The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-04-10
. BEHIND THE SCENES
 WASHINGTON
.M ROONEY DuTcHER-A Democrat Washington
 Correspondent.
Utility Before FriIls Was IckeS' Idea for New Inte- riOr Building With It's Sternly Practical Motif

Sternly Practical Motif
 Washington, April 10 = Herbert Hoover, Andrew Melon and other leaders of our republican past plan ned and built many handsome, ga1dy government buildings which began to be completed about the time Roosevelt and the New Dealers were ready to move in. Some of these structures seem to have been designed to provide homes for great or en spaces.
 The first big federal building
 here to be initiated, erected and
 now completed under the RoOse-
 welt regime is the new Depart
 ment of Interior Building, into
 which various scattered bureaus
 under Secretary Harold Ickes are
 now beginning to move after
 much vexation and delay.
 Plan rather than stylizatiOn,
 utility in preference to classy
 frilly -frillies, an efficient place
 for work rather than an imitation
 ParthenOn-that was the idea
 Ickes had for this building after
 he found his department and his
 PWA scattered around Washing
 ton at 20 different addresses.
 Nevertheless, there has been much beefing about this new edi- flee. There usually is some grum- bling among government employees whenever they have to move out of a dingy, ancient cockroach- ridden office building into swell, white, shiny, large and well-ventilated palace. But most of the squawking about the new Interior building is based on the allegation that most of its offices are too small for anyone except White House Secretary Marvin Mcintyre, who won't have any use for them anyway.
 Ickes, who watched the plan- ming and construction of the building like a hawk, and kept giving the architect his ideas as to efficient design, found at the end that hs own offices were much too small, and ordered them re-de- signed SO that walls had to be moved and repaneled, and the plumbing rejiggered.
 No Buffalo in Bas-Relief But you will not find any In- dians or buffalo cavorting in bas-relief on the facade of this structure, or any pillars of any kind, or even any grassy court yards with or without fountains and goldfish. That is an outstand- ing difference between this place and other federal buildings com- pleted in the last few years = such as those for the Post Office, Labor, Justice and Commerce de- partments and the Supreme Court. Perhaps the official chiselers soon will have to chisel out the
 words Department of Interior now cut into the stone av0be the
 entrance on Constitution avenue, and chiseI i'm Department of Con- servati0n." There would be fine chance for 8 typographical error there which would make 1t read "Department of Conversation" Anyway, one of the least c0ntrO- yersiaI phases of the Presidents reorganization program calls for change in the departments name. The present Interior build- ing across Rawlins Square, Ia connecting tunnel runs under this square) will be known as the North Interior Building, but might later become headquarters
 for a new Department of Public Works.
 The exterior of the building is | both simple and handsome. and there's no question that IckeS and the architect achieved economy | on space. About 5000 employees | will move in during the next two | months. The building consists of | wide center wing two blocks l long, with six wings on each side. It is so constructed that no one | will have to turn more than one | corner to reach his office if he takes the right elevator. Cost was about $13,000,000.
 Has First Escalators
 Escalators operating between the first two floor levels and the base m mt are the first yet established in a government building. Other facts and features include 1000 electric clocks, automatic air-conditioning, a library with a capacity for 100000 volumes, auditorium with 1000 seats, a cafeteria to seat 1000, art gall ler-', conference rooms, special lunchroom and kitchen for execu- tives, basement garage for hun- dreds of cars and broadcasting studio.
 Annual saving due to moving of Interior offices from leased space $ estimated at $l81. 1850. Also, a 10 or IS per cent reduction in av- craze operating costs for govern ment buildings Is expected to re- suit from simplified methods of maintenance.
 The new building will help solve a cockeyed housing problem which has become common among federal departments and New Deal agencies, and has forced the government to rent more than 2,50O,OO0 square feet of privately owned office space here, in addi- ton to buying up some hotels, apartment houses and other struc- lures.
 (Copyright, 1897, NEA Service, Inc.)
 The sum of $1,5O0. 100000 was spent by the United States during | the World War for aviation pur-