---> Something from a few years ago, but it's still appropriate!
Five miles southeast of the gleaming Capitol dome, on a scenic bluff overlooking the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, the future office of the secretary of Homeland Security sits boarded up and abandoned.
Four years ago, U.S. officials announced plans to renovate the dilapidated, castle-like structure —opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane — to anchor Washington’s largest construction project since the Pentagon was built 70 years ago.
The goal was to unite on a single campus the 22 agencies that were stitched together to form the Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
But the $3.4-billion headquarters project stalled as Congress tried to cut the federal deficit. Lawmakers debated this month whether the nation could afford such a massive home-improvement project, and the House has voted to eliminate the funding in next year’s budget.
As a result, Homeland Security employees remain scattered through more than 35 offices around Washington. Janet Napolitano, their boss, works from a former Navy radar facility that has all the comforts of a barracks. Plus, in traffic, she’s a good 40 minutes from the White House.
“They need to get out of there as soon as possible,” said Tom Ridge, who took over the former Navy compound in early 2003 after he was named the first Homeland Security chief.
In the early rush to get settled, Ridge recalls, one of his assistant secretaries emptied out a broom closet and stuck a desk in it.
“It’s hardly anything anyone can call palatial,” he growled.
Complete story at - The Department of Homeland Security’s New HQ is an Abandoned Insane Asylum | Public Intelligence
CC Photo Google Image Search. Source is wikipedia.org Subject is Saint_Elizabeths_Asylum.
Five miles southeast of the gleaming Capitol dome, on a scenic bluff overlooking the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, the future office of the secretary of Homeland Security sits boarded up and abandoned.
Four years ago, U.S. officials announced plans to renovate the dilapidated, castle-like structure —opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane — to anchor Washington’s largest construction project since the Pentagon was built 70 years ago.
The goal was to unite on a single campus the 22 agencies that were stitched together to form the Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
But the $3.4-billion headquarters project stalled as Congress tried to cut the federal deficit. Lawmakers debated this month whether the nation could afford such a massive home-improvement project, and the House has voted to eliminate the funding in next year’s budget.
As a result, Homeland Security employees remain scattered through more than 35 offices around Washington. Janet Napolitano, their boss, works from a former Navy radar facility that has all the comforts of a barracks. Plus, in traffic, she’s a good 40 minutes from the White House.
“They need to get out of there as soon as possible,” said Tom Ridge, who took over the former Navy compound in early 2003 after he was named the first Homeland Security chief.
In the early rush to get settled, Ridge recalls, one of his assistant secretaries emptied out a broom closet and stuck a desk in it.
“It’s hardly anything anyone can call palatial,” he growled.
Complete story at - The Department of Homeland Security’s New HQ is an Abandoned Insane Asylum | Public Intelligence
CC Photo Google Image Search. Source is wikipedia.org Subject is Saint_Elizabeths_Asylum.
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