Existing comment:
Walter Reed Medical Annex; Indian Statue
This is a picture of the Walter Reed Medical Annex at the National Park Seminary in Forest Glen Maryland. The 23.5 acres and its various buildings are owned by the US Army.
The buildings were built in 1887 as part of the Forest Glen Inn, a summer resort for Washingtonians, and represent a variety of architectures (an English castle, a Dutch windmill, a Japanese pagoda, an Indian mission, and an Italian villa). The hotel failed seven years later and it was sold in 1894 to the National Park Seminary, a finishing school for young women that later became an accredited four-year college for women. In 1942, the US Army bought the property and used it as a hospital for soldiers returning from World War II. All but one of the buildings is now empty.
The site has lots of problems. The Army's budget is $400,000 and that doesn't allow for much maintenance. It spent $40,000 in 1990 to replace a gymnasium floor only to have to close the building two years later due to water damage.
The army estimates that basic repairs would cost $9.7 million which it doesn't want to spend. Demolition would run around $10 million. |