A Walking Tour of Washington, DC - Federal Triangle
In the 1900s, as the American government grew well beyond the imagination of the Founding Fathers,
it became necessary to leave private offices and find permanent homes for government workers. It was
decided to fill the space created between Constitution Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue as the two
thoroughfares fanned out to the west from their meeting point at 6th Street with a unified group of
important and prominent Federal office buildings.
The 1926 Public Buildings Act, which permitted the Government to hire private architects for
the design of Federal buildings, heralded the beginning of the country’s largest public buildings
construction program. Among the most significant early projects generated under the new legislation
was the development of a 70-acre site (now known as the Federal Triangle) between the Capitol
and the White House. U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon and a distinguished Board
of Architectural Consultants, 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 of Architectural Consultants designed one of
the buildings in the Federal Triangle complex. The goal of the project was 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. Limestone facades, red-tile hipped roof, and classically inspired
colonnades are common features of the Federal Triangle buildings that march down Constitution
Avenue.
Begun in 1792 on the plan of Pierre L’Enfant as a “Grand Avenue” connecting both the “President’s
Palace (to be later known as the White House) and the “Federal House (to be known as the Capitol).”
As the Washington streets acquired state names the most prominent street in the city got attached to
Pennsylvania as a nod to the legislators who lost the nation’s capital when it moved from Philadelphia.
It was nicknamed “America’s Main Street” but that was hardly the case. In the early days of a fledgling
nation, it was a muddy stretch of dirt and dust, constantly under construction and repair. During
the Civil War, thousands of women providing services to the city’s soldiers (brothels were legal in
Washington until 1914) were herded to a section along Pennsylvania Avenue by General Joseph
Hooker and became known as “Hooker’s Army,” later shortened to just “hookers.” The road was not
paved until 1871 (in wood blocks), which soon needed replacing as it turned to splinters under the
traffic’s wear and tear. It was finally paved in asphalt beginning in 1907. Traction-type streetcars ran the
length of the avenue, and shoppers frequented the outdoor markets of Market Square.
This walking tour will start where Consitution Avenue joins the “Pathway of Presidents” to form the
apex of the Federal Triangle...
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