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- Land of the free
- Broad-Exchange Bldg
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- The old block
- "Peck turned a sweet propeller"
- National Bank Building
- Notch shot
- Straight ahead (right, left, left, right)
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- If they made a movie of it
- Obsolete by then.
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- Wait a minute ...
- $$$
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- Now & then
- More or Less? It's a lot less
- A new image.
- Same ol' story ...
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D.C. A.C.: 1938
June 17, 1938. Washington, D.C. "No more hot air in Congress. Two million cubic feet of clean, cool air is delivered to members of Congress each minute by a $3,500,000 air conditioning plant, part of which is shown above. The plant supplies the entire Capitol and the Senate and the new and old House Office Buildings." 4x5 glass negative by Harris & Ewing. View full size.
Made by York
The ID tag would indicate the system was made by York. They still build air conditioners today as a subsidiary of Johnson Controls.
No Summer Vacation
The air conditioning system allowed Congress to stay in session in the summer. Whether that was a net benefit to the country is another question.
Wait a minute ...
They spent that much on a creature comfort during the Great Depression? Wonder if this ever hit the papers.
More or Less? It's a lot less
An inflation calculator says $3.5 million in 1938 equates to $78 million in 2024, not $13500 million ($13.5 billion).
Same ol' story ...
Congresscritters using taxpayers' money for their own comfort and benefit. And this when very few of the said taxpayers had any sort of A/C themselves.
$13,589,422,507.55 in 2024 dollar$
More or less. Still, that was a lot of money in 1938, and most of us - I hope - will agree it was well spent: climate control definitely helps preserve the structure, even its effect on the quality of legislation if less clear. Plus the Capitol deserved a break: in addition to being subjected to ongoing thermal drafts, it has been burned thrice (famously in 1814, less famously in 1851 and 1898).
[$13 billion -- really?? - Dave]
This was, of course, a subtle comment on the tendency of politicians to exaggerate to attract attention, but I agree: the 55 cents could have been omitted.
Not enough
This presents the opportunity for endless punch lines.
$3.5 Mil is a lot of money for 1938!
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