BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Federal Triangle -- Dept of Commerce Building (Herbert C. Hoover Bldg)

DC -- Federal Triangle -- Dept of Commerce Building (Herbert C. Hoover Bldg):

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Description of Pictures: The Ron Brown memorial in detail. Also the holiday display in the Commerce lobby.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. DOC_121227_065.JPG: U.S. Department of Commerce Balkans Trade Mission Memorial April 3, 1996 "All of them were so full of possibility, even as we grieve for what their lives might have been, let us celebrate what their lives were." -- President William Clinton On April 3, 1996, the Department of Commerce suffered the greatest tragedy in its history when 35 people perished in a plane crash while conducting a trade mission to the Balkans. Ronald H. Brown, the Secretary of Commerce, was leading a delegation of private sector businessmen and government officials on a trade mission to seek ways to implement the civilian aspects of the Dayton peace accords through trade ties and investment opportunities. Secretary Brown and his staff were accompanied by a group of chief executive officers of major companies who agreed to help restore Bosnia's buildings, its water and energy systems, its tourism, and its banking system. The goal of the trip was to start our U.S. commercial presence in the region, to start economic reconstruction, and to include U.S. companies in the development of the region. It was a mission of hope for the war-torn region and an opportunity for American business. The members of the trade mission thought they would be able to use the power of the American economy to help the peace take hold in the Balkans. Their quest was cut short on an unwelcoming mountain in Croatia. As President Clinton said, "Our loved ones and friends loved their country, and they loved serving their country. They believed that America, through their efforts, could help to restore a broken land, help to heal a people of their hatreds, help to bring a better tomorrow through honest work and shared enterprise. They knew what their country had given them, and they gave it back with a force, an energy, an optimism that every one of us can be proud of." This memorial is a lasting testimonial written by the families of those loved ones lost on that fateful day.
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Wikipedia Description: Herbert C. Hoover Building
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Herbert C. Hoover Building is the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the United States Department of Commerce.

The building is located at 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, on the block bounded by Constitution Avenue NW to the south, Pennsylvania Avenue NW to the north, 15th Street NW to the west, and 14th Street NW to the east. It is located in the Federal Triangle, east of President's Park South (the Ellipse), north of the National Mall, and west of other Department of Commerce buildings, the John A. Wilson Building, and the Ronald Reagan Building. The building is owned by the General Services Administration.

Completed in 1932, it was renamed after Herbert Hoover in 1981. Hoover served as Secretary of Commerce (1921–1928) and later President (1929–1933). The closest Washington Metro station is Federal Triangle.

The National Aquarium in Washington, D.C. (in the basement) and the White House Visitor Center (on the first floor) are both in the Hoover Building.

History:

The Department of Commerce was established after President William Howard Taft signed legislation creating the department on his last day in office, March 4, 1913, splitting the former Department of Commerce and Labor into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.

In 1928, Congress authorized the purchase of land in what is now known as the Federal Triangle for departmental offices. The authorization was part of a wave of government construction; the 1926 Public Buildings Act permitted the government to hire private architects for the design of federal buildings, which led to large-scale construction of public buildings, including the development of the 70-acre (280,000 m2) Federal Triangle site between the Capitol and the White House. Soon afterward Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon and the Board of Architectural Consultants, composed of leading architects and headed by Edward H. Bennett of the Chicago architectural firm of Bennett, Parsons, and Frost, developed design guidelines for the site. Under Bennett's direction, each member of the board designed one of the buildings in the Federal Triangle complex to "provide each government agency or bureau with a building that would address its functional needs, while combining the individual buildings into a harmonious, monumental overall design expressive of the dignity and authority of the federal government." Louis Ayres, a member of the board, was selected as the architect for the Department of Commerce Building. Ayres, Arthur Brown Jr. (assigned to the Interstate Commerce Commission building), and William Adams Delano (assigned to the United States Post Office Department Building) were charged with forming the west end of the Triangle and creating an open green mall.

