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(I consider this a reminder that we are still and fully at war)......

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8424473/

Washington Monument
subtly fortified

Granite walls designed to provide
protection from attack

By By Petula Dvorak

For years, Jersey barriers, dump trucks
and mud dominated. There were
proposals for bollards, walls and even
a moat. This holiday weekend, though,
the nation's capital will get its first look
at a monument permanently fortified
against a terrorist attack on the Mall.

The defenses will not be obvious.
Fourth of July revelers who stop to rest
on curving, low-slung granite walls that
encircle the Washington Monument will
be sitting on a $15 million security
project.

"If people look at it and say, 'Gee, it
looks like it's always been here,' or if
they say, 'Where is it? What did they
do? I don't see anything,' then we did it
right," said project manager Allan
Spulecki, who was on the monument
grounds yesterday, dodging front
loaders, backhoes and tractors to
inspect some last-minute touches on
the work site.

The primary feature of the project is a
series of interlocking rings of ash rose
granite wall, standing just 30 inches
above the ground. They reach deep
enough into the ground and overlap at
just the right points to stop an
explosive-laden Humvee.

The walls are augmented by
retractable posts that can be lowered
for maintenance vehicles at four
entrances. Atop the mound of earth
that is the pedestal for the monument,
solid benches of Georgia white marble
surround the plaza. To lend some
aesthetic beauty, lighting has been
installed to better highlight the
geometry and stones of the monument,
Spulecki said.

The subtlety of the design is its
triumph, said Thomas Luebke,
secretary of the U.S. Commission of
Fine Arts, one of the groups that had to
approve the design.

"Part of the issue in these security
measures is a philosophical debate.
This is supposed to be a free and open
society. Do we want these precious
monuments to look embattled?"
Luebke asked. "The Washington
Monument doesn't, and it's a tribute to
the design of the project."

Gone is the haphazard ring of concrete
Jersey barriers and the temporary
screening trailer that embodied
security precautions at the monument
for nearly a decade, a hasty setup
erected after the Oklahoma City
bombing in 1995. That was a stopgap
measure in a decades-long argument
over development of the monument's
grounds.

"It was an unfinished site before,"
Spulecki said. "The monument was just
a hill, a mound of earth with a
monument on top of it."

For years, federal officials agreed with
Spulecki's assessment. But exactly
what to do with the unmanicured
mound was the subject of great
debate.

The idea of an underground visitors
center was introduced in 1966 and
rehashed for years as lawmakers
debated whether it was necessary, was
dangerous or would compromise the
stability of the 555-foot monument.
Congressional budget constraints and
security concerns buried the plan two
years ago.

A new round of discussions centered on
security as federal agencies were
peppered with reports that the Mall's
monuments were vulnerable to attack
and that something had to be done.

Form wrestled with function in the
debate as all kinds of safe but
unattractive barriers and barricades
were proposed. In 2001, the National
Capital Planning Commission narrowly
rejected a plan that would place a halo
of 370 bollards around the monument.

Haha walls
After that ruling, and acting on
recommendations of the commission's
staff, Laurie Olin, with the Olin
Partnership in Philadelphia, thought of
a plan that essentially equated a
Humvee or other explosive-laden
device with a cow.

In the eighteenth century, farmers in
Europe used low, squat stone barriers
called haha walls to pen livestock,
Spulecki said. The rock walls
meandered up and down the glens of
England and the knolls of France in
thick lines, sturdy and unobtrusive.
Those walls are wide and high enough
to keep farm animals in, but they are
not noticeable at eye level, he said.

Olin's firm submitted a simple design of
concentric rings echoing the haha walls
in December 2001, competing with
projects that included more bollards
and even a moat.

The firm won the contract and closed
down the monument Sept. 7 last year
to begin the project, said National Park
Service spokesman Bill Line. The
monument was reopened in April, and
the rest of the grounds will be open by
Monday, he said.

"With this design, people can walk up,
they can bicycle up to the monument,"
Line said. "But nobody's going to be
able to drive up to it."

The design is not without its critics.
Judy Scott Feldman, chairman of the
National Coalition to Save Our Mall,
said the precautions are good but
should have been arrayed at street
level and not allowed to intrude on the
monument grounds.

Preparations for July 4th
Sheet by sheet, the plywood fence that
surrounded the grounds of the obelisk
came down this week, and truckloads
of sod from Northern Virginia were laid
to knit with thousands of pounds of new
soil in a last-minute scramble to unveil
the revamped monument grounds in
time for July 4.

Tonight, lighting designers will flip the
switch on a carefully designed system
that will flood the monument in a
softer, more precise glow, rather than
the greenish halo that harshly
illuminated the structure before,
Spulecki said.

The project was finished on time and
on budget at $15 million, Line said.

The new wall will be the most subtle of
the security measures on the Mall this
weekend.

The more visible reminders, beginning
at 10 a.m. Monday, will be 20
checkpoints on the Mall and at the
Capitol to screen visitors during the
Fourth of July celebrations, officials
said.

Police said they will hand-search bags
and use hand-held magnetometers to
screen those they think are suspicious.
They encouraged people not to bring
large items that might slow lines of
people trying to enter the area.

U.S. Park Police Chief Dwight E.
Pettiford said he expected a large
crowd because forecasters were
predicting a day of mild and sunny
weather. He said authorities have
received "no intelligence that we
should be aware of anything that is
threatening in nature."

Nevertheless, the chief said, he
canceled days off for his force and will
have officers patrolling the area by
horseback, motorcycle and helicopter.

"We are expecting one of the
better-attended events since 2001,"
Pettiford said.

Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber
contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company