It has been one week since President Donald Trump said the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool bottom will be colored to become “American flag blue” and crews have been working on changing the hue.
While announcing the project last week, Trump said the pool “leaked like a sieve” for years and that he’d decided to lay down “industrial grade pool” surface rather than spend hundreds of millions and several years to replace the granite floor.
On Wednesday afternoon, a small portion of the pool floor was colored with the dark blue pigment.
“I hope that they can revert it maybe later,” said one visitor from Delaware. “If they’re doing it just for the festivities, sure, but I really hope that they can keep it traditional.”
According to the Department of the Interior, “The light-blue base coat visible over the weekend is a standard step in the multilayer process and serves as the foundation for the final finish.”
“I do ride my bike past here almost every day, so I see the progress incrementally day by day,” said David Gorlitz, a D.C. resident. “I’ve noticed the color has changed a couple times from a lighter blue to a darker blue. That was a little puzzling.”
He continued, “It’s a historical architectural feature on this mall and they’re covering it with, what I’ve heard through the news, is a commercial-grade swimming pool covering. So I’m not sure if that’s actually the right stuff that you should be using for this particular purpose.”
Gorlitz was not impressed with the progress and said it looked terrible.
Another visitor from California told WTOP, “I think it’s going to be difficult to see any color underneath the water. I think it’s probably just going to look like it did before. Maybe if you see it directly from above, you’ll see the color. Maybe it’ll look a little bluer than normal, but it just kind of feels like a waste of time to do that.”
The Department of the Interior said in a statement, “Work remains on track for completion by the end of May. The last major renovation of the Reflecting Pool was completed in 2012.”
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