Varied Events Expected to Draw a Million Visitors to D.C.

America will be on display in Washington this Columbus Day weekend with Latinos marching, Catholics praying, soldiers racing and restaurateurs cooking downtown. People from all over the country will be viewing the mile-long AIDS Memorial Quilt on the Mall, field hockey players will be competing in a tournament and protesters will be demonstrating at the White House.

Tomorrow alone, more than a million people are expected to flock to the Mall, the Ellipse, the play fields near the monuments and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, where the Taste of D.C food festival will be held.

"People call us to ask if there is a demonstration to see while they are in town, and I have been telling them this is the weekend to be in Washington," said Sandra Alley, spokeswoman for the National Park Service. "We've got stuff happening everywhere."

While that may delight tourists, motorists will no doubt be frustrated as the swirl of national and local events will mean many closed streets.

"The Taste alone is enough to mess up traffic, with all the east-west streets clogged and the north-south ones closed," said Sgt. Jack Cummings, of the D.C. police department's Special Operations Division. "Then you add in all that other stuff. Forget it. Stay home."

U.S. Park Police say they are anticipating one of the busiest weekends of the year. "People trying to get north or south through town will have a real challenge," Capt. Tom Wilkins said.

Metrobus and Metrorail are prepared to handle more than the usual number of weekend passengers -- officials are anticipating close to 2 million visitors to Washington between today and Monday -- said Metro spokeswoman Cheryl Johnson.

Tomorrow promises to be the busiest day: The AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display for the second day, the Taste of D.C. will open, and on top of those events is a Latino march that is expected to put thousands of demonstrators on 16th Street NW. Threading their way though the massive crowds to get to their own sites tomorrow will be an estimated 5,000 protesters from ACT-UP, an AIDS awareness group, who plan to ring the White House by holding hands; 500 international field hockey tournament players heading to the John F. Kennedy hockey fields near the Lincoln Memorial; and 400 Workers of St. Joseph planning to pray at the Washington Monument. Sponsors of the Million Man March 10K footrace are hoping about 3,500 runners can get to West Potomac Park.

Tomorrow night, the Whitman-Walker Clinic expects 100,000 participants to carry candles and march from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial for a ceremony to commemorate those who have died of AIDS. At the same time, 18 members of a Pittsburgh synagogue have a permit to hold a religious ceremony at the Jefferson Memorial.

And that's just tomorrow. Events begin today with the first unfolding of the quilt at 8 a.m. and continue through Monday with a wreath-laying at the Columbus statue outside Union Station at 11 a.m.

U.S. Park Police officers will check on permits during the weekend to see that everyone is in the right spot.

All this mixing and matching of demands for space in Washington's parks doesn't leave everyone happy, Alley said. "Everyone, rightly so, wants to be within view of the symbols of the United States, such as the White House or the monuments and memorials."

Among those who were disappointed was the Latino group, which had applied for the Lincoln Memorial for its rally but lost out to the Whitman-Walker Clinic's candlelight vigil because of the Park Service's first-come, first-served permit policy.

That didn't satisfy march spokesman Roberto Rodriguez, who said his group chose Oct. 12 as the date for its event two years ago. "They said to us to change the date of our march, but we couldn't," he said. "We reached a point where we said the march will happen anyway."

But they didn't get to use the Lincoln Memorial plaza and instead will rally on the Ellipse, close to the quilt and the Taste of D.C.

"The majority of the people will do the Quilt and the Taste," he said. "We are looking forward to that."

For nine members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., their visit to Washington is all business. Their mission is to oppose what they call the "homosexual agenda," and they follow displays of the AIDS Quilt around the country.

"Our signs sometimes draw violence," said church member Shirley Roper. "But we have put our hand to the plow. We have to do this."

The mosaic of activities and protests is "poetry in motion" to Robert Stanton, field director for the Park Service's Washington region.

"When I contemplate a weekend like this one, I like to remember the words of Frederick Douglass, whose house we administer. In 1877, he said, `For wherever else an American citizen may be a stranger, he should be at home in his nation's capital, Washington, D.C.' "

MAJOR DOWNTOWN EVENTS THIS WEEKEND

The LATINO MARCH will begin in Meridian Hill Park at 10 a.m. tomorrow. The march down 16th Street will end at the Ellipse, where a rally will be held. Traffic will be interrupted on the march route and all cross streets as marchers pass by.

THE AIDS CANDLELIGHT VIGIL will begin tomorrow at 6 p.m. on the west Capitol grounds, move up Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues, down 17th Street and converge at the Lincoln Memorial. Participants should bring their own candles.

The sixth annual TASTE OF D.C. will take place from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. tomorrow, Sunday and Monday along Pennsylvania Avenue. Streets outlined by gray lines will be closed to traffic from 8 p.m. today to 6 a.m. Tuesday. Also, 13th Street between E and F streets will be closed from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday.

The AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT will be spread on the Mall today from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The more than 37,000 panels represent 12 percent of all U.S. AIDS deaths. Panels are arranged chronologically, with those made earliest at the Washington Monument end and the latest at the Capitol end. Additional new panels also will be received and displayed. The names of all the people memorialized on the quilt will be read from five stages spread along the length of the Mall. In the event of rain, the quilt will be folded but the reading of names will continue uninterrupted.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.