SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2010 ROBERT MCCARTNEY


Metro escalator failures, troubling report are signals of poor system management


mccartney from C1


and it’d be less attractive to be demoted. Of course, the escalators’


problems are hardly new. The Post was running front-page stories 10 years ago looking at how frequently they broke. At the time,Metro was responding with a $120million programto address the issue over five years. We’re still waiting. Mort Downey, one of the


Metro board of directors’ newest yetmost experiencedmembers, expressed frustration thatMetro has allowed the escalator problems to endure for so long. “This is not like curing


cancer. This is not likemaking 747s fly through the sky. These are pieces of industrial equipment.With the right steps, they should work very well. Somehow,Metro has never really gotten its arms around it,” said Downey, a former U.S. deputy secretary of transportation appointed to the board this year. The consultant’s report has


rightly attracted a lot of attention, because an accident could have been avoided had one of its recommendations been heeded properly. The initial draft specifically warned that brakesmight fail if an escalator were heavily crowded. That preliminary report was delivered amonth before six people were injured in just such amishap at the L’Enfant Plaza station Oct. 30 on an escalator packed with people leaving the Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert rally. But the report raises


questions about a lotmore than just the braking system. “Major amounts” of oil and lubricant were found on steps. “Numerous” safety switches were “dirty, out of adjustment and ineffective.”Metro workers were at risk of electrocution because of water collecting near live electrical equipment, representing “a direct threat to life and limb.”


And that’s based on


examination of escalators and elevators at only four stations: Bethesda, Dupont Circle, Foggy BottomandWoodley Park. To get a sense of the scale of


the trouble, consider the overall report card for the 29 escalators and nine elevators that were rated. Themachinery in each was


judged on three criteria: cleanliness, operation and lubrication. Of the total 38 studied, 23


received at least one rating of “poor.” Fourteen, ormore than a third, received at least two poors. “Poor” described equipment


“where a condition of prolonged absence ofmaintenance exists,” the report says. On the bright side, we


wouldn’t even have this report except thatMetro’s interim generalmanager, Richard Sarles, who took over only this year, ordered it. “I give Rich a lot of credit for


bringing an outside set of eyes in and getting help,” Downey said. Also to its credit,Metro’s


leadership ismostly avoiding claiming that this is just about lack of funds. AMetro statement conceded that one of themajor factors was “many years during which there has been a lack of adherence to Metro’s ownmaintenance standards.” However, longtimeMetro


director Chris Zimmerman argued thatmore funds would have to be found somewhere. “Is it only a question ofmoney? No, but almost everything you’d do to fix it involvesmoney,” Zimmerman said. A safe and efficientMetro is


essential to our region’s well- being. Ifmoremoney is needed, we should give it to them. But the systemdoesn’t deserve to be bailed out if it can’t take care of itsmachinery as well as the average person does with his or her car.


mccartneyr@washpost.com I


KLMNO


EZ SU


To arrive in Michigan’s Henry Ford museum, Lincoln’s fateful chair took circuitous journey


grew up in Dearborn, Mich., home of the Henry Ford museum and Greenfield


Village. Every time I visit the museum, I can’t help but notice that one of the main attractions is the chair in which Abraham Lincoln was sitting that fateful night. I know money talks in a lot of circles, but can you tell me how a treasure like that escaped from D.C. and got into Henry’s hands?


—Jim Donley, Bethesda Some time before the April 14,


1865, performance of “Our American Cousin,” Joe Simms, a Ford’s Theatre employee, carried a lushly upholstered rocking chair into what was to become the presidential box. The chair belonged to theater manager Harry Clay Ford and was among items moved in to make the presidential party more comfortable. After the assassination, Ford’s


Theatre was seized by theWar Department. It was a crime scene, after all. Guards were posted on 10th Street and outside the ill-fated box. On April 22, Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana ordered the Army to remove the chair. Dana had heard that it had been “much clipped and mutilated by persons desirous of carrying away pieces of it as relics.” (Dana also ordered the imprisonment of whomever had been in charge of securing the presidential box.) After the trial of the surviving


conspirators—at which the rocker was introduced as evidence—the question that would be asked many times was asked for the first time: What should be done with the death chair? In January 1867, theWar


Department sent it to the Department of the Interior. Interior Secretary O.H. Browning acknowledged receipt of the chair, writing, “It will afford me satisfaction to have the Chair deposited in the proper place, among other relics, in this Department for safekeeping.” Soon after, the chair—along


with the stovepipe hat Lincoln wore to the theater that night— were put on display at the Patent


Abraham Lincoln was sitting in this chair, owned by Ford’s Theatre managerHarry Clay Ford, when he was fatally shot April 14, 1865.


Although that was apparently true, the Smithsonian was able to persuade a judge that the historical significance of the hat meant it should stay in the museum’s custody. (It’s on exhibit at theNationalMuseum of AmericanHistory.) Wouldn’t the chair be just as


iconic? Perhaps, but it remained in storage. Then, in 1928, Blanche Chapman Ford, the widow ofHarry Clay Ford, wrote to the Smithsonian.Was it true, she asked, that they had the chair, and if so, “Will you kindly tell me why it is not on exhibition?” She added that if it was not of use to the museum she would like to have it. Smithsonian curator


Theodore Belote responded that it was the museum’s policy not to show objects “directly connected with such a horrible and deplorable event.” Perhaps, but Brian Daniels, a Smithsonian Archives research associate who has studied the circuitous history of the chair and hat, thinks there was another reason: Belote, the son ofMaryland slave owners, was not fond of Lincoln. He was happy to see the chair go. In the spring of 1929, Blanche


JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON


Office building. They were exhibited for only a year or two, and in 1869 the two items were delivered to the Smithsonian. They were kept in storage, their exact whereabouts a closely held secret. In 1893 the chair was sent to a museum thatUnion veteran and Lincolniana collector Osborn Oldroyd opened at 516 10th St. NW, the house in which Lincoln died. There it stayed for the next four years. It was returned to the Smithsonian, where in 1902 it finally received an official accession number—38912— and was catalogued in the Department of Anthropology. Lincoln’s hat became the


subject of a celebrated lawsuit when the descendants of Phineas Gurley, the minister who delivered the president’s eulogy, sued to take possession of it. They said Mary Todd Lincoln gave the hat to the minister.


Ford’s son George collected the chair. That December it was on the auction block, selling for $2,400 to Israel Sack, a Boston antiques dealer who conveyed it toHenry Ford for his new museum. “This is the chair that embodies a transformative moment in time for America and indeed the world,” said Christian Overland, vice president of the Henry Ford museum. “It kind of is like the one that got away,” Daniels said.


Send questions to answerman@washpost.com.


ANIMALWATCH


An expert at playing possumin Leesburg LEESBURG, Ayrlee Avenue,


Nov. 2. An animal control officer investigated a report of an opos- sum that appeared sick or in- jured. The officer found that the opossum was playing dead and


Among cases handled by the Loudoun County Department of Animal Care and Control


C3


appeared to be healthy. The opos- sum was released to the wild.


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