May 31, 2005
Wasn't This Mystery Settled in 1999?
We think that Woodward, Bernstein, Bradlee et al, have this whole Deep Throat thing wrong. W. Mark Felt? Seriously, didn't the good folks over at 15th and L streets see the 1999 movie "Dick"?
In all seriousness, there is still another mystery that needs to to be cleared up. Where are the sketchy parking garages that Mr. Felt and Mr. Woodward used to exchange information? And will historic preservationists push to declare the sites landmarks?
They would probably have to be in buildings from the 1960s or early 70s. The buildings above the garages would probably have to be ugly, since that was the norm for Washington during that era.
Here are our nominations, please add to your candidates in comments:
-- The Bender Building on L Street between 18th Street and Connecticut Avenue
-- Any building in Crystal City or Rosslyn from the Watergate era (easy access to the District for both the Post's ace reporters and Felt)
-- The Kennedy Center parking garage (who would suspect information would be passed so close to the scene of the original crime?)
-- The parking garage below what is now K's New York Deli fka Krupin's in Tenleytown (exchange information, then ponder said information over some whitefish salad and matzo ball soup)
-- The 1926 Capital Garage (.pdf) at 1320 New York Ave. NW, which was torn down in 1974 (Did Felt have the building demolished to cover his tracks?) According to "Capital Losses," the journalist Charles McDowell Jr. sang the praises of the garage before it was razed. From Capital Losses:
How tense and giddy it was to park a car in a living monument. Your lights were on to see you through the dark places and give warning to others. ... Headlights: Horns: Squealing tires: you backed down a ramp and into an odd corner, and a white-faced fellow-adventurer would come down past you with a fraternal wave.
A dark place ... a "white-faced fellow-adventurer" ... it sounds like a perfect place to bring down the Nixon administration.
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Woodward lived on P St near Dupont Circle, and said it took him about two hours to walk to the garage when he couldn't find a cab, though he probably didn't walk in a straight line. The garage also had to be deserted at 2am, but one would think a garage open 24-hours would at least have an attendant that would notice two people loitering for over an hour at times.
Was the Capital Garage on New York Ave NE or NW? Assuming it was NE (don't think those two would be meeting two blocks from the White House), and that it was torn down after Nixon's resignation in August, it makes an intriguing possibility... meeting in the middle of the night in a (probably) boarded up and soon-to-be-town-down garage in NE? It's also about 3.5 miles from Woodward's apartment, so that, interspersed with some zigging and zagging, could take close to two hours on foot.
Perhaps Woodward's article in the Post on Thursday about Deep Throat might answer the question.
Bah! That PDF linked to above says the Capital Garage was in NW, so so much for that idea.
I watched this movie once with Carl Bernstein while working for a company called Voter.com. I don't remember him laughing too much.
Before Watergate Ben only called ME deep throat!
i've worked with the owners of the Madison Hotel at 15th and M. They "have it on good authority" that the garage next door, essentially across the street from the Post, was the main meeting place for all the Deepthroat stuff not involving Linda Lovelace.
The garage is long gone. It was located on the site of the current Richmond apartment building, on 17th St., N.W., between O and P.
And Woodward lived in an efficiency at the Webster House, at 1718 P St. He used his balcony there to plant the red flags to summon a meeting with Felt.
Room 519 of the building was used during the filming of ATPM.
Woodward's Thursday post piece puts a stake in the Richmond garage theory. The idea was that Woodward may have kept his car in this garage, and had met Felt when retrieving or parking it.
The garage, however, was apparently in Rosslyn, just over the Key Bridge, and in his piece today Woodward lays out the elaborate scheme that Felt prescribed for getting to the late-night rendezvouses.
So we now know the garage was in Rosslyn, are there any other clues as to what specific garage it is (if it is still there?)
Woodward said it was right across the Key Bridge in Rosslyn. Did he mean the garage was literally right across the Key Bridge, or did he just mean that the garage was in Rosslyn, a neighborhood that's right across the Key Bridge?
If he mean the actual garage was right across the bridge, I think a prime candidate is the parking garage that is right next to the where the Continental pool hall is today. It seems like that building is fairly old, probably would have been around at the time, but I don't know for sure that that is the case.