And now visitors and officials alike are raising the question: How long should this drama run?
"The truth is finally there to see," one black woman said as she gazed out thoughtfully over the welter of stone foundations. Here is where the first presidential family and its chattel slaves once lived in what can now be seen as walled-off but close parallel worlds.
"They should leave this," she murmured, almost to herself.
As thousands of visitors swarm across the platform erected in Independence National Historical Park to facilitate viewing of the dig, comments about race and power, black and white, slavery and freedom, history and identity are everywhere in the air.
(When the site - previously viewable only on weekdays - was opened last weekend, more than 1,000 people visited, stunning Park Service officials, who have opened it again this weekend from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
Because of this intensifying interest, city and Park Service officials are seriously reconsidering how to proceed with the site.
Should they stick with the goal of completing the dig this month and refilling the hole in time for July Fourth celebrations? Or should they devise some alternative that keeps the site open?
And what should be done about the ultimate plan to build a memorial to the house and its occupants, including Washington's nine slaves, over the filled-in excavation? Designers headed by Kelly/Maiello Architects & Planners are already well into the planning process. Should they change course?
These issues are being revisited, city officials said last week. And Karen Warrington, a member of an advisory committee overseeing site plans, said "there is a need for further discussions."
What has evoked this response to the two-month-old dig?
