Posted on 05/29/2026 3:48:55 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
This is Columbus Circle.
Under Biden:
- "HAMAS IS COMING" spray painted
- Violent mobs climbing the statue
- Foreign flags
Under Trump:
- Sparkling clean
- Water flowing in the fountain
- American flags
- Soldiers on guard
Two photos. Same monument. One election made all the difference.
Thank you, President Trump. đşđ¸
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President Trump loves this country and shows it every day. Obama and Biden hates this country and we knew it with every decision and every word they said.
I love Trumpâs comment âall we needed was a new presidentâ.
Well said.
Nice.
It’s an effective comparison, yes, but I wonder at what hour the second photo was taken. It looks like early morning. Columbus Circle has been cleaned up and that’s great. The graffiti is gone, the tents are gone, the derelicts and panhandlers are much reduced, etc., but it’s still a lot busier than that picture suggests.
Union Station still has occasional incidents (fewer than before). While I haven’t paid close enough attention to be confident in judging this, my impression is that the incidents that come to public attention are mostly in the afternoon when swarms of public school kids are passing through. It does, after all, remain a major Metro stop and transfer point to busses because the blue, orange and silver lines are all on a shared track until they cross the Anacostia and diverge again. Metro was designed to get suburban commuters into downtown jobs, and only incidentally to serve the residents of D.C. Large swaths of DC to the north and east are very poorly served by Metrorail and Union Station is a logical subway to bus hub.
Most of the high school students are fine, well behaved and orderly. Some aren’t. Trouble ensues. The area around the Navy Yard-Stadium metro stop has some of the same problems with regular rowdiness in the late evening hours, especially on weekends. Most of the troublemakers don’t live anywhere near there. They are imported talent from the rougher areas in Anacostia whose own neighborhoods are pretty barren, so they come into a lively nightlife area on the green line.
Everyone knows where these problem spots are. Post George Floyd, our feckless mayor and city council had chosen to pull back the police because policing is oppressive. There’s nothing wrong in these areas that effective policing wouldn’t fix. The surrounding areas themselves are attractive. That makes them a magnet for some of the undesirables.
I had occasion a few weeks ago to take Amtrak at Union Station in the wee hours. I hadn’t done that for years and was apprehensive given the reports over the years. But flying wouldn’t work, the express busses were cheaper but slower, and I had the same concerns about the crime situation at the bus terminal. Union Station was fine at 4:00 and 6:00 a.m., as was Penn Station (now renamed for Senator Moynihan) in NYC at slightly more civilized hours. Both were clean, bright, well lit, and surprisingly busy at the hours I was passing through, and no criminal element was visible anywhere.
Of course, at those hours there were no swarms of high school students passing through, just early bird commuters and long distance travellers. If I were travelling solo to NYC, I would take the train again rather than drive. (Depending on my arrival and departure times, I might even consider a bus just to see what the Port Authority Bus Terminal is like these days — and it would be nice to check out the High Line and Hudson Yards, all now redeveloped since my NY days.) Of course, I’m not buying a business class ticket on the Acela. I checked on a possible upcoming date yesterday. The cheapest fare up on Amtrak would be $20, but the timing is probably better on the $45 train. That’s cheaper than driving.
LOL
In the picture on the cleaned up version, itâs clear that the figure on the right is a bearded male. In that same spot on the Hamas version of the statue, you canât even make out the facial features. This is probably AI. I cleaned up one looks like beautiful marble. The Hamas one doesnât look like dirty marble looks like a completely different Stone.
Bunny?!
Ummmm, is there something we should know?!
;-)
Isn’t one a view from the back and one from the front?
It’s real alright.
No AI.
It’s all over X with videos and personal accounts.
Just accept it and move on.
??????
The National Parks Service just completed an $11.8 million restoration project on the fountain in front of Union Station in D.C., which is why it is so clean and gleaming white. It is also apparent that they are two different monumnents, as one is white marble (DC), while the other (NYC) is granite.
I take that back. I mistakenly assumed the first pic was Columbus Circle in NYC. They do appear to be the same monument, though the blur on the face of the statue on the right side does make you wonder.
That picture of the clean fountain was taken by Andrew Leyden. You can find more pics at his X account or watch his video of it at his YouTube account. Andrew does a lot of behind the scenes stuff in D.C. and now has a White House press pass so you can see some behind the scenes stuff there also
The X post shows two different photos of the same location.
Left/Biden-era photo: Vandalized with graffiti (âHAMAS IS COMINGâ), messy, people climbing the statue, foreign flags, etc.
Right/Trump-era photo: Clean fountain with water flowing, American flags, soldiers/guards, sparkling condition.
It's a strong before-and-after contrast post.
Are you thinking the photos are propaganda? I don’t think they are.
It certainly is. Thanks.
No. That was someone else’s implication, that the second photo was AI. And that may be.
I was simply pointing out that Columbus Circle remains somewhat busy, although the homeless are gone. Assuming the photo is not AI, that suggests that it was taken very early in the morning.
I hadn’t been inside Union Station for years; I’ve been on the metro lines underneath, but I’ve not had reasons to surface there. I recently took Amtrak to NYC and back, my first time on Amtrak in ten years. I was impressed at how good Union Station looked in the wee hours. It wasn’t just that it was clean, well-lit and felt safe; it was surprisingly busy for that time of day.
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