Longworth House Office Building

The Longworth House Office Building is one of five office buildings used by the United States House of Representatives. The building is located south of the Capitol, bounded by Independence Avenue, New Jersey Avenue, C Street S.E., and South Capitol Street, in southeast Washington. It has a floor area of and has a total of 251 congressional offices and suites, five large committee rooms, seven small committee rooms, a large assembly room in which the House Ways and Means Committee assembles, and a secondary office or headquarters' annex for the Government Accountability Office.
The building was named in 1962 in honor of former speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, who served as speaker from 1925 until the Republicans lost their majority in 1931. He died that year, and the building was authorized the same year.

Description

With a floor area of just under, it is the smallest of the House office buildings.

History

Construction

Plans to provide the House of Representatives with a second office building were begun in 1925. Severe overcrowding in the Cannon House Office Building led to the renovation of the Cannon Building and the construction of the Longworth Building.
Under the direction of Architect of the Capitol David Lynn, preliminary designs for the building were prepared by a local firm known as The Allied Architects of Washington Inc. The principal architects were Frank Upman, Gilbert LaCoste Rodier, Nathan C. Wyeth, and Louis Justemente. They produced two schemes for a simple, dignified building in harmony with the rest of the Capitol Complex. In January 1929 Congress authorized $8.4 million for acquiring and clearing the site and for constructing the new building. The foundations were completed in December 1930, and the building was accepted for occupancy in April 1933.
The site of the building had previously been occupied by the Butler Building, which was the headquarters of the United States Public Health Service, and the Richards Building, the headquarters of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, which both were demolished.

Later history

The large assembly room of the Longworth Building, which seats 450 people, was designated as the meeting room for the House Ways and Means Committee in 1938. It was also used by the House of Representatives as their primary meeting room in 1949 and 1950 while its chamber in the United States Capitol was being remodeled. In the 1960s, the House Beauty Shop, a salon which catered to Members of Congress, their spouses, and employees, was relocated to the Cannon House Office Building from the smaller Longworth House Office Building under the auspices of the Beauty Shop Committee. During the period prior to the passing of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Washington Post reported that the "long, polished hallway outside 1100 Longworth" had become "known among this subculture of Washington as Gucci Gulch, nicknamed for the high-priced footwear of tax lobbyists who camped out regularly during the 1986 tax debate."