File:Pension Office, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.jpg

English: This is the Shepherd Centennial Building, located on the northeast corner of 12th St. and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. It was apparently built in 1875-1876 by Alexander Robey Shepherd (the mayor) as an investment, but he went bankrupt and sold it in 1878 (and fled to Mexico in 1880) The upper floors were rented by the Pension Office from 1876 to 1885, as they apparently had to use multiple private office buildings until their big new building was ready (today, the National Building Museum). The ground floor on the Penn Ave. side was rented by the Palais Royal department store in 1877. They moved out in 1893, and this building was converted into a hotel, called the Raleigh Hotel. The hotel expanded rapidly, building more floors and additions alongside, and this portion was torn down in 1911 to build a new central Raleigh Hotel building, which itself was torn down in 1964. The photo in the book (ISBN 978-1588341051) is virtually identical to [this], and is also a stereoscope card, and credited to the Architect of the Capitol (owners I presume not authors). It is taken from a virtually identical angle, and the building is decked out in the exact same way, and people are milling about on the sidewalk in the same way. However, it is a different photo, as the placement of the people are different, and the photo in the book is more obscured by branches of a tree in the lower left corner than this one is. Maybe the photos are from the building's opening in 1876, but maybe it was decorated that way all the time, who knows. The book says it was the "most modern office building in Washington" when it opened. This page has a photo of the Raleigh Hotel after they added one portion but before they modified the Shepherd part. Today, this is the site of 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue. - (lightly edited from remarks by Carl Lindberg, originally made at User talk:Jmabel/Stereo cards of Washington, D.C.)