{"id":4041,"date":"2018-10-18T14:06:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T18:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/?p=4041"},"modified":"2018-10-18T16:15:31","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T20:15:31","slug":"happy-birthday-frances-perkins-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2018\/10\/18\/happy-birthday-frances-perkins-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday Frances Perkins Building"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"Happy Birthday!<\/span><\/h2>\n

Forty-four years ago today, on\u00a0October 18, 1974, President\u00a0Gerald R. Ford\u00a0and Secretary\u00a0Peter J. Brennan\u00a0laid the ceremonial cornerstone of the new Frances Perkins Department of Labor building.\u00a0In February 1975 the first wave of employees moved in.<\/p>\n

I spent over ten years taking the Red Line down to the Perkins building — some of the best working years of my life. Below are a few photos in around the building that I took during my years there.<\/p>\n

Inner Beauty<\/h2>\n

The Frances Perkins building was named one of “The 15 Brutalist Buildings Every D.C. Resident Should Know<\/a>.”\u00a0 Brutalism is a concrete-intensive and controversial building style favored in government and other builders from the 1950’s to the mid-1970’s (as anyone who rides the Washington Metro knows), supposedly because of the low cost of concrete.<\/p>\n

But not everyone loves brutalist architecture.\u00a0 The Perkins building was named the fifth ugliest government building<\/a> in Washington DC by Buzzfeed News in 2014. And that’s from the outside. The inside is far worse. Because the building is in need of costly infrastructure upgrades, including modern heating, electrical, plumbing and elevator systems, there was a move to renovate<\/a>\u00a0or relocate the Department of Labor during the latter days of the Obama administration, but the Trump administration scotched<\/a> the idea.<\/p>\n

Despite its problems, I have affectionate feelings for the old building as I’m sure many of my former colleagues do. After all, despite its alleged physical ugliness, its heart beats for American workers. And there’s a lot of beauty in that.<\/p>\n

History<\/h2>\n

The Department of Labor was originally located at at\u00a014th Street\u00a0and\u00a0Constitution Avenue, in the\u00a0Federal Triangle. That building\u00a0is currently occupied by the\u00a0U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u00a0and has been renamed the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Frances Perkins building is constructed of steel and limestone, contains over one million square feet of usable space and cost $95 million to build.\u00a0 For its first few years, the new Department of Labor headquarters was simply known as the New Department of Labor<\/a> (NDOL) building.\u00a0 According to Wikipedia<\/a>, an employee suggested that the building should be renamed for the former Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, and the idea was warmly accepted. The ceremony to rename the NDOL and dedicate it as the Frances Perkins Building was held on April 10, 1980 \u2013 the 100th anniversary of Perkins’ birth.<\/sup>\u00a0President\u00a0Jimmy Carter<\/a>\u00a0and Secretary of Labor\u00a0Ray Marshall\u00a0presided over the ceremony; Susanna Coggeshall, the daughter of Perkins, also attended.\u00a0Perkins was Secretary of Labor from 1933-1945 and the first woman ever to serve in the Cabinet.\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0A plaque on the building reads that Perkins’ “legacy of social action enhances the lives of all of us.”\u00a0On the same day, the\u00a0United States Postal Service\u00a0issued a new 15-cent stamp bearing the likeness of Perkins.\"Perkins<\/sup><\/p>\n

Other interesting stuff: The first picture below (which I did not take) is an 1863 photo of the Trinity Episcopal Church<\/a>\u00a0which occupied the site of the current Perkins building from 1850 until the 1930s when it was razed for a parking lot.\u00a0 There are also a couple of my photos of the statue of Albert Pike behind the building. Pike was\u00a0poet, lawyer, soldier, and an influential Freemason.\u00a0 But Pike was also a Confederate general, which has recently led some Washington DC officials to advocate for\u00a0removal<\/a> of the statue. The statue of Pike, erected in 1901, is the\u00a0 only\u00a0outdoor sculpture in Washington, D.C.\u00a0honoring a\u00a0Confederate\u00a0general, although his Civil War history is not what the statue honors him for.<\/p>\n

So enjoy. Or not.<\/p>\n