Repurposed, de-Trumped
One of my favourite and most characterful Washington DC buildings was for long known as the Old Post Office and Clock Tower. Designed in an unabashed Romanesque Revival style by Willoughby J. Edbrooke, it was completed in 1899. It served briefly as the city’s main post office, then becoming used by other government departments after 1914. Demolition threatened on several occasions, during the 1930s when the Federal Triangle was constructed, and again in the 1970s when the building stood vacant. A new chapter opened in 2013, when the Government Services Agency leased the building to the DJT Holdings LLC consortium. That’s DJT as in Donald J. Trump, who duly oversaw the building’s transformation into a luxury hotel that had his name emblazoned on it. In 2022, DJT relinquished control, and new owners renamed the hotel as the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC.
This view is taken from 12th Street NW.
Repurposed, de-Trumped
One of my favourite and most characterful Washington DC buildings was for long known as the Old Post Office and Clock Tower. Designed in an unabashed Romanesque Revival style by Willoughby J. Edbrooke, it was completed in 1899. It served briefly as the city’s main post office, then becoming used by other government departments after 1914. Demolition threatened on several occasions, during the 1930s when the Federal Triangle was constructed, and again in the 1970s when the building stood vacant. A new chapter opened in 2013, when the Government Services Agency leased the building to the DJT Holdings LLC consortium. That’s DJT as in Donald J. Trump, who duly oversaw the building’s transformation into a luxury hotel that had his name emblazoned on it. In 2022, DJT relinquished control, and new owners renamed the hotel as the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC.
This view is taken from 12th Street NW.