Washington DC teems with glamorous and exciting hotels, such as the Mayflower Hotel, where Eliot Spitzer once famously kept his socks on while he banged a cheaply tattooed former drug addict from New Jersey. The Watergate Hotel is sort of famous, too, for being next door to the Watergate office building.
The office building, of course, hosted the world’s most notorious break-in on June 7, 1972, when a troupe of cat burglars stole some crap from the Democratic National Committee. Two years later Richard Nixon resigned, handing over the presidency to the illegitimate interloper Gerald Ford, who never once showed anybody his birth certificate. Our democracy has never recovered from this fatal blow.
With this proud history, it’s a little shocking that nobody would want to own a piece of the Watergate Hotel — but when it was put up for auction yesterday, not a single person advanced the $25 million opening bid. So probably the hotel’s current owners will rip out the sinks and all the good lighting fixtures, spray-paint some incomprehensible graffiti on the walls, and drive off in the middle of the night, just like millions of broke real-estate owners across the nation do all the time.
Watergate Hotel gets no bids at auction [CNN]
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But if you get all four railroads and both utilities, you can make quite the killing.
It is a monument to political dirty tricks, part of our nation’s glorious history. Nationalize that sucker.
When I looked up the Craig’s List ratings on the hookers who use the Watergate, I found the highest score was 2 diamonds. No wonder nobody would buy that flop-house!!
Millionaires are cheap bastards.
Gerald Ford was afraid to let the nation see his birth certificate because then everyone would know he was not even Gerald Ford but, in fact, the impostor Leslie Lynch King Jr. (too similar to Martin Luther King Jr., thus undermining Nixon’s Southern strategy?). WAKE UP AMERICA.
These upscale districts are sad for history. They are making a killing, so to speak, in Dallas with their School Book Depository, featuring tours which include bottles of “actual grey matter,” to delight the yokel tourists.
No offense, Nixon history, but the Watergate is kind of an eyesore. It looks like a bunch of parking garages crammed together. Plus it’s responsible for every two-bit scandal having the nonsensical -gate suffix attached to it. Raze it and build something pretty in its place. Like a strip mall with a fast food court. Orange Julius anyone?
Why am I thinking of The Shining?
If I remember my history right, it was from a room in the Watergate Hotel that Forrest Gump alerted police to the break-in in progress.
Save the Watergate!!
Truth be told, it’s a horrible location for a hotel unless you’re going to the Kennedy Center. Otherwise, it’s a dead zone.
A national treasure, of sorts.
the new Wonkette headquarters? everyone send in one dollar. kthnx.
Bill Clinton is still making millions off his sweetheart Whitewater deal, and this is what poor Dick Nixon gets? So UNFAIR.
[re=367859]Bypartizoa[/re]: I’ve snowboarded on that building. It’s way to small to host the interior scenes.
They should turn it into a Turkish bathhouse. That would bring in the money.
I have the answer! Turn it into a themed casino-think of the jobs, tax revenue, and tourism boost. They could have Tricky Dick blackjack dealers and Mayflower Madam cocktail waitresses. Perhaps the John Ensign family could spearhead this since they have experience in the gaming industry.
If they let the maintenance go, and the gate breaks, does water flood DC?
The problem with the Watergate is that it has lost its cache after the media decided to attach “-gate” to every imagined scandal during the Clinton years, no matter how non-scandalous and completely legal most of them were.
[re=367860]Pickle[/re]: I think it was actually the Howard Johnson’s hotel across Virginia Ave from the Watergate, which is no longer a Howard Johnson’s.
[re=367857]hobospacejunkie[/re]: Orange whip? Orange Whip? Three orange whips.
Child-molesting former newspaper columnist Bob Greene stayed at the Watergate all through Watergate and really liked it. “Madame” Chennault, widow of Flying Tiger leader Gen Claire Chennault, lived @ the Watergate until she was called home to anti-communist Heaven.
Citizen Palin Twitters from motels, not elite hotels.
