Last Saturday, the Capitol fence came down and the public once again got access to what many consider part of D.C.’s collective backyard.
The fence, which had been put up after the horrors of January 6th, came down surprisingly quickly. It took less than a day to take it down in three steps: removing the bolts that held the fence pieces together, taking down all the fence pieces, and then finally removing the heavy Jersey barriers which were behind the fencing.
Not forgetting
We should not forget what it felt like to live in a capital city that looked like it was part of a war zone, and how fragile our Democracy seemed. Here are a few images of the fencing that went up after January 6th, blocking off all public access to the Capitol grounds.
A new normal?
The area around the Capitol is now publicly accessible, and on the surface looks just like it did before, although obviously the underlying tensions and security risks are very different after January 6th.
And, of course, the area will still be restricted at times for security reasons, with the familiar waist-high barriers – for example, on Wednesday morning when the plaza area was blocked off when President Biden came to lunch at the Senate.
Future plans are to install a retractable fence around the Capitol grounds, but no details on that are available at this point.