Facts About The Pentagon

The Pentagon is the five-sided headquarters building of the U.S. Department of Defense in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

It covers an area of 11.74 hectares (29 acres) and is one of the largest office buildings in the world. It consists of five concentric pentagons around a center courtyard.

The Pentagon was designed by the American architect George Edwin Bergstrom and was built by U.S. Army engineers from 1941 to 1943. It was built to bring all of the offices of what was then the Department of War together in one building. The Pentagon now contains the offices for the departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The name Pentagon is also popularly applied to the Department of Defense itself.

The building is twice the size of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, and has three times the floor space of the Empire State Building in New York. The National Capitol could fit into any one of the five wedge-shaped sections.

The Pentagon is virtually a city in itself. Approximately 23,000 employees, both military and civilian, contribute to the planning and execution of the defense of our country. These people arrive daily from Washington, D.C., and its suburbs over approximately 30 miles of access highways, including express bus lanes and one of the newest subway systems in our country.

They ride past 200 acres of lawn to park approximately 8,770 cars in 16 parking lots; climb 131 stairways or ride 19 escalators to reach offices that occupy 3,705,793 square feet. While in the building, they tell time by 4,200 clocks, drink from 691 water fountains, utilize 284 rest rooms, consume 4,500 cups of coffee, 1,700 pints of milk and 6,800 soft drinks prepared or served by a restaurant staff of 230 persons and dispensed in one dining room, two cafeterias, six snack bars, and an outdoor snack bar. The restaurant service is a privately run civilian operation under contract to the Pentagon.

More than 200,000 telephone calls are made daily through phones connected by 100,000 miles of telephone cable. The Defense Post Office handles about 1.2 million pieces of mail monthly.

Various libraries support our personnel in research and completion of their work. The Army Library alone provides 300,000 publications and 1,700 periodicals in various languages.

Stripped of its occupants, furniture and various decorations, the building alone is an extraordinary structure. Built during the early years of World War II, it is still thought of as one of the most efficient office buildings in the world. Despite 17.5 miles of corridors it takes only seven minutes to walk between any two points in the building.

The original site was nothing more than wasteland, swamps and dumps. Five and one-half million cubic yards of earth and 41,492 concrete piles contributed to the foundation of the building. Additionally, 680,000 tons of sand and gravel, dredged from the nearby Potomac River, were processed into 435,000 cubic yards of concrete and molded into the Pentagon form. The building was constructed in the remarkably short time of 16 months and completed on Jan. 15, 1943, at an approximate cost of $83 million. It consolidated 17 buildings of the War Department and returned its investment within seven years.

Source: U.S. Department Of Defense