Narrow Victorian rowhouses run beside the curved concrete Watergate complex, where All the President's Men filmed its real break-in.
What Foggy Bottom looks like
Virginia Avenue curves past six connected buildings of pale, textured concrete, their balconies stacked in continuous rounded tiers toward the Potomac. The Watergate complex rises ten to fourteen storeys over its own courtyards and reflecting pools, with the 's flat white roofline visible just beyond the trees.
Inland, the streets narrow fast. Rowhouses on 25th Street and around New Hampshire Avenue run two and three storeys, under twelve feet wide, in flat-fronted or bay-windowed brick with slate mansards and dormers. , tucked behind them, holds a row of small brick alley houses painted red, gray and mustard. The lane is barely wide enough for a car.
George Washington University fills the blocks around 21st and 23rd Streets with limestone-clad academic buildings, red brick sidewalks and a Capital Bikeshare dock parked under a colonnade. 's sunken brick courtyard, ringed by a shopping arcade and a fourteen-storey apartment tower, sits a few blocks south.
Pennsylvania Avenue and New Hampshire Avenue meet the wider curve of Washington Circle to the north. Glass-walled office slabs, the IMF building among them, line Pennsylvania Avenue and 19th Street at the neighborhood's eastern edge.
Shot in Foggy Bottom
All the President's Men filmed its Watergate break-in inside the actual complex, on the same sixth floor Democratic offices, with the security guard who found the real break-in recreating his own discovery on camera. Woodward hails a cab outside the Kennedy Center a few blocks north for his meeting with Deep Throat, and Wonder Woman 1984 later used the Watergate's curved balconies as the exterior of Diana Prince's apartment.
All the President's Men, 1976
The break-in sequence was filmed inside the actual Watergate Office Building at 2600 Virginia Avenue NW, on the same sixth floor where the 1972 burglary happened. Frank Wills, the security guard who discovered the real break-in, recreates his own discovery for the camera. Street View
Society Hill mixes narrow two and three storey brick rowhouses with the three 30 storey Society Hill Towers, I.M. Pei's modern concrete addition a block or two away, the same contrast Foggy Bottom makes between its 25th Street rows and the State Department's office slab. Spruce Street and Delancey Street hold some of the plainest fronts, closer to Foggy Bottom's own quieter brick than Society Hill's more painted blocks. Society Hill's colonial doorways and fanlights read earlier than Foggy Bottom's Victorian bay windows, so a tight frame on the brick alone holds the match better than a full facade. Try searching brick rowhouses modern towers now.
Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts
Beacon Hill's narrow brick rowhouses run two, three and four storeys with the same flat fronts and slim proportions as the blocks around Foggy Bottom's 25th Street, both built up behind their own historic district lines. Look toward the north slope off Charles Street for the plainer, less restored rows closest to Foggy Bottom's own quieter Victorian scale. Beacon Hill's narrow brick rowhouses were built mostly in the first half of the nineteenth century, earlier than Foggy Bottom's late Victorian rows. Its brick sidewalks and gas lamps are also more consistently kept. Try searching narrow brick rowhouses now.
Marina City in Chicago, Illinois
Marina City's two curved concrete towers went up on the Chicago River in the same decade as the Watergate and share its concrete balconies and sculptural massing from a tight angle. Both were ambitious mid-century projects with parking levels built directly into the base of the structure. Marina City's cylindrical towers read completely differently from the Watergate's low curved wings in any wide or aerial shot, so this only holds in a close, balcony level frame. Try searching curved concrete balconies now.
