What they’ll tell us about the Pentagon

From Leut Greg Keeley
in Washington
The Pentagon – HQ of the US Department of Defense – is one of the world’s largest office buildings. Our Parliament House could fit into any one of the five wedge-shaped sections.

Built during the early years of WW2, 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 – if you know where you are going in the first place.

The Pentagon is virtually a city in itself with about 25,000 employees, both military and civilian.

These people arrive daily from Washington, DC and its suburbs over approximately 30 miles of access highways, including express bus lanes and a new specific subway stop.

There are:

• Approximately 200 acres of lawn.
• Parking spaces for nearly 9000 cars in 16 parking lots.
• 131 stairways to keep the heart pumping.
• 19 escalators if you have eaten one too many twinkies.

Office space inside the rings occupy 3,705,793 square feet.

Some other tremendously useful bits of information – there are 4,200 clocks, 691 water fountains and 284 restrooms.

Daily, staff consume 4,500 cups of coffee, 1,700 pints of milk and 6,800 soft drinks.

Suprisingly there is no McDonalds – although there is a Dunking Donuts plus one silver service dining room, two cafeterias, six snack bars and an outdoor snack bar.

Over 200,000 telephone calls are made daily through 100,000 miles of telephone cable.

Telephone techs zip round on large tricycles.

The Defence Post Office handles about 1.2 million pieces of mail monthly.

The building was constructed in 16 months and completed on January 15, 1943, at an approximate cost of $US83 million.

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