Ahh, it was just a third-rate hotel anyway.
[re=367885]V572625694[/re]: How come nobody names their boys ‘Claire’ anymore?
I wish the Democratic headquarters were at the Howard Johnsons. Then all future scandals would have ended in “Johnson”.
OMG, it’s a conspiracy! Auctiongate!
No, the thing needs $100 mil in repairs, so it’s rather pricey for a fixer-upper opportunity.
[re=367885]V572625694[/re]: Bob Greene — now there’s a name you don’t hear anymore. At all. He sure was popular once upon a time.
NOTHING in this awful place is glamorous. It’s no surprise that there were no takers on an empty, out-of-date hotel. Not enough commerce here to support it.
This is all about marketing. If you’re selling hotel cachet, you want to be selling the Love Hotel, not the Burglarly Hotel. I suggest a couple of furry conventions. Failing that, a friendly fire.
[re=367896]Cape Clod[/re]: As in Clinton’s Johnsonjohnson, such as.
[re=367896]Cape Clod[/re]: Whitewater Johnson sounds like a porno. With paddles, no less.
Did you read the other part of the story? The management company that was forced to auction it had bought it a few years back with plans for renovation but the old pains in the arse in the condo section raised so many objections that the plans fell through. Now, who is an old pain in the arse who lives in the condo section? Bob Dole. So, this is all his fault.
Fun fact. Monica Lewinsky lived there, too, during her internship at the White House. You may not know this, but most interns don’t live in an apartment in the Watergate during their months in DC.
Okay, it might not have been the site of the break-in, but it was where the burglars (i.e. plumbers) operated from that night — so in a way it was the inspiration for Dick Cheney’s career path. So it’s where a dragon’s tooth was sown that gave rise to much more evil than anyone could’ve imagined at the time. It should be the site of a permanent monument, or maybe a creche. An evil creche, of course — featuring Tricky Dick and the Evil Queen from Sleeping Beauty; some sort of sickly basilisk in the manger; with the Magi represented by Barry Goldwater, Joe McCarthy and Pat Buchanan; and instead of farm animals milling about there would be a beast with the body of a lion and the head of a man, some flying monkeys and a large all-seeing eye.
PeggynoonannyC: Hello everybody. Second tweet. Raze it for the Gipper.
Sure, it’s ugly, but can’t we keep it? The Romanians kept Ceauşescu’s ginormous “Casa Poporului” just for old time’s sake. The Watergate Hotel could be a wonderful new museum: each room devoted to a different Washington scandal. We might even have to build a new wing eventually…
I thought the nation’s most notorious break in was when Britney Spears broke into show business.
[re=367885]V572625694[/re]: Ah, Madame Chenault – the woman who derailed the 68 North-South Vietnamese peace negotiations for Nixon because he was afraid a deal would help Humphrey win, leading to another 6 years of war. Thank goodness the Republicans don’t play politics with war anymore!
Did the former Bush flack get a sex change? Look at the ad above— by “Arielle Fleisher.” He always did have a purty mouth…
[re=367896]Cape Clod[/re]: Nobody names their sons “Claire” for the same reason nobody wears Speedos: afraid they’ll catch teh Gay.
[re=367932]JMP[/re]: Wow, thanks for the memories. I’d forgotten why I hated her, except for all that “unleash Chaing” nonsense the Repubs of my youth used to fantasize about. Who lost China, anyway?
War is hell for infantrymen, but for defense contractors, it’s a nice, steady cash flow and all the hookers and blow you want. Just don’t give the contractor a list on congressional stationery, Duke!
[re=367917]SayItWithWookies[/re]: Aw, that got all that in the basement of the Naval Observatory now.
[re=367885]V572625694[/re]: Bob Greene’s wife died 4 months after his infidelity. He’s still alive, if Gov. Sanford has any questions.
