100 Places You Will Never Visit (9 page)

The Oval Office is the principal office of the President of the United States and, perhaps above any other location, can claim to be the central hub of US government. It covers about 76 square meters (820 sq ft) and is located on the first floor of the West Wing of the White House, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Its location offers the Commander-in-Chief easy access not only to the most important members of his staff but also to his residential quarters.

The first Oval Office was built in 1909, according to designs drawn up by Nathan C. Wyeth for then-president William Howard Taft. Originally, it was decorated in a vivid green. After the office was gutted by fire in 1929, President Herbert Hoover oversaw a refurbishment that included the installation of air conditioning for the first time.

However, the Oval Office of today was designed by Eric Gugler as part of the major West Wing expansion undertaken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. At this time, the room was moved from its previously central location within the wing to the southeast corner.

Architecturally, the room references a range of traditions, including Georgian, baroque and neoclassical styles. Access is via any of four doors, with the east door opening out onto the picturesque Rose Garden.

Roosevelt worked closely with Gugler on many of the office’s design features, including an instantly recognizable ceiling medallion that incorporates elements of the Presidential Seal. While many presidents have gone in for a little redecorating, few have tampered excessively with its iconic features, such as the large south-facing bow windows (though during the Cold War, these windows are said to have been fitted with devices to hinder Soviet eavesdropping through detection of vibrations caused by sound waves impacting on the panes). Most have made do with little more than an update of the famous carpet, which has always featured the Presidential Seal since the days of Harry Truman.

INSIDE THE WEST WING The Oval Office moved to its current location, previously a yard for drying laundry, in 1934. It can only be reached internally through the maze of rooms in the West Wing of the White House, famous as the nerve center of the US presidency.

Key: 1. Palm Room, 2. Press Corps Offices and briefing room, 3. Cabinet Room, 4. Press Secretary, 5. National Security Adviser, 6. Vice President, 7. Chief of Staff, 8. Lobby, 9. Roosevelt Room, 10. Oval Office.

For much of its history, the White House was remarkably open to its citizens. As recently as the 1990s tenure of Bill Clinton, an occasional open-house policy operated. However, the threat of attack has ensured that security considerations have long taken precedence.

The White House itself is surrounded by a perimeter fence, with the entire complex under the protection of the United States Park Police and the Secret Service. In recent years, road traffic has been diverted away from the building and there are police barricades in several surrounding streets. The White House airspace is a strict no-go area for unauthorized aircraft, and the skies around Pennsylvania Avenue are vigilantly guarded by a Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System. Other security systems (including radar and bullet-proof windows) are regularly reviewed and updated.

Yet for all of the White House’s security provisions (or perhaps because of them—some people like nothing better than a challenge), there has been no shortage of interlopers over the years. For instance, in 1974 alone there were two major incidents. In the first, an army private stole a helicopter and landed it on the White House lawn. Then, on Christmas Day, a man with a Messiah-complex crashed his car through the perimeter fencing and ran toward the building itself, telling negotiators (falsely as it turned out) that he was wearing explosives.

Fast forward 20 years to 1994, and a light aircraft crash-landed in the grounds while apparently headed for the building itself. A couple of months later saw the attempted assassination of Bill Clinton when an attacker fired 29 rifle rounds at the White House from the perimeter fence. Even after security was upped in light of the September 11, 2001 attacks, intruders have scaled the fence and generally made a nuisance of themselves on several occasions. None, though, has ever made it into the Oval Office.

28 Centralia

LOCATION Columbia County, Pennsylvania, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

SECRECY OVERVIEW Access restricted: a former mining town left to burn for 50 years.

Centralia was once a thriving mining town, with a population of 2,000 or more. But in 1962, a fire broke out underground. After fire-fighting attempts failed, the decision was taken to let the blaze burn itself out—a process that may take another 250 years. That left little future for Centralia, whose population now hovers around ten. For those left behind, it is a town their government has chosen to forget.

