Pentagon Single Elevator Renovation Story

For most of its history, the Pentagon had only one passenger elevator, which the Secretary of Defense used to ride from the parking garage up to his office while nearly everyone else relied on ramps and stairs. The building’s original design focused on moving huge numbers of people horizontally through long corridors rather than vertically between floors. During the massive renovation project that stretched from the 1990s into 2011, engineers modernized the interior and added more elevators to meet contemporary accessibility and safety standards.

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