CHAPTER XVII

BUILDINGS OCCUPIED

T

HE first meeting place of the Congress, where the plan for the conduct of our foreign affairs was first taken into consideration, was Carpenters' Hall, a building which had been constructed for the Society of House Carpenters of Philadelphia. It stands at the end of an alley, south from Chestnut Street, between Third and Fourth Streets. The lower floor, consisting of one large room, was occupied by the Congress, and the rooms in the second story by committees. From Carpenters' Hall the government went to what has ever since been known as Independence Hall.

As soon as the Department of Foreign Affairs was organized under Livingston, it took possession of a small house in Philadelphia, owned by Peter S. Du Ponceau, No. 13 South Sixth Street, on the eastern side. Livingston's office was in the front room of the second floor, and in the back room were the undersecretaries, while the clerks and interpreters occupied the room on the ground floor. This building was demolished in 1846. It was occupied as the Office of Foreign Affairs from the latter part of 1781 up to June, 1783, when the Department was practically suspended until Jay took control of it in 1785.

In January, 1785, the seat of government being moved to New York, the Department of Foreign Affairs found quarters in the famous Fraunce's Tavern, in the long room of which Washington had taken farewell of the generals of the Revolution at the close of the war. Here it remained till 1788, when it moved to the west side of Broadway, in a house owned by Philip Livingston, near the Battery. Later it was moved to another house on the same street on the opposite side.

The capital having been again located at Philadelphia, the Department took up its abode first on Market Street, then on the southeast corner of Arch and Sixth Streets, then in North Alley, and finally at the northeast corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets, where it remained until it was moved to Washington, except for an interval of three months from August to November, 1798, when it occupied the State House at Trenton, N. J., the office being moved from Philadephia on account of an epidemic of yellow fever.

On June 1, 1800, the archives were lodged in the Treasury, the only building sufficiently completed to receive them, and August 27 were placed in one of the "six buildings" on Pennsylvania Avenue and Twentieth Street. In May, 1801, the offices were placed in the large brick building on Seventeenth Street, opposite G Street, known as the War Office, and here they remained up to December, 1819, with an interval from September, 1814, to April, 1816, when it occupied a building on the south side of G Street, near Eighteenth, pending the repair of its former

building, which had been demolished in the invasion of the city by the British troops.

In January, 1820, the offices were moved to the corner of Fifteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, the site now covered by the north wing of the United States Treasury, and there it remained up to October, 1866, when it leased the premises then belonging, as now, to the Washington Orphan Asylum, on Fourteenth Street, near S Street. It remained there until July, 1875, when it was removed to its present quarters, which constitute the south wing of the State, War, and Navy Building.

When it first moved to its present home it did not fill the whole building and all the space above the third floor was given over to the storage of newspapers and books, while about a fourth part of the basement and first floor were not used. The latter space was given to the Navy Department, and when the newspapers were moved to the Library of Congress the fourth floor and attic of the Department's wing were occupied by the War Department. This arrangement proved in the end most unfortunate. Had the Department retained the whole wing originally allotted to it, all of its offices might even now be under the same roof and the increasing embarrassment to its business by overcrowding and separation might have been avoided. The quarters which it occupied were reasonably sufficient until about 1895; after that time they became more and more crowded, until separation from the main building of some of the offices became imperative. The first bureau to go was the Bureau

of Trade Relations, which was given quarters in the Rochambeau Apartment House on Connecticut Avenue near H Street. A house on Seventeenth Street opposite the Department, at the corner of New York Avenue, was next rented by the Department in 1908 and occupied by the Bureau of Citizenship, the Bureau of Trade Relations, and the translator. More crowding in the main building sent the Solicitor's office to take the place of the Bureau of Trade Relations, which moved in 1909 to the Union Trust Company's building, at the corner of Fifteenth and H Streets. To this building came also the Bureau of Accounts in 1910. In 1911 the building on Seventeenth Street was abandoned and the house of Blair Lee, Esq., on Pennsylvania Avenue, opposite the War Department, was rented.

In his report of 1896, Secretary Olney said that a new building for the Department would soon be imperative, and since then the necessity has been urged repeatedly by Secretaries of State. The Act of July 25, 1910, provided for the purchase of the land bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, Fifteenth Street, the Mall and Fourteenth Street, on which to erect buildings for the State Department and the Departments of Commerce and Labor and Justice.

A competition for designs for the new building was held, twenty firms of architects being invited to compete, and on January 6, 1911, the award for the best design was made to Mr. Arnold W. Brunner of New York. From Mr. Brunner the following notes of the design have been obtained.

The Department of State is intended to form one of the group of three buildings facing Fifteenth Street. The new building for the Department of Commerce and Labor is to be located to the north of it, and the building for the Department of Justice is to be placed between that and Pennsylvania Avenue.

The new building for the Department of State, which is approximately 325 feet square, has its principal façade on the Mall. This façade is broken in the center by a great portico consisting of a double row of ten Corinthian columns 53 feet high supporting a pediment, the apex of which is 87 feet above the first floor. These columns rest upon a platform approached by a flight of steps 110 feet in width.

The remainder of the building is treated simply with a Doric cornice. There are two projecting pavilions with columns on the Fourteenth and on the Fifteenth Street fronts. The B Street elevation has a series of columns indicating the library.

The building is placed on a terrace, which completely frames it and is extended on the B Street elevation to

provide proper approaches. There is one large

interior court.

The great portico of the south front marks the monumental portion of the building, while the suites of offices are clearly indicated by the treatment of the windows of the other portion of the exterior.

On the main floor there is the great entrance hall 31 feet wide and 122 feet long. A monumental staircase, 24 feet wide, leads from this to a rotunda surrounded by a gallery, which gives access to the