where she is when it should have taken me 15 minutes,” Mr. Walden said.

“But I think it’s understandable, right?” Ms. Walden chimed in. “Like, this is what we want, we want security. Yeah, it’s inconvenient, but I think it’s so understandable.”

He said the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, which prompted the stepped-up security measures for the inauguration of President Biden on Wednesday, shocked him.

“So I didn’t mind that they overreacted a little bit keeping us safe this week, and [it] looks like they took it down as quickly as they could,” he said.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said during a press conference that most of the fences, barriers and other measures that were implemented to impede access to downtown will be gone by Friday.

What’s more, many of the more than 20,000 National Guard troops deployed to the city from units around the country are packing up and going home, said Chris Rodriguez, director of the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

However, the D.C. National Guard will remain activated through Jan. 30 because “we do anticipate that there will be another National Special Security Event occurring in the joint session of Congress,” Mr. Rodriguez said, adding that the requested number of soldiers is “being worked out.”

The District’s Guard unit is the only National Guard force that is not under the command of local authorities. The secretary of defense, through the secretary of the Army, must authorize the D.C. Guard’s activation at the request of city leaders.

The city government also is asking downtown businesses to remove plywood from their windows.

“This has been a tough week for businesses inside an already tough year,” Miss Bowser said.
She also confirmed that the ban on indoor dining ends Friday, which means eateries can allow up to 25% capacity with a maximum limit of 250 people.

Parts of the National Mall remained closed Thursday, as workers removed the nearly 200,000 pennants that comprised the “Field of Flags,” a representation of the thousands of Americans who were unable to attend the inauguration due to the pandemic or security concerns.

The National Park Service, which manages federal park spaces, tweeted that the Mall likely would reopen fully by Monday.

However, the Smithsonian Institution has yet to announce a date for reopening its museums and the National Zoo, which have been closed since late November due to coronavirus concerns.