(MSN) – Weeks after their jogging routes and daycare drop-offs were interrupted by a mob storming the U.S. Capitol, the residents of a quiet neighborhood nestled amid the national monuments are wrestling with life in a fortress, where checkpoints abut corner stores and armed soldiers are new neighbors.
Some residents on Capitol Hill have rallied behind the thousands of National Guard members stationed nearby, bringing them wagons full of snacks and hot coffee to express gratitude for their service. Other locals have gone to great lengths to avoid the encampment, saying the presence of armed troops and fencing topped with razor wire makes them feel even more on edge in their own neighborhood.
The polarizing positions have laid bare the personal toll that the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol has taken on D.C. residents who have to live with the aftermath of the insurrection and the militarization of their home.
“This is our land, and many of us are attached to this land because it’s made us who we are,” said Anthony Lorenzo Green, a Ward 7 Advisory Neighborhood Commission representative who remembers visiting D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) in the U.S. Capitol when he was 7-years-old. “Now we have the feeling of being occupied.” READ MORE
