Welcome, New Neighbors!

by Tula Connell, Jan 8, 2009

OK, so our AFL-CIO building here in Washington, D.C., is surrounded by barricades. It’s for a good cause: Our new neighbor has set up temporary digs at the Hay-Adams across the street, and he carries a lot of Secret Service with him. The Secret Service has this need for, well, security.

But imagine what it’s like to be 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha, whisked daily through concrete barriers and blockaded streets only to return home to a hotel room?

So we thought we’d brighten up their days a bit. From the seventh floor of our building, we’ve draped a one-story-tall and 67-foot-wide banner welcoming the two Obama girls.

That banner joins one we put up in the early hours of Nov. 5, just above our entrance, saying, “We’re Turning Around America.”

And if the president-elect and his family want to fend their way through the barricades crisscrossing 16th Street and head into our lobby, they’ll see a panoply of signs from AFL-CIO unions supporting Barack Obama and Joe Biden during the elections.

Forget Blair House. The Obamas couldn’t pick a more welcome place to stay than right across the street.

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