The great public buildings used for Government purposes are among the
chief adornments of Washington. To the eastward of the White House is
the Treasury Building, extending over five hundred feet along
Fifteenth Street, enriched by a magnificent Ionic colonnade, three
hundred and fifty feet long, modelled from that of the Athenian Temple
of Minerva. Each end has an elaborate Ionic portico, while the western
front, facing the White House, has a grand central entrance. This was
the first great building constructed for a Government department, and
is the headquarters of the Secretary of the Treasury. Upon the western
side of the White House is the most splendid of all the department
buildings, accommodating three of them, the State, War and Navy
Departments. It is Roman Doric, built of granite, four stories high,
with Mansard and pavilion roofs and porticoes, covering a surface of
five hundred and sixty-seven by three hundred and forty-two feet. The
Salon of the Ambassadors, or the Diplomatic Reception Room, is its
finest apartment, and is the audience chamber of the Secretary of
State, who occupies the adjoining Secretary's Hall, also a splendid
room. This great building is constructed around two large interior
courts, the Army occupying the northern and western wings, and the
Navy the eastern side, where among the great attractions are the
models of the famous warships of the American Navy. To the northward
of the White House park and furnishing a fine front view is Lafayette
Square, containing a bronze equestrian statue of General Jackson by
Clark Mills; beyond, on the western side, is the attractive
Renaissance building of the Corcoran Art Gallery, amply endowed by the
late banker, William W. Corcoran, and containing his valuable art
collections, which were given to the public. The foundation of his
fortune was laid over a half-century ago, when he had the pluck to
take a Government loan which seemed slow of sale. His modest banking
house still exists as the Riggs Bank, facing the Treasury.
The most admired of the newer public buildings in Washington is the
Congressional Library, on the plateau southeast of the Capitol, an
enormous structure in Italian Renaissance, a quadrangle four hundred
and seventy feet long and three hundred and forty feet wide, enclosing
four courts and a central rotunda. It was finished in 1897, and cost
about $6,200,000. Its elevated gilded dome and lantern are conspicuous
objects in the view. This great Library, the largest in the country,
is appropriately ornamented, and its book-stacks have accommodations
for about five millions of volumes, the present number approximating
one million, with nearly three hundred thousand pamphlets. The Pension
Building is another huge structure, northwest of Capitol Hill, built
around a covered quadrangle, which is used quadrennially for the
"Inauguration Ball," a prominent Washington official-social function,
which was adopted to relieve the White House from the former feasting
on the inauguration night. This house, accommodating the army of
pension clerks, has running around the walls, over the lower windows,
a broad band, exhibiting in relief a marching column of troops, with
representations of every branch of the service. Seventh Street, which
crosses Pennsylvania Avenue about midway between the Capitol and the
Treasury, has to the northward the imposing Corinthian Post-office
Building, formerly the headquarters of the postal service. Behind this
is the Department of the Interior, popularly known as the Patent
Office, as a large part of it is occupied by patent models. This is a
grand Doric structure, occupying two blocks and embracing about three
acres of buildings, the main entrance being a magnificent portico,
seen from Pennsylvania Avenue. The new General Post-office Department
Building is on Pennsylvania Avenue, covering a surface of three
hundred by two hundred feet, and having a tower rising three hundred
feet. It has just been completed. The Government Printing Office,
where the public printing is done, and the Treasury Bureau of
Engraving and Printing, where all the Government money issues and
revenue stamps are made, are large and important buildings, though not
specifically attractive in architecture.