MASS. AVE. HEIGHTS: Whitehaven Adventures

SINCE FRIDAYS are the start of my weekends, I wasn't planning on doing too much today. But I did find the prospect of a Christopher Hitchens-organized pro-Denmark rally outside the kingdom's embassy at the end of Whitehaven Street an interesting activity to go take a look at before having lunch. The weather today has been beautiful, so the walk up to the back side of the Naval Observatory complex was wonderful.

I arrived about 15 minutes before the action was supposed to start, but I was getting hungry, so I didn't stay very long, opting to slip out of the crowd via the trailhead connecting Whitehaven Street to the Dumbarton Oaks trail in the National Park Service land behind the embassy and the Naval Observatory complex.

WALKING UP WHITEHAVEN STREET, a dead-end street off Massachusetts Avenue in the heart of upper Embassy Row/Massachusetts Avenue Heights, I noticed two things:
- Whitehaven Street should never be used as a protest site. It is far too narrow to accomodate numerous taxi cabs dropping people off and other cars (in this case, many, many SUVs) trying to leave the compact cul-du-sac, which normally is deserted (sans the federal protection assigned to a notable U.S. senator who lives on the block)
- Christopher Hitchens can attract an odd crowd. And press. Looking at the bumper stickers on the various SUVs trying to navigate Whitehaven Street, I spied a mix of Tom DeLay, Bush/Cheney '04, an assortment of anti-war slogans mixed in with school stickers for the Landon School for Boys and the National Cathedral School.

If you want a roundup of what happened after I left for lunch, I suggest you go visit The Political Pit Bull, which posts some nice photos of Hitch with a cigarette (naturally), Bill Kristol, pro-Havarti and pro-Kierkegaard signs and legos.

If you want a background on Denmark's architectually interesting embassy, click here.

Image of the Vilhelm Lauritzen-designed embassy from the Embassy of Denmark's website.