No Small Change at the Treasury

White House's Neighbor Shows Off Its $247 Million Makeover

It's there every time you pull out a ten-spot, but Treasury's 19th-century digs haven't ranked high on tourists' to-see list. (U.s. Treasury Via Associated Press)

Poor Treasury Building. We hardly pay it any attention, except yesterday when the first lady took a tour.

More than 500,000 gross square feet, made of magnificent granite, it sits on Pennsylvania Avenue NW adjacent to its famous first cousin, the White House. It houses 760 people who tax us, manage our money and fight money-laundering schemes here and abroad.

It has been described as among the country's first office buildings when it was occupied in 1839, and its picture adorns the back of every $10 bill.

Yet few stop by. No crowds huddle on the plaza on the Pennsylvania Avenue side, no lines snake past the statue of Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury secretary. Perhaps that's because it takes a call to a member of Congress to arrange a tour. But when was the last time you saw tourists anywhere near it clicking their disposable cameras? Or a broadcast reporter doing a stand-up?

Official tours take place every Saturday, but only half of those who sign up show up, according to Treasury spokeswoman Eileen Gilligan.

Yesterday, for a few minutes, more than a few people took notice. Sort of. Like the wallflower who glams up before going to a party, hoping someone will pay attention, Treasury has just completed a $247 million renovation, and a hundred or so people were on hand to witness Laura Bush celebrate the moment.

So, okay, maybe most of those people came to see the first lady, including the half-dozen reporters and photographers who accompanied her on a private tour of the building's most-prized rooms. Gilligan seemed thrilled to see so much media attention.

One of them offered that the Treasury doesn't exactly draw throngs.

"You're going to change that, aren't you?" she asked.

The restoration was for more than looks, apparently. According to Treasury officials, the old lady was downright feeble. Her plumbing was falling apart, her heating system was inefficient, her elevators stalled between floors, and her building and safety codes were out of date.

Nineteenth-century history buffs and fans of America's Gilded Age will rejoice that in the process of remedying those deficiencies, several rooms were returned to their luxurious past state.

The Andrew Johnson Suite, overlooking the White House, is decorated in the ornamental style of the 19th-century New York firm Pottier & Stymus. Gold leaf is everywhere; think Manhattan's Plaza Hotel in its heyday. It is in these rooms that upon Lincoln's death, Andrew Johnson took up residence for six weeks while Mary Todd Lincoln recovered from her husband's death and planned her departure. He held his first Cabinet meeting here.

The Chase Room, named for Salmon Chase, who was Treasury secretary under Lincoln and later a Supreme Court chief justice, displays some of the department's 5,000 art objects collected by Andrew Mellon when he was Treasury secretary.

The Cash Room and the West Dome, actually three small glass domes modeled on the originals of 1867-69, are regarded as the department's most important architectural spaces. The two-story Cash Room, called that because in the early days, anyone could walk in and cash a government check, is the most ornate of all the rooms, built of seven kinds of marble and featuring a gilded ceiling.

It is also a room with a story, told yesterday by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. It seems that prior to opening as a bank, the room was chosen to host the inaugural reception for President Ulysses S. Grant on March 4, 1869. Two thousand invitations were sold, each admitting one man and two women.

March can be mighty chilly in Washington. No one had anticipated 6,000 guests turning up in coats, but they did. The coats were piled in the fourth-floor cloakroom, with no regard for a numbering system. According to a report the next day in the Evening Star, a "wild hunt for overcoats" ensued, with some guests waiting for hours for their garments, and others leaving without wraps and returning the next day to try again.

Six thousand guests. Those were the days.