Old Post Office Pavilion

This guide to the Old Post Office Pavilion in Washington, D.C. starts with what's really holding up its granite walls: a hidden steel skeleton, the first of its kind bolted together in the city, built by architect Willoughby Edbrooke and finished in 1899. It follows how a building once ranked among the city's tallest fell out of favor within a generation, earning a cruel nickname, and how wrecking crews came close across decades of demolition plans. The granite itself was hauled down from Vinalhaven, Maine.