Centralia was laid out in 1854, and was originally called Centreville until 1865, when the post office insisted on a change of name to avoid confusion with another Centreville already in the area. For a century, the town relied on its anthracite coal mines for employment. Then came a fateful night in May 1962 when local sanitation workers burned rubbish over an old mine entrance, igniting the coal that lay below.

Several attempts were made to stem the blaze, but all failed or were deemed economically unviable. As the fire continued to burn, air quality in the area declined, and numerous residents reported the damaging effects of high carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide levels. Despite this, up until 1981 there was still a resident population of about a thousand. That year, however, a young boy fell down a sinkhole that opened suddenly in the ground, and was almost killed amid a cocktail of noxious fumes. It was clear that something more needed to be done to safeguard the town’s citizens.

In 1984, the federal government set aside a budget of US$42 million for the relocation of Centralia’s citizens. Most of the townsfolk took the money on offer, and moved out to other nearby neighborhoods. A few doughty souls decided to stick it out, however, and in 1992, the government opted to claim legal powers over Centralia and condemn its remaining buildings. A decade later the post office, which had once insisted on the town’s name change, withdrew Centralia’s postcode altogether. Then in 2009, Pennsylvania’s State Governor began to evict the last remaining population. Centralia, it seemed, was simply to be erased from the record.

Yet still a few houses remain occupied, amid scattered signs warning of the underground fire and of land collapses. Smoke and sulfurous steam can still be seen emerging eerily from the ground in places, including sections of Route 61 that used to serve the town. Alas, the road into Centralia is now closed for business.

1 ROAD TO HELL Smoke still seeps from fissures in the tarmac of Pennsylvania’s Route 61, some 50 years after Centralia’s underground coal reserves were first accidentally ignited. The town long ago stopped receiving traffic in any significant volume.

2 HOLY SMOKE The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church sits on a hillside overlooking the main part of Centralia. The church celebrated its centenary in 2011, bringing a swell of people to the usually deserted town to take part in a commemorative mass.

29 Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity Facility

LOCATION Perquimans County, North Carolina, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Hertford, North Carolina

SECRECY OVERVIEW Existence unacknowledged: a suspected CIA training school.

Originally built by the US government as a Navy airbase, recent decades have seen a great deal of speculation as to Harvey Point’s current purpose. The New York Times, among numerous other respectable newspapers, believes that it has been used as a secret paramilitary and counter-terrorism training center, operated by the CIA, since the early 1960s.

Harvey Point is named after the well-to-do Harvey family, who first settled here in the 1670s and provided North Carolina with its first governor. In 1942 the 490-hectare (1,200-acre) site was transformed into an air station, from where seaplanes flew during the Second World War. In the late 1950s, the base briefly became the testing center for an illfated long distance bomber project, but in 1961, the Navy closed off public access to Harvey Point and announced that it would henceforth be used as a weapons testing facility.

In 1975, a Presidential Commission on CIA Activities revealed that the agency had been using Harvey Point for training both domestic and foreign personnel in bomb detection and disposal. Interest in CIA activities at the base increased over the years that followed. In 1998, the New York Times reported that, during the previous decade, the CIA had provided counter-terrorism training at Harvey Point and elsewhere to a total of 18,000 foreign intelligence officers from some 50 countries.

Today, the facility is surrounded by a 40-kilometer (25-mile) no-fly zone, and all civilian staff are sworn to secrecy about what happens there. No land records for the site have been made available since 1942, and the base is surrounded by security fencing, while thick enclaves of cypress trees offer further defense from prying eyes. However, locals have reported seeing helicopters and buses with blacked-out windows regularly arriving and leaving. There have also been numerous complaints of loud explosions—occasionally strong enough to shake nearby houses and rattle windows. It has been speculated that these are controlled explosions conducted during simulated terrorism training exercises.

