Reporter Gets Down in D.C., Parties with the Stars

I’m never one to pass up a good party. With Barack Obama, CC ’83, as the guest of honor, inauguration in Washington promised to be a rager.

So I ditched the kick-off of the semester at Columbia and trekked to D.C. to soak up the crowded streets, frosty weather, and glamorous red carpets of a star-studded weekend surrounding the kick-off of a new presidency.

Millions of young Obama supporters joined high-profile political leaders, foreign dignitaries, and A-list celebrities in a three-day celebration. As one grassroots supporter from Indiana told me during the festivities, “I campaigned for Obama. I voted for Obama. Now why shouldn’t I celebrate with Obama?”

As locals were advised to stay home during the weekend, visitors from across the country clogged the city’s streets, hotels, metro stations, and restaurants. Despite the one-hour lines for subway tickets and my three-hour wait at the Hard Rock Café, all spirits remained high among the enthusiastic crowds, who often broke out in spontaneous cheers and chants whenever a wait became particularly tedious.

“When the U.S.A. helicopters flew over the Mall during the Lincoln Memorial concert, everyone started chanting, ‘Bye bye Bush,’” said D.C. native Danny Kazin, CC ’10. “Pretty soon a whole bunch of people around us picked it up. Everyone was just really hyped up and excited to be there even though it was freezing.”

On Sunday, at least half a million people filled the fields between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument for the afternoon’s “We Are One” concert. Even though most of the crowd would have had a better view of the event sitting in their living rooms, the energy was infectious.
Tuesday—given the enormous size of the crowd jostling for a view of Obama’s swearing-in ceremony—the entire event progressed smoothly, if a little behind schedule. Thousands of police officers supervised a couple of plucky picket lines, directing foot traffic, and pulling spectators desperate for an Obama sighting out of trees and off of portable bathrooms.

To culminate the days of merry-making, guests donned ball gowns and tuxes at over a hundred D.C. cocktail parties, gala receptions, and inaugural balls to celebrate until the wee hours of the morning.
I headed downtown to the Youth Inaugural Ball at the Washington Hilton. After a long wait to get in—along with around 2,000 other people—I finally made it in to the non-partisan party and heard Obama speak about public service, entrusting the future to the youth generation, and the significant role college students played in his campaign.

Stars rubbed shoulders with young and doe-eyed political junkies, and I got to meet Usher, Rosario Dawson, and Pete Wentz.

At last, as the night finally came to a close and inauguration fever cooled under the chill of D.C.’s frozen evening, all exhaled delighted breaths of hope for the future—and headed home. The party’s over, and now it’s time to get to work.