The President to Parade the Avenue
Clinton to View a Pennsylvania Revival That Some See Him as Undermining
By Stephen C. Fehr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 16, 1997
; Page D04
President Clinton can thank one of his heroes, John F. Kennedy, for the
renaissance he'll see Monday along Pennsylvania Avenue while parading down the
historic street to the White House.
Yet Clinton could be remembered as the president who undermined the revival
of the nation's Main Street by closing a two-block section in front of the
White House.
During Kennedy's inaugural parade in 1961, the president "waved to the
left, waved to the right and there was nothing there. The city was moving out
Wisconsin Avenue, out Connecticut Avenue," recalled Sen. Daniel Patrick
Moynihan (D-N.Y.), then a Labor Department official. Kennedy tapped Moynihan
to help start a public-private makeover of 21 blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue
that is nearly finished and has added millions of square feet of office, arts
and retail space as well as hundreds of hotel rooms, apartments and
condominiums.
"You hear constantly that everything is falling down" in the District,
Moynihan said. "Well, this ain't."
But travel along the restored corridor has become more difficult after
Clinton's May 1995 decision to shut vehicle access to Pennsylvania in front of
the White House. The move divided downtown Washington between east and west,
making trips across the city tougher at a crucial time for downtown
revitalization.
Business, political and civic leaders are putting together a plan to
energize the city's core with the MCI Center sports arena, a new convention
center, an opera house, museums and more entertainment retailers.
"The mission for a `living downtown,' one that is active 18 hours a day,
will be severely curtailed if one of the main arteries leading from the west
side of the city is closed," said Herbert S. Miller, a developer who headed a
blue ribbon task force on downtown revitalization. "This situation cannot be
viewed as a positive incentive for businesses to locate downtown."
A month after a truck bomb blew up a federal office building in Oklahoma
City, killing 168 people, Clinton ordered the section of Pennsylvania closed,
based on classified reports that said the White House was vulnerable to a
truck bomb. The street will be opened only for ceremonial functions, such as
Monday's parade.
"Here they're going to open up Pennsylvania Avenue so they can have a
party," groused Thomas W. Wilbur, president of the D.C. Building Industry
Association, which represents builders, developers and the real estate
industry. "They have their party, and the next day all the rest of us who live
and work here have to live with this problem."
Clinton, echoing assessments of others in and out of the administration who
studied the truck bombing threat, has said the Secret Service's arguments were
persuasive, although independent bombing experts say the White House may be
far enough from the street to withstand an explosion. Clinton isn't planning
to change his mind, and the National Park Service is working on a permanent
redesign of the two-block area. A future president could always reverse
course; Clinton's challenger, Robert J. Dole, said he would have reopened
Pennsylvania to vehicles.
The closing of Pennsylvania, and westbound E Street, forced 38,000 vehicles
a day onto other routes, clogging D, H, I, K and L streets. Constitution
Avenue traffic jumped 50 percent after the closing. Commuting, taxi and
shopping trips were lengthened, and it takes longer for emergency vehicles to
cross the city.
Many people simply have stopped driving between east and west of the White
House. That doesn't make restaurants happy; a cab ride from a location east of
the White House such as the Reagan building to restaurants on the west side,
such as Maison Blanche at 17th and F, takes up most of a lunch hour.
Before Clinton's decision, downtown was a single area, including both sides
of Pennsylvania Avenue and tying in the Georgetown-West End and Capitol Hill
neighborhoods.
"Like the Berlin Wall of the Cold War era, we now have two separate
districts, two separate cities: East Washington and West Washington," said
Christopher Reutershan, of Concord Partners, a real estate development
services company. "We're seeing an increasing divide developing."
In effect, Clinton unwittingly has redrawn the geography of downtown
Washington.
Until the 1980s, Washington's central business district was a so-called
golden triangle bounded by K Street, New Hampshire Avenue, Massachusetts
Avenue and 16th Street. Some business leaders now call that area West
Washington.
In the 1980s, the definition of the business district changed to include
the eastern part of Pennsylvania, an area also bounded by 15th Street,
Massachusetts Avenue and E Street. That part of Pennsylvania was redone by the
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp., a small federal agency started during
the Nixon administration but conceived by a Kennedy administration panel that
included Moynihan.
The agency spent 25 years and $1.5 billion in private money converting the
seedy mile between the Capitol and the Treasury Department into the current
grand boulevard of hotels, theaters, memorials, embassies, shops, restaurants,
offices and residences.
Half of the city's 50 largest law firms have moved to East Washington,
including the five largest.
Moynihan, perched on a fourth-floor balcony of Market Square overlooking
Pennsylvania Avenue, pointed out the changes to the thoroughfare since
Clinton's first inaugural parade in 1993.
Six classy, diverse restaurants have opened, though the 69-year-old
Moynihan admits having "absolutely no idea" what Planet Hollywood is. The
mammoth Ronald Reagan federal office building and international trade center
at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, a giant hole in the ground four years
ago, is almost done and the beat-up intersection there repaved.
Work has started on a fourth building similar to Market Square, where
Moynihan lives, that will include residences, offices, shops and restaurants.
Although there are plans to spruce up other buildings, including the old
District Building, the remaking of Pennsylvania is nearly finished.
Clinton's interest in helping the city in other ways -- including a
proposal to have the federal government take over billions of dollars in
District programs in exchange for dropping the federal payment to the city --
prompted Wilbur to offer a suggestion.
"One low-cost way he could contribute to the recovery of the city is to
reopen Pennsylvania Avenue," Wilbur said. "It would be a great gesture to the
city that the White House realizes our plight."
Then again, Moynihan said, the federal government could build an underpass
to carry Pennsylvania Avenue traffic underneath, with a pedestrian plaza on
top. Closing the road -- and putting barriers around the Capitol -- gives the
impression the United States is beleaguered, he said, which is why he did not
agree with those decisions.
"We can do what is necessary for security at the White House without
declaring us to be a nation under siege," he said.
Staff writer Maryann Haggerty contributed to this report.
Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington
Post and may not include subsequent corrections.
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