Secure and Demure

Parking meters, "along with fortified drinking fountains, trash cans, benches, bus shelters, newsstands, planters, traffic lights and street lights -- are intended to replace concrete barricades used to protect many public buildings since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The new 'hardened street furniture' looks like conventional urban fixtures, but is reinforced with internal bars of hardened steel buried deep in concrete. Proponents say that by camouflaging the security function, the new designs will help restore public confidence shaken by terrorist attacks. They also would restore at least some of the traditional beauty around such landmarks as the White House and the U.S. Capitol....Planners in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco are thinking in the same vein, so many state capitals, city halls and courthouses are likely to be ringed by hardened furniture in the future."

Thanks to Connie Chung