Andrew Mollenbeck, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – The results are in, and they’re not pretty.
A historic downtown building rises above a worldwide field in the category of ugly.
Trippy.com, a travel web site, has bestowed the ugliest building in the world title on the J. Edgar Hoover Building in the District. The headquarters of the FBI is at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
The list names the ten most ugly buildings worth visiting, and its rationale is biting.
“This is reason alone to avoid the 10 Most Wanted list,” the description reads.
“Situated in the center of the city, this dreary 1970s behemoth is almost unavoidable.”
Other eyesores on the list include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland and the Trump Tower in New York.
Architect Arthur Cotton Moore was just as critical in a 2005 article published in The Washingtonian.
The greatest threat to our city’s beauty is the hysteria about security,” he was quoted as saying.
Specifically speaking of the FBI building, he said, “It creates a void along Pennsylvania Avenue. Given its elephantine size and harshness, it creates a black hole. Its concrete wall, with no windows or life to it, is an urban sin. People should be strolling down America’s main street. Nobody strolls in front of the FBI Building.”
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(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
