THE INAUGURATION:
By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
THE WASHINGTON POST
JANUARY 20, 1989
Washington Post Staff Writer
The place dubbed "peace park"
by demonstrators, where homeless
people recline during the day and
watch the world go by, has been
seized by the inaugural machine. Its
perimeter is ringed with fencing
and bleachers that are 13 rows
high. Miles and miles of cable snake
along its brick walkways.
Its lawns are jam packed with 32
trailers for the media, the National
Park Service, U.S. Park Police, the
telephone company, construction
crews and a commissary. And tourists fill the sidewalks around the
park, gawking at the sights of the
nation's capital, including the men,
women and children who have no
place to call home.
Homeless people flock to the
park, several said, because they feel
a sense of belonging with the people
there, including the perennial protesters against such things as war, the arms race and pollution.
Their access to the park, however, has been curtailed during the
last few weeks as inaugural preparations have intensified. They have
been allowed only on the park's
northeastern fringe. Today, they
will be fenced in there, in an area
set aside for demonstrators.
"I finally put it in perspective,
said a peace demonstrator who calls
himself Song. "We're being bleachered to death."
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