Some commentators have even alleged that Harvey Point alumni include individuals who have since used the skills they were taught here against American interests. Assuming that there really is a CIA training center at Harvey Point, it is a school whose graduates do little to advertise their qualifications.

30 Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s vaults

LOCATION New York City, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB New York City, New York

SECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: home to the world’s largest accumulation of gold.

One of a dozen regional banks in the US Federal Reserve System, the New York “Fed” is housed in a 22-story concrete and limestone edifice, in lower Manhattan. But the really interesting stuff is underground—for that is where the gold vaults are hidden. As of 2008, the Bank stored 5.6 million kilograms (216 million troy ounces) of the shiny stuff, equating to over a fifth of the world’s official monetary gold reserves.

Designed by Philip Sawyer and built at a cost of US$23 million, the Federal Reserve’s present site at 33, Liberty Street opened in 1924. The vaults lie on the bedrock of Manhattan Island, some 24 meters (80 ft) below street level and 15 meters (50 ft) below sea level. The bedrock here was considered to be one of the few places where it was possible to lay foundations strong enough to support the vault and its contents. The vault walls themselves are made from steel-reinforced concrete.

The value of the initial gold deposits in the Fed totaled some US$26 million. and by 2011 they were estimated at US$411 billion. The vast majority of the Bank’s holdings belong to the central banks of foreign nations, though the identity of each deposit’s owner is kept on a strictly need-to-know basis.

Uniformed guards keep the Bank and its vaults safe, and must annually prove their skill with firearms on the Bank’s own firing range. CCTV and electronic surveillance systems record all goings-on within the walls, while a central control room receives alerts every time the vault is opened or closed. Should an alarm be triggered, security staff can seal off the entire building in less than half a minute.

Access to the vaults is not by a traditional door but via a short passageway, cut through an upright steel cylinder that revolves through 90 degrees around its vertical axis within a steel and concrete frame. A variety of time and combination locks govern when the vaults can be opened, and no single employee is in possession of all the codes.

The gold itself is stored in 122 separate compartments in the main and auxiliary vaults. When new bars are deposited—laid down in an overlapping, brick-wall design—the relevant compartment is locked with a padlock, two combination locks and an auditor’s seal. Storage is free, but the Bank charges a per-bar fee for moving the gold. It’s safe to assume that few of the depositors face major problems in paying for this service.

1 MANHATTAN LANDMARK The New York Fed at 33 Liberty Street on Manhattan Island is the largest of a dozen US Federal Reserve Banks. While top-level economic policy might be decided in Washington, DC, the Big Apple is still the beating heart of the US financial system.

2 TEMPLE OF CAPITALISM The Bank moved to its current downtown location in 1924, in a building designed by York & Sawyer architects. Occupying a city block all of its own, the construction’s neo-Renaissance facades were to influence bank design for decades.

31 AT&T Long Lines Building

LOCATION Thomas Street, New York City, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB New York City, New York

SECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: a communications hub that is among the most secure buildings in all New York.

Tourists walking the streets of New York frequently spend much of the time craning their necks to stare up at the jungle of skyscrapers that soar into the heavens above. However, 33 Thomas Street is a tower unlike any of the others—with 29 floors rising 170 meters (550 ft) toward the clouds, it certainly has stature. But a second glance reveals its most remarkable feature—a complete lack of windows.

Nestled in the Tribeca district of Manhattan and owned by the AT&T telecommunications company, the building was designed by John Carl Warnecke & Associates and was completed in 1974. Its purpose was to house telephone switching equipment and it plays a crucial role in the smooth running of the American telephone system, as well as air traffic control for a large part of the country. While it retains these functions, it now also operates as a secure data-storage center.

In Warnecke, the building was blessed to have one of the more notable architects of 20th-century America. By the time he turned his attention to Thomas Street, he was already well known as a favorite of the Kennedy clan. Having initially made his name in Chicago, he was responsible for such high-profile designs as the grave site of John F. Kennedy at Arlington, consecrated in 1967.