Visiting the Watergate and the Deep Throat Parking Garage

Last week I wrote about visiting the Library of Congress to try to replicate a famous scene from All the President's Men and this week I'm on the road again to visit a few more spots made famous by the movie and the Watergate saga.

We start at the Watergate Hotel and business complex which recently celebrated its 50th birthday. This view of the famously circular buildings is from the Kennedy Center which sits next next door. Back in June 1972, five men broke into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate and a little more than two years later President Richard Nixon would resign over the coverup. 

The building has been added to the National Register of Historic Places and so it will remain mostly the same because of its historical significance. The same isn't true for the next spot on my Watergate tour. 

In the parking garage under this Rosslyn, Virginia office building, Bob Woodward met his government informant that helped him uncover the conspiracy around the Watergate burglary. Unfortunately, the building and the garage will soon be demolished for new buildings. The decision was made back in 2014 but the building couldn't be changed before 2017, so I was able to get a chance to take a look at the famous parking garage.

Woodward met Mark Felt who was the Deputy Director of the FBI and served as deep background on what was happening inside the federal government as the scandal was building.

They met in the shadows of spot D32 which was occupied by a Ford truck when I visited. I have to imagine that at the time there was nowhere near the lighting level that there is today and I do know that Felt was able to exit out the side door that is now covered by a metal fence on the right .

Here are some shots from the All the President's Men film of Robert Redford meeting Deep Throat who was played by Hal Holbrook. It appears in the film that the parking garage they used isn't attached to a larger building as it is in reality. 

The parking garage was much more deserted and darker but even with the fluorescent lights in the parking garage today, it was still a creepy place and I was glad to get out of there as quickly as possible.

And here is Deep Throat in the shadows, a scene that has inspired political thrillers for decades.

Doing My Best To Recreate All The President's Men

While the exterior of the Library of Congress isn't one of Washington's most memorable building, the inside is certainly the most beautiful library you'll ever find in the United States. The library is the oldest federal institution, dating back to 1800, and currently the collection has more than 23,000,000 books.

As a tourist visiting without a reader card, you'll be hard pressed to see any of the Library's huge collection, but in one area you can ascend a set of stars to see one of the famous circular reading rooms.

The reading rooms gained pop culture fame with a notable scene in the Oscar-winning film All The President's Men. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman (as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) go to the reading room to sort through receipts after being told to "follow the money" by their informant Deep Throat.

The camera pulls back to reveal the whole room from above and simultaneously shows the small nature of the two reporters researching the Watergate story and demonstrating the size and scope of the American government.

Here's the brief All The President's Men clip that features the Library.

The iconic scene was featured in the Simpsons in one of the series' best episodes, Sideshow Bob Roberts. Lisa is researching the election results from the Springfield mayoral election and the camera pulls back in a similar fashion to reveal that Springfield Library's reading room rivals that of the Library of Congress. 

Thinking about it, I believe I saw the Simpsons episode well before All the President's Men and so it was probably years before I really understood this joke.