National Portrait Gallery, Night

Very nicely done, love the OOF fence.

Thank you! I'll have to re-shoot the fence sometime with the gallery in the background out -of-focus (probably in daytime) - the ironwork is original Victorian-era stuff, so is quite beautiful in its own right. I have a special attachment to this building, not only because it houses one of the very best venues in DC for seeing exquisite photography, and not only because it was the site of Lincoln's Inaugural Ball (at the time, it was either the largest or the second-largest building in Washington (perhaps only outdone by the US Treasury building)), and later in the war was used as a hospital for wounded soldiers (I believe Walt Whitman spent many hours there as a volunteer nurse). It was originally the home to the US Patent Office, and as such it was built by an ancestor of mine, Senator John Ruggles of Maine, who took a deep interest in the Patent Office during his term of office, reorganizing the patent system in the US and commissioning the construction of this building. It was originally designed to be entirely fireproof, but partway through the construction, with budgets spinning out of control, some geniuses on Capitol Hill decided to cut the funding and as a result the design was compromised. Lo and behold, some years later there was a fire in the building, and areas built after the budget changes were destroyed, along with all the patent models on display in those areas. The sections built to original spec remained intact and stopped the spread of the fire.