Look at this building. Really look at it.
The J. Edgar Hoover Building. Two point eight million square feet of Brutalist concrete. It has been voted the ugliest building in America. Also the ugliest building in the world — by two separate ranking systems. Visitors describe it as a prison with windows.
It's also falling apart. They've had safety netting draped around the outside since two thousand six — to catch chunks of concrete before they hit pedestrians. One parking ramp was condemned because ceiling pieces kept landing on cars. Three hundred million dollars in deferred maintenance. The F-B-I is finally moving out — to the Ronald Reagan Building, right up the street. Which feels like a sentence someone made up, but isn't.
The man it's named for ran the F-B-I for forty-eight years. Forty-eight. J. Edgar Hoover served under eight presidents — Coolidge through Nixon. Every single one considered firing him. Truman thought about it. Kennedy thought about it. Lyndon Johnson said — and
this is a direct quote — he'd rather have Hoover inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. Nixon called Hoover into his office to fire him. Twice. Both times, he sat down across from Hoover and changed his mind.
Nobody fired J. Edgar Hoover. Because Hoover had files on everyone.
The Official and Confidential file — that was the actual name — held a hundred and sixty-four fol
