Michael Auslin is a historian at the Hoover Institution and author of “The Patowmack Packet” on Substack.
The “Last Tempo,” an irreplaceable piece of Washington history, is under threat. We need to save it.
For more than half a century, from World War I until 1971, the National Mall was filled with dozens of plain boxlike buildings known as “tempos” — temporary structures built to house the thousands of federal workers who came to Washington to help win two world wars and the Cold War. Now, the General Services Administration plans to “dispose” of the last remaining tempo — the old Liberty Loan Building — and move out its government tenant, the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
What happens next is anyone’s guess, but if the GSA sells the building, a new owner would most likely demolish it to make way for new construction. Not only would that mar the scenery along the Tidal Basin, but also it would be a mistake. To prevent it, this important, if homely, relic of the American Century should be designated a National Historic Landmark.
Just off the Tidal Basin at 14th and D Streets SW, the Liberty Loan Building was constructed in 1919 to house the growing bond program of the same name that was launched during World War I. According to the GSA, the L-shaped, five-story structure was one of the first reinforced concrete buildings in Washington. It is now the sole representative of all the tempos that once pulsed with the energy of the nation’s wartime government.
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When the United States entered the Great War in April 1917, there were 430,000 federal civilian employees. Within a year, that number had almost doubled, to 844,000, bursting the seams of the existing Victorian-era government buildings. The only unbuilt area downtown was the Mall, and thousands of trees were felled to make way for the tempos, which began to march up and down the once-green space. Along Constitution Avenue, where the Smithsonian National Museum of American History now stands, rose the massive tempos housing the Navy and War departments, which had outgrown the old State, War, and Navy Building next to the White House (now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building).
As soon as the tempos were built, they were overcrowded. The Liberty Loan Building was supposed to hold 1,200 workers but had to accommodate 1,800 by the time it opened, eventually forcing the addition of two stories.
Though the federal workforce shrank after the armistice, the tempos lingered on and then got a boost during World War II. From 1940, when there were 700,000 government workers, the U.S. government grew explosively, until by 1945, nearly 3.4 million employees staffed the new American Empire, many of them streaming into the nation’s capital. Starting in 1942, dozens more tempos were built along the Mall and throughout the city, even connecting over the Reflecting Pool. At least 54 of the structures, looking like combs from above, dotted Washington during the first quarter-century of the Cold War.
Washingtonians hated the tempos. They were ugly and utilitarian, compared with the monumental neoclassical architecture that dominated the city. By the mid-1960s, they were outdated and almost impossible to keep clean because of aging materials, even as tens of thousands of federal workers still labored away in the cramped offices. In 1964, the tempos finally started to come down, until by 1971, only the Liberty Loan Building was left. But while they stood, they were a symbol of an America that had left behind its agrarian roots and was now the dominant global power.
They also were the first offices to welcome a far more diverse government workforce, foreshadowing broader social change. Women went from 27 percent to 37 percent of the total labor force during WWII, with thousands entering government service, and by 1944, Black people constituted almost 12 percent of the federal workforce. Joining them in Washington were those just off the farms and from small towns. Inside their unassuming facades, the tempos were America.
Although there are rules about selling historic federal property, the GSA might well try to offload the last tempo sometime next year. If the government kept it, the building could become a museum on the federal workforce or house exhibits on the Great War to complement the new World War I memorial in Pershing Park.
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If it’s sold, its unique history should be recognized and incorporated into its next use. To prevent any new owner from demolishing and replacing the building, it should be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Few structures on that list are as representative of the days when the country emerged as a global power as the Liberty Loan Building, and few welcomed as diverse a cross-section of Americans as this last tempo did.
From the landings of doughboys in France to astronauts on the Moon, the tempos bore witness to the American Century. Let’s save the Last Tempo.