[re=367885]V572625694[/re]: “Madame” usually referred to ‘Madame” Chang Kai-shek from that period. Also known as the “Dragon Lady” and so stated in 1938 when Time made her and Chang ‘Man and Woman of the Year.’ Anna Chennault did not marry Gen. Claire Chennault until after WWII and would have been her mid-teens to late teens during the “Flying Tigers” days. Anna did serve as a director of Flying Tiger Air Line for its entire corporate existence. I think she is still alive and has been a long time champion of Gen Chennault.
Anna Chennault was wire tapped by the FBI, in October and November of 1968 talking with the Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States. The substance of the conversation was that Spiro Agnew had passed on messages that Richard Nixon wanted Vietnam to hold off joining the Paris Peace Talks. Vietnam did not and the failure of the Lyndon Johnson peace initiative greatly contributed to Hubert Humphrey’s defeat in 1968. Ambassador Bui later wrote that he met Richard Nixon, John Mitchell and Anna Chennault in Ne3w York where Nixon told him that he would get Vietnam a better deal than John/Humphrey could and Mitchell and Anna Chennault would be the go betweens.
Incidentally, “Madame” Chang died at over 105 in her apartment in NYC in 2003, right next door to the apartment of one of the women in my company, (Long known here as ‘The Old Bat.).
[re=367917]SayItWithWookies[/re]: Great idea but sub in some other clown for Buchanan. Unless I’m ignorant of his accomplishments this would give him far too much credit for the havoc unleashed on US America by his brethren. Maybe Reagan belongs there.
[re=367923]Todd Mecklem[/re]: Poporolui –this is Romania’s problem, attaching possessive pronouns to the end of words. How fucked up is that?
[re=367956]dedalus[/re]: “Infidelity.” Well, that is one way to describe what Bob Greene did. Probably not the most caustic description.
That place always did have something of a plumbing problem.
Meanwhile, here on the Left Coast, the Watergate office building in Emeryville, CA, just went BK.
Maybe this just isn’t the best name for a commercial property…
[re=367961]JamesMichaelCurley[/re]: Your memory’s way better than mine, which is not as much a of a compliment as your memory deserves. I flew to Vietnam on Flying Tiger Airlines in 1972: 24 hours in DC-8 with 221 seats, six-across nose to tail, stops in Philippines, Guam and Okinaway and other outposts of our then-empire, so that fine fine enterprise has a special place in my heart.
You youngsters look elsewhere for your funny. And get off my lawn!
[re=367964]hobospacejunkie[/re]: Don’t forget that Buchanan was the architect of Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which used good old fashioned racism to split the Democratic coalition in the South. As such, he was the predecessor of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove — and surely belongs in the Creche of Evil.
The You-Ess Gubmint should buy it as a flophouse for Kennedy Center performing tourists. Park Service digs. Well, they already have more cultured staff than any of the guests have been recently, so when some guy hollers “ANDREA CHENIER!” at 3 in the morning and there are people banging on their pianos at all hours, there won’t be as many useless 911 calls as there are now. And there are actual cultures in some of the bathrooms, which wouldn’t bother the ballet people, so, you know. Makes sense.
[re=367857]hobospacejunkie[/re]: Are you kidding me? I love the 60s mod style and its sweeping terraced curves. The Parkway drive along the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial to Georgetown has got to be one of the all-time greats.
Sorry for lack of snark.
They are at least going to keep the room where Duke Cunningham and his Republican friends took bribes, did drugs, played poker and banged hookers in its original condition for history’s sake, right?
[re=367865]Norbert[/re]: One dollar to put Wonkette HQ in the Watergate Hotel? I’m in. Please provide address.
When i first moved to DC i went to some weird queer party in the Watergate, and true to the spirit of a 22 yr old gay man, i thought: this is it? I mean, THIS IS IT??? I thought it was the ugliest place i’d ever entered (as it were). And the host was just as greasy and broke-down. Also.
On the bright side, literally, every time I go to the Watergate, I see Andrew Sullivan walking by. OK, once, but it’s still 100%.
As for driving by, this entire bldg is a blighted monstrosity; DC really got the short end of the modernist architectural landmark stick.
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