Watergate complex - encyclopedia article about Watergate complex.

Watergate
(U.S. National Register of Historic Places)
The Watergate complex in Washington, DC., with the Kennedy Center visible in the background. The Watergate complex in Washington, DC., with the Kennedy Center visible in the background.
Location:	Washington, DC
Area:	Foggy Bottom
Built/Founded:	1962
Architect:	Moretti, Luigi; Timchenko, Boris, et al.
Architectural style(s):	Modern Movement
Added to NRHP:	October 12, 2005
NRHP Reference#:	05000540 ^[1]
Governing body:	Private

The Watergate complex is an office-apartment-hotel complex built in 1967 in northwest Washington, D.C., best known for being the site of burglaries that led to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Location

The Watergate complex is a superblock bounded on the north by Virginia Avenue, on the east by New Hampshire Avenue, on the south by F Street, and on the west by the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. It is in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood overlooking the Potomac River, adjacent to the Kennedy Center and the embassy of Saudi Arabia. The nearest Metro station is Foggy Bottom-GWU.

History

The Watergate complex was developed by the Italian firm Società Generale Immobiliare, which purchased the 10 acres which constitute the plot of land on the defunct Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in the early 1960s for 10 million US Dollars. Italian architect Luigi Moretti designed the six buildings on the site: a hotel, two office buildings, three apartment buildings and a retail center. The name of the complex was derived from the terraced step area to the north of the Lincoln Memorial that leads down to the Potomac River. The steps used to face a floating performance stage on the Potomac River, creating an amphitheater. This area was originally planned as the official reception area for all dignitaries arriving in Washington, D.C. by water.

Individual buildings at the Watergate

The Watergate complex from the air

The Watergate Hotel is located at 2650 Virginia Avenue NW. It has 250 guest rooms and 146 suites. In 2004, the hotel was purchased by a company planning to turn it into luxury co-ops.

The two Watergate Office Buildings are at 600 New Hampshire Avenue NW and 2600 Virginia Avenue NW. In 1972, the Democratic National Committee had its headquarters on the sixth floor of the 11-story 2600 Virginia Avenue building. On May 28, 1972, a team of burglars working for Nixon's re-election campaign put wiretaps and took photos in and near the DNC chairman's office. The wiretaps were monitored from Room 723 of the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge hotel across the street at 2601 Virginia Avenue NW. (The hotel is now owned by the George Washington University, although no longer used as an undergraduate dormitory.) During a second burglary on June 17, 1972, to replace a malfunctioning "bug" and collect more information, five burglars were arrested and the Watergate scandal began to unfold.

The Watergate Office Building was sold in 2005 by Trizec Properties to Bentley Forbes, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm run by C. Frederick Wehba, for $86.5 million. The complex, consisting of the buildings at 2500, 2600, and 2650 Virginia Ave. NW and 600 and 700 New Hampshire Ave. NW, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 21, 2005.^[2]

The three Watergate Apartment buildings total some 600 residential units. Past occupants have included Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bob and Elizabeth Dole, Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie, and Paul O'Neill. Current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now lives in the Watergate.

There is a small (63,000 sq. ft. / 5900 m²) retail center which offers a Safeway supermarket in the basement level and several upscale shops and restaurants at street level.

References

1. ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2006-03-15).
2. ^ National Register of Historic Places Listings - October 21, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.

External links

The Watergate Hotel official website
Bentley Forbes official website
Livingston, Mike. "Watergate: The name that branded more than a building," Washington Business Journal, June 14, 2002
* * Maps and aerial photos for Coordinates:
Maps from , Google Maps, Live Search Maps, Yahoo! Maps, or MapQuest
Topographic maps from TopoZone or TerraServer-USA

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John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the name by which it is known, (or, as named on the building itself, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts but, locally called the The Kennedy Center
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Washington, D.C.

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Watergate is a general term for a series of political scandals, which began with the arrest of five men who broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C., office/apartment complex and hotel called the Watergate on June 17, 1972.
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Virginia Avenue is a street in the Northwest, Southwest, and Southeast quadrants of Washington, D.C. Like other state-named streets in Washington, it diagonally crosses the grid pattern formed by lettered (east-west) and numbered (north-south) streets.
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New Hampshire Avenue is a diagonal street in Washington, D.C., beginning at the Kennedy Center and extending northeast for about 5 miles (8 km) and then continuing into Maryland where it is designated Maryland Route 650. New Hampshire Avenue, however, is not contiguous.
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Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, often known simply as the Rock Creek Parkway, is a parkway maintained by the National Park Service as part of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.
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Foggy Bottom is one of Washington, D.C.'s oldest 19th century neighborhoods, thought to have been named because, as a low-lying area, fog (widespread in the swamps of early Washington) tended to concentrate there.
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Potomac River (Cohongorooton)

Great Falls of the Potomac River in winter.

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Foggy Bottom-GWU is a Washington Metro station in Washington, DC on the Blue and Orange Lines. It is also scheduled to be on the Silver Line route, which is scheduled to start operations in 2011.
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Società Generale Immobiliare (English: The General Company of Real Estate) is the largest Italian real estate and construction company. It was founded in Turin in 1862 but then moved to Rome in 1870 with the unification of Italy.
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Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal, and occasionally referred to as the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1836 until 1924 parallel to the Potomac River in Maryland from Cumberland, Maryland to Washington, DC.
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Location Washington, D.C., USA

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Area 107.43 acres (0.43 km²)
Established May 30, 1922
Total visitation 3,638,806 (in 2005)
Governing body National Park Service
The
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Potomac River (Cohongorooton)

Great Falls of the Potomac River in winter.

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amphitheatre (alternatively amphitheater) refers to a level, open space surrounded by an oval area that gradually ascends. The area may be a man-made structure or a natural geographic formation, but it is suited for seating people on the sloping area for the viewing of
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