Ashley Gilbertson's Republic

The Times is showing a set of photographs by Ashley Gilbertson that capture the mood in Washington, DC during the week before Trump's inauguration. For my friends and the people I work with in Federal agencies, this is gray perfection.

Plus, this is my town. The top one is a view from Union Station I have seen hundreds of times; the bottom captures a side of Washington I love, the late Victorian architecture of the public core. My elder son recently toured Washington and said his favorite thing was the reading room in the Library of Congress. Next to the bottom was taken in the part of downtown where I had my first professional office.