On my recent trip to Washington DC, in an attempt to locate the National Building Museum (a great place to visit, by the way, especially if you like really spectacular old buildings!), I took a wrong turn and ended up walking past the Henry J. Daly building. However, I wasn’t sorry about having to take a longer walk, because it allowed me to photograph this fabulous deco building that now houses the DC police department.
There are many beautiful deco buildings in DC (perhaps built as part of the WPA program?), but I thought this is a particularly nice example. Notice the ‘District of Columbia’ etching near the top of the building, the wonderful sconce between the doors, and the deco-ish carvings on either sides of the windows. I tried to photograph the building without getting any people in the shot, but there was a constant stream of people coming in and out of the building, so that was kind of impossible. Still, I thought this was a nice shot of the exterior. (I went in and asked to look around but you have to go through a metal detector and a security check – like so many buildings in DC – and besides, when they found out I had a camera they wouldn’t let me in. They were very nice about it, though.)
As you can see, even the short pillars outside the front steps are deco! And I love the stylized eagle on the tall pillar. But my favorite part of the building is the metalwork above the doors.
