Because the E-ring is the only one with exterior views, it is the location for offices of the most senior officials. The five-acre courtyard park is nicknamed Ground Zero. The term was inspired by the belief that the park would be a primary target for Soviet nuclear missiles during the Cold War. The Pentagon is twice the size of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. The U. The dock was once used by duty boats that transported service members across the Potomac River to Bolling Air Force Base.
The other two facades are known as the Helipad and South Parking entrances. The site of numerous anti-war protests over the years, the Pentagon was added to the National Register of Historic Places in In the late s, a new headquarters was constructed in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. This building soon proved inadequate. It is currently used by the State Department. In , it was agreed that a new large office building would be constructed in Arlington.
The original site selected for construction was the pentagon-shaped Arlington Farms, a temporary housing complex for female civil servants operated by the Department of Agriculture. When concerns arose that the new building might obstruct views of Washington, DC from Arlington National Cemetery, the construction site was moved to the former Hoover Field Airport.
The configuration was reminiscent of the star-shaped forts built during the gunpowder age. To reduce the amount of steel used, architects incorporated ramps rather than elevators in the building. Steel was in short supply and needed for the war effort. Architectural, design and construction work were accomplished simultaneously, and the building was constructed in sections to save time. Colonel Leslie Groves who later oversaw the Manhattan Project as a general officer, supervised the work on the Pentagon.
During construction, segregation laws in Virginia required separate rest room facilities for blacks and whites. As a result, the Pentagon has a higher ratio of rest rooms for its occupants than most similar size office buildings.
It was the only public building in Arlington with desegregated rest rooms until There are 3,, square feet for offices, concessions, and storage. The five-sided center courtyard covers five acres.
A shopping concourse, numerous snack bars, cafeterias, dining rooms, banks, a subway station, and a bus platform make the Pentagon "a city within a city. The structure is supported by 41, concrete piles. There are five floors, plus mezzanines and basements.
The building itself is 77 feet, 3. Each outside wall is feet long. More than seven acres of glass went into the 7, windows in the Pentagon. There are 16, light fixtures, with some bulb replacements made each day. There are 7, electric clock outlets, drinking fountains, stairways, 19 escalators, 13 elevators, firehouse cabinets, and rest rooms.
The Pentagon site covers a total of acres, while the building itself sits on 29 acres. The Pentagon's sewage treatment plant and the heating and refrigeration unit each cover one acre.
The parking lot is 67 acres and has spaces for 8, vehicles. Thirty miles of access highway and 21 bridges and overpasses were built to connect the complex to nearby roads.
Some , miles of telephone cable handle the , phone calls made at the Pentagon each day. Concrete, comprised, in part, of , tons of sand and gravel from the Potomac. Also absent, until recently—elevators, because you need steel to make them.
Now, thanks to a massive renovation project , there are 70 of them. The first site chosen for the building was Arlington Farms , which was pentagon-shaped. But planners figured out that the building would block the view of Washington from nearby Arlington National Cemetery.
So another site was chosen where Hoover Field used to be. Also, President Roosevelt liked the design—an important factor in keeping the original layout. In theory, at least, it takes no longer than six minutes to walk between any two spots in the building. According to Vogel, the shape also proved conducive to optimal use of space and utilities, such as electricity and plumbing. As specified by Virginia state law regarding segregation in public buildings at the time it was built, the Pentagon almost had segregated bathrooms and eating areas.
But President Franklin D. Roosevelt had, in June , outlawed discrimination in the defense industry with Executive Order
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