Pennsylvania Avenue lighthearted celebrations, including a series of day- and nighttime Shriner's parades in the 1920s and 1930s. Thomas and Concepcion Picciotto are the founders of the White House Peace Vigil, the longest running anti-nuclear peace vigil in the US, at Lafayette Square on the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Secret Service closed the portion of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to all vehicular traffic. Pedestrian and bicycle traffic, however, was still permitted on the sidewalk. After 9/11 this policy was made permanent. Near the White House traffic is redirected to
State funerals in the United States On July 13, 1850, the funeral procession for Zachary Taylor on Pennsylvania Avenue stretched for over two miles. On April 19, 1865, a cortege numbering an unprecedented 30,000 people escorted the remains of Abraham Lincoln on the avenue from the White House to the Capitol. In 1881, the body of James A. Garfield was escorted on Pennsylvania Avenue by the new president, Chester A. Arthur, and ex-President Ulysses S. Grant. Returned to Washington D.C. ten days earlier by a funeral train, the remains of William McKinley were escorted on the rain-dampened avenue from the White House to the Capitol on