I like a septagon. It is truly called a heptagon but is also known as a septagon — a seven-sided polygon. Octagons are good too, and we see a lot of those, what with all the stop signs. But heptagons, not so much.
But the most famous polygon, of course, is the Pentagon.
Hey. What happens when I leave the room?
Polly gone.
Anyway, it was on this date, January 15, 1943, that the world’s largest office building, home to the United States military, was completed in Washington, DC.
It started this way. Back in 1941, the Department of Defense — originally called the War Department — had 24,000 employees. But here is the thing. Those offices were spread out across 17 buildings across Washington, D.C.
All of this was happening as WWII was heating up. So, Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt the need to consolidate all of that into a single place. A War Department Headquarters. And the Pentagon was born.
So have you ever wondered why they made it a pentagon? And not just some rectangle? Well. The land the Pentagon was first planned to go on was bordered on five sides by roads. Location, location, location. So. The architects designed a five-sided building.
But then, President Roosevelt thought about the aesthetics of the city. He got all worried that putting the building at that location would interfere with the view of Washington from Arlington Cemetery. So Franklin decided to move the Pentagon to its present location, but he kept the five-sided design. I mean, those architects had gone to all that work, after all.
And here is a little tidbit. The builders broke ground for the project on September 11, 1941. That was exactly 60 years before terrorists attacked it on September 11, 2001.
I’ve never been to the Pentagon. Not inside. But it is big. Like, incredibly big. It holds the distinction of being the world’s largest low-rise office building.
To give you some idea. The entire U.S. Capitol building could fit inside any of the building’s five wedges. And to break down the numbers, it has 6,500,000 square feet of office space. That is three times the floor space of the Empire State Building. A lot of walking can be done at the Pentagon, as there are 17 1/2 miles of corridors. But they say it only takes about 7 minutes to walk between the furthest two points in the building because of its spoke-and-ring design.
If you wanted to go up and down, you had to take the stairs until recently. Until 2011, there was only one passenger elevator in the Pentagon. And only the defense secretary could ride in the thing. But after a 17-year-long renovation project (finished in 2011), there are 70 passenger elevators. By the way, there are five floors in the Pentagon and an additional two basement levels.
I doubt I’ll ever go there, as I don’t have much interest in taking the nickel and dime tour. But at least now I know a bit more about the most famous polygon around.
And now that this is over, I can say it one more time.
Polly gone.
Until next time, that is.
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“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
― George Orwell, 1984
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“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”
― André Malraux
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“A secret’s worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón
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Gone. The polygons. Five. Seven. Eight.
