Identifier: picturesquewashi00moor (find matches)
Title: Picturesque Washington: pen and pencil sketches of its scenery, history, traditions, public and social life, with graphic descriptions of the Capitol and Congress, the White House, and the government departments ..
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Moore, Joseph West
Subjects: Washington (D.C.)
Publisher: Providence, J.A. & R.A. Reid
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ctions, the building is five hundred and sixty feet; exclusiveof projections, four hundred and seventy-one feet. From east towest it is three hundred and forty-two feet; exclusive of projec-tions, two hundred and fifty-three feet. Its greatest height is onehundred and twenty-eight feet. There are four facades, alike indesign and construction, and four grand entrances through loftypavilions reached by broad flights of stone steps. Huge blocks ofgranite, each over twenty tons in weight, form the platforms to theentrances. The greatest possible care has been taken in the con-struction, and the building is entirely fire proof. All the parts arein harmony, the ornamentation is a tasteful combination of the classicand modern methods, and the result is an almost perfect specimen ofarchitecture. The interior of the building has been constructed in a very mag-nificent and yet entirely substantial manner. There are wide stair-cases of granite with bronze balusters, long, spacious corridors, and
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y. i—( Q►J i—( pq H C/3 i7o PICTURESQUE WASHINGTON. innumerable apartments, richly frescoed and adorned, and furnishedwith every convenience that could be suggested for the transactingof the business of the three departments for which the building waserected. The War Department occupies the whole of the northernand western portion, and the Navy Department the eastern. Very large and elegant apartments are occupied by the Depart-ment of State. On the second floor are the apartments of the Sec-retary of State and his assistants. They are finely painted in dis-temper, and^ splendidly furnished. The diplomatic reception-room, in which the foreign ministershave audience with the Secretary of State, is sumptuous in its ap-pointments. It is sixty feet long, and twenty feet wide. A greatmirror in an ebony and gold frame reaches from the floor to the ceil-ing ; the furniture is of ebony, and the upholstery of bluish-brownbrocade. The walls are painted in Egyptian style, and the floor ist

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