Watergate Maps from Ball
State University Libraries
Saturday, August 9 marks
the 40th anniversary of the resignation of President Richard Nixon
following the Watergate scandal. The
Watergate complex of buildings at the center of the scandal is now listed on
the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and is located in the Foggy
Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
The maps above (click to enlarge) from the Ball
State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) show the
buildings located on the Potomac River just across from Theodore Roosevelt
Island. The top map is A U.S. Geological
Survey topographic map of Washington, D.C. published in 1980. The Watergate buildings are colored purple
and black, and the neighboring Kennedy Center is shown in purple hatches. The purple color denotes structures that were
built since the previous topographic map was published in 1965. (The purple hatches indicate that the Kennedy
Center was under construction when surveyed).
The second map was
published by Esso in 1969 and shows only the Watergate Hotel. The pictorial maps of Washington were
published in 1992 and 1996. The next map
was published by National Geographic in 2000 and shows one of the ownership
changes of the Watergate Hotel and the addition of new memorials near the
Reflecting Pool. And the aerial map of
Washington was published in 2010.
For more information,
please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097.
Not only a location associated with an infamous and historic event, but also a significant example of Modernist design. It, in conjunction with Edward Durell Stone's Kennedy Center, just to the south, were part of an effort to remake the long-neglected waterfront along the Potomac.
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