"The decorated donkey Worker's Ass et was meant to reach out to the laboring masses. Retired Montgomery County schoolteacher Nancy Nahm, 67, covered it with images of people toiling in the fields, borrowed from the work of Thomas Hart Benton. 'I chose him because his art is about the working man,' Nahm says.

But when Worker's Ass et was placed at 13th Street and Alabama Avenue SE, where commuters passing to and from the Congress Heights Metro station could get close to it, the donkey suffered: Vandals carved their initials in its backside, and people climbing on it left scuff marks.

So the statue was removed and, after repairs, relocated to a different part of town - in front of the Turkish Embassy at 2525 Massachusetts Ave. NW.

Embassy Row may not be the stomping grounds of the proletariat, but the spot comes with round-the-clock security. 'We have officers posted here 24 hours a day,' says one embassy guard who asked not to be identified. 'No one is going to bother it.' (Sarah Godfrey, Washington City Paper, August 9, 2002)