Existing comment:
Federal Triangle
The red-roofed buildings to the right of the gallery is Federal Triangle. Originally swampland and then a thriving shopping district, the area had deteriorated during the Civil War. Called "Murder Bay" before the war, it became labeled "Hooker's Division" during the war. (General Joseph Hooker was a Union commander whose name is popularly attributed to being the source for the prostitution nickname "hookers"). The city had become an armed camp and dangerous characters preyed on the overcrowded citizens in this area, being jammed with saloons, gambling dens, and houses of prostitution. To control crime, gambling salons and prostitution houses were forced to concentrate in the area now known as Federal Triangle.
In 1899, the Old Post Office (not called "Old" at the time of course) opened here. The MacMillan Plan recommended in 1902 that the area be turned into a municipal office park but the only new building constructed here in the next two decades was the District Building (1908). The place continued to deteriorate until the federal government bought it out in 1926. Construction commenced at the beginning of the Depression and it became a collection of federal office buildings.
Federal Triangle consists of several buildings on a stretch of land 12 blocks across, bordered like a triangle between Pennsylvania Avenue to the north, 15th Street to the west, and Constitution Avenue to the south. Most of them share a common architecture and are covered by red tile roofs. These buildings are:
15th Street Dept of Commerce 14th Street Interstate Ronald District Commerce Reagan Building (1908) Commission International Trade Center
--------- Customs Service Building --- 12th Street Internal Old Post Revenue Office (1899) Building 10th Street Justice Department 9th Street National Archives 7th Street Federal Trade Commission 6th Street
The Ronald Reagan International Trade Center is still being built, having been designed by I.M. Pei.
The building in front in this picture is the Federal Trade Commission. The National Archives is the building to the right of it. Behind it is the Justice Department, followed by the Old Post Office. |