Military of the United States

When I visited Washington DC a few years ago I rode the Metrorail to Arlington. The Metrorail stops at a station located about 80 yards or so from the Pentagon Concourse building; the main visitor entrance. I had not reserved a spot on a Pentagon tour so that was as far as I got inside the Pentagon.

In what now seems a bizarre coincidence, construction on the Pentagon began September 11, 1941 (60 years before the 2001 9/11 attack). The plan to build the Pentagon was a fortunate and brilliant foresight. America was mobilizing for what then seemed probable involvement in World War Two.

Defense Department military and civilian administrators and planners numbered more than 20,000 and were housed in 17 different buildings scattered throughout Washington DC. Defense Department personnel would reach some 33,000 by 1943. Having the entire Defense Department concentrate at one location undoubtedly contributed to America's war effort.

Four thousand men working in three shifts completed the Pentagon in 16 months; a job that under normal circumstances would have taken four years. The first section was completed in April 1942 and allowed some military personnel to move in. The entire Pentagon was completed on January 15, 1943 and became the largest office building in the country. During Thanksgiving 1943 Pentagon personnel could purchase a turkey dinner for 35 cents at the facilities dining hall.

With its five concentric pentagons construction, newspapers called it a "concrete doughnut of a building" from the outside and a giant cave on the inside. Military officials called it a "miracle of modern construction." It contains 17.5 miles of corridors but a person can walk between any two points in only seven minutes.

The plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 penetrated three of the five concentric pentagons and worse than that, killed 125 people inside the building not to mention those inside the plane. The "silver lining" was the fact that part of the hit area was already under renovation and thus unoccupied. The cost of renovation, named the Phoenix Project, after the attack ran $500 million.

Today the Pentagon houses around 23,000 people under nearly 4 million square feet housed in five stories. It may be nearly 70 years old but it's still one of the most efficient office buildings in the world.

Sources:

The Pentagon website
New York Times December 23, 1942
New York Times June 27, 1943
New York Times November 26, 1943
New York Times December 13, 2001
New York Times January 2, 2002
New York Times September 11, 2002
New York Times November 5, 2002