The Fourth in DC

On Wednesday, we met up with my colleague Dorothee and her family to watch the fireworks from the Fed. A nasty storm swept through the area around 6:00 PM, apparently causing everyone to clear the Mall, but we waited for it to pass, walked down to the Fed around 7:30, ate a few hamburgers, and then settled into seats on the terrace at the Fed to watch the show.

The Fed is, I suspect, the BEST place in all of DC to watch the fireworks. The Fed is located on Constitution Ave between the Washington and Lincoln Monuments right across from the duck ponds and reflecting pool over which they shoot off the fireworks. And the viewing site at the Fed is on the fifth floor with a big balcony for seating so that you get a clear view of the entire mall while the fireworks are going off right above you. It's a pretty cool experience, especially the shimmering fireworks that drift towards you as they descend. Imagine watching your local fireworks from your apartment balcony right across the street and you have the basic idea. But ratchet up the fireworks display a lot (after all, this is THE NATION's premier fireworks show), make your apartment balcony much bigger, and toss in a thousand or so Fed employees and family members including Chairman Ben dressed in eminently casual clothing - no one is sure if Greenspan actually owned casual clothing, but the consensus seems to be that, if he did, he never would have worn them to the fireworks show at the Fed in the unlikely event that he would've attended at all. (Dorothee's husband Alex wanted to get a picture of her and her kids with the Chairman which they probably could have pulled off as a good souvenir to show their French friends, but no one had the guts to do it.)

Last year, we watched the show from the big terrace outside of the Kennedy Center which was also a pretty good vantage point, but we weren't nearly as close as this year. And Margaret didn't appreciate the show last year at all - she fell asleep in the Baby Bjorn shortly before they started. This year, even though the start was well after her bedtime, she had taken a late nap and was well prepared despite the work-out she experienced careening through the cafeteria and dining rooms of the fifth floor of the Fed in a manic quasi-running motion (the 5th floor is great for that type of adventure since there are no hazards and fragile items that generally cause problems for a toddler - except for other people, all of whom were very tolerant of her presence.) During the show, she sat on my lap and stared with big, somewhat hypnotized and sleepy eyes at the sparkling lights while I covered her ears against the percussive booms. Occasionally, she would raise an arm to point at the fireworks using the seemingly universal gesture that toddlers use to indicate something of note.

By the way, I have to admit that I forgot my camera at home, so I pinched the above photo from another website (which, if you notice, must have been taken from Virginia to get that view of the monuments and Capitol.) And, anyway, the guy who took this photo is obviously a pro, while my version would have probably just depicted smoke.