Coincidence04: Pentagon Points to White House

On September 11, construction begins on Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, fifty years before the WTC attack.  Pentagons and pentagrams are linked in a geometric way.  The pentagram is related to the movements of the planet Venus, whose inferior conjunctions with the Sun against the 12 constellations of the Zodiac form such a harmonious revolving pentagram pattern in space every 1200 years.  The pentagrammic star is made up of 5 triangles around a pentagon and the sides of those triangles are in the relation of 2:3:3, where 2 is the base…2:3=0.666.... 

Nearby National Airport had opened for business on June 16.  The Congress had been kicking around airport site selection since 1927 when FDR took it into his hands to select a site in September 1938.  The first shovel of dirt was dug in November 1938.

The War Department had been housed in 17 buildings holding 24,000 people (there were only 334,000 in the armed services in 1939, 1.8 million in 1941).  The Bureau of Public Buildings wanted a moderate expansion program but some reports say the War Department’s Chief of Construction and logistics head, General Brehon B. Somervell, wanted a new building all under one roof.  He approached the Congressional sub-committee who told Chief Engineer of the Army ,General Eugene Reybold to investigate the soon to be abandoned Washington-Hoover Airport site.  Another federal building was planned for construction in the same general area.  On July 17, General Somervell instructed architects G. Edwin Bergstrom and David J. Witmer and Lt. Col. Hugh J. Casey to have a concept plan for a 40,000 people building ready by July 22.  By August 25, the plan and appropriations were approved.  There was opposition because of the size, impacts and position at the foot of Arlington National Cemetery.  FDR’s uncle had an influential position with opponents.  FDR reserved the right of final approval of site.  The original site required a bevel in the building footprint and when the original site was “discovered to be in a floodplain,” the building location was shifted and the building footprint also had to be “refined” into the shape of a pentagon.   

It is unclear if FDR or Reybold actually chose the final 67-acre [66.6?] location.  The area had been a wasteland of swamps and dumps and home to a dangerous slum known as Hell’s Bottom at one time.  There is very little written information on the construction and planning of what would be the biggest office building in the world.  What information is available is split:  the “official biography” of General Leslie R. Groves, Manhatten Project Director, gives all the credit to General Groves; other army and professional sources give the credit for overseeing construction to Captain Clarence Renshaw. 

The final location seems to have been a compromise engineered in some way by FDR with the “opponents”…FDR said to the opponents that the 5.1 million sf and 40,000 capacity would be reduced to 20,000 persons which would reduce traffic, etc…the building started construction and it was larger than what FDR said it would be but on October 10 he said go ahead anyway.  The preliminary plans were developed in 34 [33?] days.  15,000 would work 24-hour 3-shift days to build it in 16 months.  At peak war years, there would be 33,000 working inside.

The building on 9-11-01 held 24,000 people, had 3.7 million square feet and covered 34 [33?] acres.  It is supported by 41,492 piles [1492 was the year certain people and Muslims were expelled from Spain].

But in the rush, it seems that the pentagon was pointed exactly at the White House, much like the pentagram centered on 16th Street NW does.