WASHINGTON — The capital is a city of magnificent front entrances that people can’t enter.

On Constitution Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue and Capitol Hill, sweeping marble staircases, sculptures, manicured gardens and ornate doors beckoned citizens of the past. Now most stand empty and sealed.

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People wait in line in front of the Supreme Court in Washington – a capital city of magnificent front entrances that visitors no longer can enter. On Constitution Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue and Capitol Hill, marble staircases, sculptures, gardens and ornate doors beckoned citizens in the past. Most of them now stand empty and sealed. The Associated Press

The Supreme Court has become the latest to shoo people from its front steps, to the displeasure of several justices who think it’s wrong for an open society to close such majestic portals.

Across the street, the U.S. Capitol now guides visitors into an underground center, clearing steps the public once climbed. (The stairs have a column behind which a congressman once had a furtive sexual encounter – but it should be noted that it was with his wife.)

The vanishing welcome of Washington’s front doors is evident along most of Constitution Avenue, a thoroughfare and parade route lined on one side by the monuments and grounds of the National Mall and on the other by the headquarters of federal agencies and national or global institutions.

A lone guard on the great lawn of the Federal Reserve says the front is “pretty much off limits” because times have changed. The massive eagle above the entrance looks down on a chain stretching across the staircase and security barriers out by the sidewalk.

A Lonely Planet tour book calls the building a cross between a Greek temple and a Soviet bunker. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt saw ennobling qualities in the modernist Beaux Arts structure when the country was still in depression.

She said in a 1938 column: “Unless we satisfy our sense of beauty in a public building, we have failed in one of its most important functions. We may not be able to live in houses which give us pleasure, but we certainly should be able to visit our government buildings and feel an esthetic satisfaction.”

Now, people can tour the Fed only in groups of 10 or more with two weeks’ notice or can call two days ahead to visit its art exhibits – all through the side door. The lobby has not been used routinely since the 1970s.

Do Not Enter front entrances are very much part of the neighborhood, starting with the American Pharmacists Association building at the western end of Constitution and the adjacent National Academy of Sciences headquarters, where magnolias border walkways from the avenue and old reflecting pools – now planting beds – were once stocked with exotic fish.

A block away, the front doors of the Pan American Annex, another Constitution Avenue showpiece, bear signs steering visitors to an entrance by a garbage bin around the corner.

The White House, where Abraham Lincoln was routinely besieged by citizens who strolled uninvited into the mansion seeking jobs, favors, pardons and policies, has long been an iron-fenced fortress due to security concerns. And for more than a decade, cars have been blocked from even driving past on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Few entrances have more historical significance to the nation at large than the 44 broad steps of the Supreme Court. In May, the court closed the main entrance and began steering visitors and those who argue before the justices to the side of the stairway, through new security checks.

The court thus joined a Washington trend that puts it out of step with the world.

“To my knowledge,” Justice Steven Breyer said, “no other Supreme Court in the world – including those, such as Israel’s, that face security concerns equal to or greater than ours – has closed its main entrance to the public.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added her name to his statement.

Breyer, a student of architecture and history, said Cass Gilbert’s design created a choreographed, climbing path symbolizing a progression toward justice. People still leave through massive doors and down the broad steps.

But an iconic engraving on high, “Equal Justice Under Law,” is now behind their backs.

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