Railroad Retirement Board Building

The Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building is a federally owned office building located at 330 C Street SW in Washington, D.C. in the United States. The Egyptian Revival structure was originally named the Railroad Retirement Board Building. It was designed by Charles Klauder and Louis A. Simon and completed on September 15, 1940. Although intended for the Railroad Retirement Board, its first occupant was to the United States Department of War. By Act of Congress, it was renamed the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building on October 21, 1972, becoming the first federal building to be named for a woman.

The Switzer Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 6, 2007.

Genesis

The Railroad Retirement Board Building was first proposed in 1938 as part of a massive federal construction effort in the District of Columbia and around the country. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the construction projects both as a way of providing employment to the millions of Americans out of work due to the Great Depression but also as a means of meeting the office space needs of the rapidly expanding federal government. Those needs, especially in Washington, D.C., had gone unmet for nearly a decade. On February 9, 1937, Roosevelt named an informal committee to study federal office space needs. The committee was chaired by United States Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, and included Senator Elmer Thomas ( D- Oklahoma); Representative Ross A. Collins (D-Mississippi); Rear Admiral Christian J. Peoples, United States Navy; and Frederic A. Delano, chair of the National Capital Parks and Planning Commission.

The President's Special Committee on Public Buildings recommended in April 1938 construction of a new headquarters for the Railroad Retirement Board, a federal agency created in 1935 to oversee a pension system for the nation's railroad workers. President Roosevelt proposed a construction bill on May 17, 1938, in which $3 million was set aside to purchase land, design, and begin construction on a new Social Security Administration Building and a new Railroad Retirement Board Building. The 75th Congress, due to adjourn on June 16, raced to get the bill approved. By June 11, the Senate had acted on the bill. Initially, the House of Representatives stripped the $3 million appropriation from the bill. The appropriation was restored on June 16 when House members agreed to pay the funds out of the $965 million Public Works Administration (PWA) funding bill. The total cost of the two structures was now estimated at $14.25 million. The PWA bill passed Congress on June 25, 1938, (Public Law 75-723), and President Roosevelt signed it into law.

Design

Progress on construction was quite rapid. Design of the building was overseen by Louis A. Simon, the Supervising Architect in the Office of the Supervising Architect in the United States Department of the Treasury, which had oversight of all federal construction. The primary architect was Charles Zeller Klauder, a designer who worked in a variety of styles.

On July 28, 1938, Simon and Klauder presented their design for the two structures to the United States Commission of Fine Arts, which had the authority to review all new public buildings erected in the District of Columbia. Klauder designed back-to-back buildings, with the Social Security structure facing Independence Avenue SW and the Railroad Retirement building facing C Street SW. Because of the need to provide a great deal of interior light via windows, Klauder proposed a "fishbone" structure: A long central corridor from which five short, narrow wings projected on both the north and south sides. The overall length of the building was , and it had elements of both Streamline Moderne and Egyptian Revival in its facade. Klauder also proposed an alternative treatment of the building. He suggested making the three central wings look like pylons from the street, each with a low base. All the wings would have high windows, set apart with deep reveals. Pilasters high topped by non-load bearing lintels would help screen the bays created by the wings. The entire two-building structure would have a uniform cornice line, be five stories tall, have a limestone facade, and have of internal space (of which the railroad building had ). A two-story penthouse contained mechanical and HVAC systems. The commission was greatly pleased by Klauder's alternative treatment, and approved it on July 28, 1939.

Detailed architectural and engineering designs were immediately begun.

By November 1938, the cost of the two buildings had fallen to $10.815 million.

Construction

Construction of the two buildings proved very important to the District of Columbia. Prior to 1939, most federal office buildings were clustered in Federal Triangle or areas close to the White House. The District's building boom was driven in great part by the needs of the United States Department of War, which was adding tens of thousands of workers. Roosevelt had adopted a policy of mobilization, to prepare the nation for possible entry into World War II. But most military officers and upper-level civilian workers lived in Northwest Washington and the Virginia