Washington Monument; August 29, 2004

I thought I’d better rush over to the Washington Monument before they closed it on September 7 to complete security improvements. It won’t open to the public until next spring. I wanted to take photos of the DC area while all the trees are still leaved out.

Usually, you can reserve tickets for the next day over the Internet but everything was booked. They have half the tickets reserved. The other half are first come, first serve at the kiosk at the Monument. I got there a little after 8 AM and got tickets for the first tour at 9 AM.

Later, I realized that I was looking out the windows of the Monument at about the same time of morning that the attack on the Pentagon took place on September 11. The observation deck is fifty stories high, 500 feet in altitude, and features a view of the three juiciest targets for terrorists: the Capitol, White House, and Pentagon. It seems to me pretty likely that Mohammed Atta peered out these windows to prepare for the attacks.

There are two windows on each of the four sides of the monuments. One window is blocked off on each side. They don’t advertise it, but cameras have been installed in those windows to keep an eye on DC.

It's quite a view.