After D.C.'s Reflecting Pool gets repainted, visitors ask: What changed?

Workers refill the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Friday, after a weeks-long project to resurface and repaint the basin. Rahmat Gul/AP hide caption

WASHINGTON — Water is flowing back into the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, after a controversial painting job kept it closed for weeks. And to many onlookers, it doesn't look much different.

"The pool gets completed at 4 o'clock and the water will start to flow in … and it's going to be beautiful," President Trump told reporters in the Oval office on Wednesday.

The next day, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum shared a video of water bubbling up through a grate on the freshly-darkened pool floor. Trump had the pool's surface darkened to a shade he calls "American flag blue." For the last century, he's said, the pool was "just gray … the color of concrete and stone."

By Friday morning, the 2,028 foot-long shallow pool had collected a stripe of water down the middle, just wide enough to reflect the Washington Monument across from it. The refilling continued under the bright sun, as one worker stood in the middle of the pool, with his pants rolled up above his knees, wielding a hose.

As the temperature neared 90 degrees, tourists, cyclists and joggers paused at the top of the nearby steps to snap photos and observe the process. Many welcomed the return of the water — and the ducks that play in it — but said they couldn't immediately tell a difference in the color.

"The more water it fills, the more similar it looks [to before]," said Luisa Córdoba, a D.C. resident and avid runner who says she's been coming to check on the pool every day since work started. "I'm just happy it's not that bright blue that we saw the first days, which was so alarming … if it stays like this, it's fine."

Early renderings — as well as preliminary coats of paint when the project started in late April — had critics worried the historic landmark would end up looking more like a swimming pool. But Friday's observers didn't find that to be the case.