The New Executive Office Building (NEOB) is a U.S. federal government office building in Washington, D.C., for the executive branch.
The building is located at 725 17th Street NW, on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue. To the south is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB), which is next to the White House. The other sides are bounded by 17th Street NW (west), H Street NW (north), and Jackson Place and Lafayette Park (east). Within the same block are several buildings: Blair House, Trowbridge House, and Renwick Gallery in the south and the Decatur House to the north.
Known as Federal Office Building #7, it was built from 1965 to 1969 and is ten stories tall, similar to the height of the EEOB. According to Michael J. Bednar of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, "Four taller office buildings dating to earlier in the 20th century were demolished and replaced with next rowhouse office builds. One has an open base to serve as an entry to the New Executive Office Building via courtyard. The historic structures were preserved and rehabilitated for smaller federal agencies. The New Executive Office Building has an offset H-shaped plan with a long brick facade along 17th Street."
The building was designed by architect John Carl Warnecke, who also designed 722 Jackson Place and the National Courts Building (717 Madison Place) on the opposite side of Lafayette Park during the same period. Warnecke sought to "harmonize with Lafayette Square's historic character and retained the domestic facades but joined the separate interiors."
According to Shelley Lynne Tomkin in Inside OMB, most Office of Management and Budget civil service employees work in the NEOB, while most OMB political appointees work across the street in the EEOB.
In Andrew Greeley's novel Bishop in the West Wing, the narrator describes the New Executive Office as "horrendously ugly" and states that it reminds him of a "19th-century Jesuit college, except its high ceilings and empty corridors seemed to go on forever."
Famous quotes containing the words office building, executive, office and/or building:
“While the focus in the landscape of Old World cities was commonly government structures, churches, or the residences of rulers, the landscape and the skyline of American cities have boasted their hotels, department stores, office buildings, apartments, and skyscrapers. In this grandeur, Americans have expressed their Booster Pride, their hopes for visitors and new settlers, and customers, for thriving commerce and industry.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“... the wife of an executive would be a better wife had she been a secretary first. As a secretary, you learn to adjust to the boss’s moods. Many marriages would be happier if the wife would do that.”
—Anne Bogan, U.S. executive secretary. As quoted in Working, book 1, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“The office ... make[s] its incumbent a repair man behind a dyke. No sooner is one leak plugged than it is necessary to dash over and stop another that has broken out. There is no end to it.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“An island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral portion of the globe. I have a fancy for building my hut on one. Even a bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)