Construction began on October 4, 1927, when Herbert Hoover was the Secretary of Commerce, and the cornerstone was laid on July 10, 1929, early in Hoover's presidential term. The building was completed in 1932; at that time, it was the largest office building in the world. The building was renamed after Hoover in December 1981 by act of Congress. U.S. Representative Arlan Stangeland of Minnesota co-sponsored the bill and asked the House of Representatives to "pay tribute to this great Commerce Secretary," making no mention to Hoover's presidency, which was marked by the beginning of the Great Depression. Democratic Representative John G. Fary of Illinois, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds brought the bill up for consideration as a favor to Republicans. An aide was quoted as saying, "He was a little concerned what some people might think of him bringing up a bill to honor Herbert Hoover in the midst of a Republican recession." The building was officially dedicated as the Herbert C. Hoover Building on April 25, 1983, coinciding with the release of the first volume of George H. Nash's biography The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer.

Design and art:

The building is rectangular and measures approximately 320 feet (98 m) east to west and 1,020 feet (310 m) north to south. It forms almost the entire west side of the Federal Triangle from Constitution Avenue to E Street. The building contains more than 3300 rooms joined by unbroken corridors one thousand feet long. Flexible partitions rather than permanent walls were a part of the original design for many of the offices to allow for changes in departmental organization. The New York Times has described it as "sprawling."

The Malcolm Baldrige Great Hall (named after Howard M. Baldrige, Jr., Commerce Secretary 1981–1985 under Ronald Reagan) is located on the first floor of the north end of the building, facing Pennsylvania Avenue, houses the White House Visitor Center, operated by the National Park Service.

The Great Hall is 225 feet (69 m) long and 62 feet (19 m) wide and was originally used as the Patent Search Room for more than three million patents cataloged by the Department of Commerce (the United States Patent and Trademark Office is part of the Commerce Department). As part of the United States Bicentennial celebrations, the Great Hall became the Bicentennial Visitor Center in 1976 and until 1989 housed the Washington Tourist Information Center. Renovations began in July 1993 with the restoration of the ornate plaster ceiling to restore the simple elegance of the Great Hall. The original Indiana limestone walls, bronze doors, Vermont marble base and accent flooring, and Italianate bronze chandeliers were cleaned and refurbished. In March 1995 the White House Visitor Center was opened.

Aspects of other buildings built in Federal Triangle in the 1930s are present in the building, including courtyards (natural light and ventilation are provided to inner offices by six interior courtyards and a Neoclassical (Greek Revival) architectural style (a Doric colonnade on three sides).

The 15th Street facade stretches almost three city blocks and has four pedimented pavilions featuring sculptures by James Earle Fraser and Haig Patigian. The National Aquarium is located in the basement and has been open to the public since the building was completed in 1932. The Department of Commerce Library Services Branch, a library mainly used by Commerce and other federal government employees and academics, is also located inside the building.

Because the Census Bureau is a part of the Commerce Department, the official Population Clock is located in the lobby of the Hoover Building. It briefly malfunctioned in 1982 when it showed some 50 million more Americans than estimated.
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2012 photos: Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Shepherdstown, WV, Richmond, VA, and Williamsburg, VA), a week-long family reunion cruise of the Caribbean, another week-long family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with lots of in-transit time in Ohio and Indiana), and my 7th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including side trips to Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, etc). Ego strokes: I had a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. I had a photograph of the George Segal San Francisco Holocaust memorial used as the cover of Quebec Francais (issue 165). Not being able to read French, I'm not entirely sure what the article is about but, hey! And I guess what could be considered to be a positive thing, my site is now established enough that spammers have noticed it and I had to block 17,000 file description postings for Viagra and whatever else.. Equipment this year: My mainstays were the Fuji S100fs, Nikon D7000, and the new Fuji X-S1. I also used an underwater Fuji XP50 and a Nikon D600. The first three cameras all broke this year and had to be repaired. Number of photos taken this year: just below 410,000.
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