confused

[winterbadger]

from the Washignton Post

The Washington Monument is unlike any other in the capital, so austere and abstract that creating security arrangements for it has dogged the National Park Service for a decade. Fortunately, plans to build a large, underground visitors center, floated in 1993 and renewed in the security panic after Sept. 11, 2001, never came to fruition.

Really? Why the heck was it closed for half a year with the grounds being all dug up, then?

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I think that was a surface restoration. You're talking about the time when it had the big "condom" on it a few years ago, right?

[winterbadger]

Naw, I knew that was just cleaning the outside (though, I did wonder if it would sail off into the sunset, like the Crimson Permanent Assurance Company). No, at another point the building (?) was closed and the grounds around it being dug up. At the time, I thought we were all told they were doing the whole underground visitors' center thing, but I guess maybe they were just putting in the barriers mentioned in the article.