Not far from, say, the Senate Armed Services Committee or the East Room. A mile, maybe. But there is a real Washington, even if it becomes less visible as the presidential inaugural sweeps into town this week. President Bush will be driven in his limousine Saturday along the axis of this enclave, Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, a distance of 1.7 miles.
Most government offices lie within a few blocks of the parade route.
So do the monuments, the offices of lobbyists and lawyers, the grand hotels, the expense-account restaurants. In the 60-odd square miles beyond, wedged between Maryland and the Potomac River, is the real Washington, a place where kids struggle through homework, where people fall in and out of love, wash the car, lug home groceries, fret about those dang Redskins, take out the trash. An ordinary place of ordinary people. With just over 600,000 people, Washington's about the size of Boston, El Paso or Memphis. Whites who live in the district cluster mostly in the northwest quadrant of the city.