Inauguration

[tombarnes]

Presidential Inauguration 2009

This will be no ordinary inauguration. Though estimates of visitors have been halved from 4 to 2 million, I don't think anyone truly has an idea of just how crazy it's going to be in Washington during the four days surrounding the inauguration. Bars and restaurants will be allowed to serve until 4 AM if they choose and the city is certain to be in a festive mood. Several points are important here- bars or restaurants which have previous agreements with their neighborhoods will not be exempt from those agreements. Many hotels and restaurants I frequent have told me that they do not plan to extend their hours. Whatever happens, though, this will be a weekend to remember. Please place any inauguration-related info. in this thread.

[skylinefan]

Any information about street and bridge closures for Sunday's concert at the Lincoln Memorial? I hear that the Memorial Bridge and Rosevelt Bridges will be closed starting at 8AM and reopening later not sure when. I can only imagine that the roads around the Lincoln Memorial will be closed, but how about other streets that feed into the area. Constitution?, 23rd St.?, 17th St.?

[tombarnes]

A large area of the city will be closed off to regular traffic, from just east of the Capitol building to 21st Street on the west. The cutoff point will be P Street on the north. As far as I know, getting to places like the Lincoln Memorial will be all but impossible by car. My advice to anyone contemplating bringing a car into the city for the inauguration is to take the Metro instead. This will be an interesting time in Washington for the next several days. I will be fully involved in managing the crowd staying in the hotel where I work. I cannot promise full attention to the forums in the next several days.

[skylinefan]

The Inauguration was an amazing experience. I have never seen a crowd this large and this well mannered. Here are some pictures from both the Inauguration concert on Sunday and the swearing in on Tuesday.

[krazeeboi]

The official estimate of the size of the crowd to attend the inauguration was 1.8 million, although I'm sure more people were in town than that. I consider myself blessed to have attended the event (just got back a few hours ago actually), probably the largest crowd I'll ever have to deal with (hopefully).