Parking Garage Where ‘Deep Throat’ Met With Bob Woodward To Be Demolished

Deep Throat Parking Garage

The parking garage where Bob Woodward met with a source that, for decades, was identified only as “Deep Throat,” will be torn down as part of a new development project:

One of the most historic journalism sites of the past half-century will soon vanish, following a decision by the Arlington County Board on Saturday to demolish the building and parking garage where FBI official Mark Felt secretly met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward during theWatergate investigation.

The County Board unanimously agreed to allow Monday Properties to replace its two 12-story, 1960s-era buildings at 1401 Wilson Blvd. in Rosslyn with a 28-story residential tower and a 24-story commercial building.

The parking garage beneath the existing building will be razed, although the county will save the historical marker it erected in 2011, and the landowner has pledged to create a commemorative memorial to the events that occurred there.

(…)

Parking spot 32D inside the ground-level garage is where Felt, who was dubbed “Deep Throat” by a Washington Post editor, provided Woodward with information that exposed the Nixon administration’s obstruction of the FBI’s Watergate investigation. Felt, then the second-highest official in the FBI, chose the garage as an anonymous, secure location and met with the little-known reporter in the dark of night six times between October 1972 and November 1973.

The Watergate scandal resulted in President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

Actually, given the amount of development that has occurred in Arlington in the last 40 years, it’s  almost remarkable that we didn’t see this happen sooner.

(On an unrelated note, a Google image search for “Deep Throat” leads to very few SFW results)

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. James Joyner says:

    I question the timing.

  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    The horror! The HORROR!!! We must stop this atrocity! This iconic building must be saved for posteriority and histrionicsory! This ranks right up there with the destruction of Ronald Reagan’s childhood home theater in the family basement!

    IT WILL NOT STAND!

  3. John Peabody says:

    Aren’t the Lois Lerner emails stored in there somewhere?

  4. They Saved Nixon's Brain says:

    “It is the responsibility of the media to look at the President with a microscope, but they go too far when they use a proctoscope.”

    http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/Funny-Presidential-Quotes/a/Richard-Nixon-Quotes.htm

  5. al-Ameda says:

    Maybe Woodward will intervene, purchase the parking structure, and turn it into a shrine to himself?

  6. Eric Florack says:

    Actually a bit surprised it’s still standing.
    Then again, I guess they don’t use as much salt and whatnot down there as they do in the NE, so the structure would last longer.