Old Naval Observatory

The Old Naval Observatory is a historic site at 23rd and E Street in Northwest, Washington, D.C. It is where the United States Naval Observatory was located from 1844 to 1893, when it moved to its present grounds. The original observatory building, built 1839-40, still stands, and is a designated National Historic Landmark. The Washington meridian of 1850 passes through the Observatory. The property for many years housed the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, which moved out in 2012. The property has been taken over by the State Department.

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.

Observatory
The observatory was built in order to compete with European observatories. The observatory operated from 1844 to 1893.

Matthew Fontaine Maury was the first superintendent of the observatory, despite his interests lying more in oceanography and wind currents. Under Maury, the observatory drafted charts on wind and ocean currents along with numerous volumes of sailing instructions. As a Virginian, Maury resigned in 1861 to join the Confederacy. He was replaced with James M. Gilliss, who had been in charge of the construction of the observatory. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln visited the observatory at night to ask an astrological question to the astronomer on duty. Gilliss died suddenly in February of 1865 and Admiral Charles Davis appointed himself superintendent in Gilliss' stead. In 1870, Congress passed a special appropriation to allow the Davis to purchase a new refracting telescope as their old telescope, a 9.6in refractor had been outdated since its purchase. The new telescope was purchased from a shop in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts and was delivered a full two years ahead of schedule. The telescope was 32ft long, weighed 1 and 1/4th tons, and was dubbed the "Great Equatorial." It was the largest refracting telescope in the world at that time, and brought a lot of prestige to both the observatory and the United States. It was with this telescope that the Moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall in 1877.

In 1845, a time ball was added to the top of the observatory's dome which dropped every day at noon to signal the time. With Davis at the head, the observatory's exact time-keeping was used to standardize the time not only across Washington, D.C. but also around the country. Telegraph lines were laid by 1869 to the Navy Department, the Washington fire bells, and, thanks to the Western Union Telegraph Company, nearly all railroads operating in the southern states. The observatory also had a line to the Mutual Life Insurance Company in New York City that, when signaled by the observatory, would drop their own time ball.

The observatory was closed in 1893 in favor of a new U.S. Naval Observatory facility on Massachusetts Avenue due to persistent malaria outbreaks. The building and grounds were retained by the U.S. Navy, which first used it to house the Naval Museum of Hygiene from 1894 to 1902.

Naval Medical Hospital and National Institute of Health


Beginning in 1903, the Naval Medical Hospital was constructed on the grounds, and it remained in use until 1942, when hospital operations were transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

The U.S. Public Health Service Hygienic Laboratory, later the National Institutes of Health, moved to the campus in 1904 from the Marine Hospital in Stapleton, Staten Island. Five buildings would be built: the North Building in 1904, an animal house in 1915, the Central Building in 1919, and the Administration and South Buildings in 1934. In 1938, NIH moved to a new campus in Bethesda, Maryland.

Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
The facility housed the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery from 1942 until 2012.

Office of Strategic Services and Central Intelligence Agency
The headquarters of the Office of Strategic Services was located on the campus until its dissolution in 1942, as was the superseding Central Intelligence Agency until 1961. The portion of the grounds occupied by OSS and CIA went by several names, but is today referred to in official historic register documentation as the E Street Complex.

In 1963, multiple buildings were demolished to construct the E Street Expressway.

Department of State
The grounds and observatory are closed to the public. The entire Navy Hill has been transferred to the United States Department of State due to Base Realignment and Closure, although the Navy retains ownership to some structures on the campus. The Central Intelligence Agency's forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services was a tenant on the Hill during World War II, and the United States Public Health Service had a hospital there.

In 2014, the Department of State began expanding into the Navy Hill. A joint venture consisting of the architectural firms of Goody, Clancy and the Louis Berger Group won a $2.5 million contract in January 2014 to begin planning the renovation of the buildings on the 11.8 acre Navy Hill campus.