ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1997 TAG: 9702210054
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: HANK BURCHARD THE WASHINGTON POST
John McShain didn't build everything in Washington - it just seems like it. We have this Irish-American construction king to thank or blame for, among many, many others, National Airport, the Pentagon, the Kennedy Center, Bethesda Naval Hospital, Arlington Towers, the Navy Annex and the reconstructed White House.
Philadelphian McShain (1898-1989), who in his heyday was one of the country's top five builders and was by far the leading local government building contractor, is celebrated in an overdue and underdone exhibition at the National Building Museum.
Superficially, McShain's life is the epitome of the American Dream. The younger son of two penniless Irish immigrants who met and married in Philadelphia, McShain was a staunch patriot who would and did make risky bids on monumental structures for the pride and privilege of building them. He lost $43,000 on the Jefferson Memorial (1939-41), which was far from small change in those days - the total cost was $2.26 million - but there it stood, a major ornament of the nation's capital, and it was his.
Apolitical McShain may have been, but he knew how things work in Washington. He was low bidder on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidential library on the eve of World War II, and afterward threw in the gatehouse for free. Roosevelt, meanwhile, took an active interest in the award of construction contracts for National Airport, the Pentagon and other federal projects on which McShain had entered bids. He was awarded the contracts, to no one's surprise, and by most accounts did outstanding - even, in the case of the Pentagon, heroic - work.
But if McShain was such a good builder, why is the Pentagon such a miserable rathole to work in? Why is the Kennedy Center a leaky, creaky, white elephant, requiring virtual rebuilding after only a couple of decades? McShain didn't design the buildings, of course, but construction is a collaborative process between architect and contractor, and they must share both credit and blame for the results. One would expect the National Building Museum to address such central questions.
THE MAN WHO BUILT WASHINGTON: John McShain and the American Construction Industry, through April 20 at the National Building Museum.
LENGTH: Short : 48 linesby CNB