departmentofhealtheducationandwelfare

Building of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D.C. (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• pocketflyer25 said:

  This looks like the building they used in Men in Black

• mikemcgeary said:

  It should be possible to find this building, but it wasn't the headquarters of HEW in 1940 because HEW did not exist until 1953. It might have been the headquarters of the Federal Security Agency, which was the predecessor agency to HEW. The Federal Security Agency was created as an independent agency in 1939 by grouping Social Security, Office of Education, Public Health Service and other cognate programs scattered around in the Treasury, Interior, and other departments (or were independent like Social Security).

• mikemcgeary said:

  This building occupies the block between 3rd and 4th Streets, SW, and Independence Ave. and C Street, SW, Washington, DC. Currently, it houses Voice of America (since 1954) and part of Department of Health and Human Services. It was built in 1940 to house the Social Security Board and contains a fabulous set of murals by Ben Shahn in the hallways (check out www.voanews.com/english/About/upload/SHAHN_BROCHURE.pdf). The building is now named after Wilbur J. Cohen, secretary of HEW in the 1960s.

• The Library of Congress said:

  Thanks, mikemcgeary. I will forward this information for review and possible changes to the catalog record.

• tbowers42 said:

  Is this the building that was used by the War Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II, even after the Pentagon was completed in 1943?