The Hotel Washington, just across the street from the Treasury Dept, thus only one short block from the White House, has been chomping on the bit to get their name change underway. However, they clearly could not do it until the previous administration was history. They did as soon as the mourning period was over, probably a few minutes after noon on January 21st.
The last day of AAAS Policy Fellow orientation started last Monday, 14 Sep, on the top floor of the W Hotel. The view of the National Mall and Federal Triangle from the rooftop terrace was similar to the Google satellite maps, but with higher resolution. We could see parts of the South Lawn of the White House, its South face, and the roof. A clear view of the roof showed it was guarded by several sharpshooters. [When someone started to call them snipers, we had an extended discussion with the outcome that we defined snipers as bad-guys and sharpshooters as good guys.]
Knowing the President was going to Wall Street that morning to lecture the Neo-Robber Barons, one of us looked up the Presidential calendar on the WH web site, which indicated that he was leaving at 9:55. When the time came, we quietly went out to the terrace, and waited, and waited, and waited, until the AAAS staff finally shooed us back in. The Marine helicopters landed on time, but they were more than a half hour late in leaving, so only the staff had the opportunity to see the choppers take off. Alas.
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