They also didn't include elevators because they wanted to conserve steel and iron for ongoing war efforts. This is also why the original structure was made of reinforced concrete. I'm a Pentagon Tour Guide, I love seeing these videos!

Originally, it was planned as an octagon, but they had to cut corners.

My dad loves to tell a story about his grandfather being one of the plaster contractors to build the pentagon. He watched someone get fired for filling in doorways and plastering over them so they wouldn’t have to plaster that room, saving time or money I guess. They thought nobody would notice that entire rooms were missing from the floor plan. My great grandfather had to figure out where the rooms were, and complete the job the other contractor botched.

I grew up about 2 miles from the Pentagon. And I worked in it as a contractor for about 3 months, installing computer gear, before PC's existed. My mom was a secretary in the Pentagon when it only had 3 sides. No joke. They were so desperate for office space, they started working in the building before it was complete. When the Pentagon first opened, busses from DC were not allowed to cross into Virginia, so workers were dropped on the DC side of the Potomac river, and had to walk across the river and to the Pentagon, with zero regard for the weather. President Roosevelt issued an order allowing the busses into Virginia for the duration of the war, in the name of efficiency, and in reducing the number of sick days workers took. The story goes that the military figured they would need lots of space for records after the war, so the Pentagon was designed as a records retention building/library, meaning it is stronger than a regular office building (paper records weigh a lot more than people). Helped it survive 9/11 attack. Lots of people ride 3-wheel bikes in the Pentagon. Plumbers, electricians, telephone repair, etc.Really very efficient. The Pentagon has (at least) 5 ZIP codes. Each branch of the service has one, as well as one for the DOD. Not sure about Space Force. There are about 17 restaurant/cafeteria's in the Pentagon. At least one is always open. There is a small shopping center in the Pentagon. Not only department stores, but uniform stores, other clothing, drug stores, shoes, shoe repair, barbers, hair salons, etc. 9/11 Pentagon trivia. The Pentagon is in Arlington, Virginia (evidence is you pay Arlington sales tax). So Arlington Fire Departments handles fires there. Well, on 9/11, they ran into a problem. They needed to get a ladder truck into the courtyard, to get firemen on the roof attacking from that side. But the courtyard, which was originally mostly grass, had been paved over, multiple times, and this made the one road into the courtyard higher than it was designed, and they could not get a ladder truck inside! So, in the end, they did two things. Arlington FD took a metal cutting chain saw and removed the driving position on the read of the ladder truck, just cut it off! Second, the Arlington FD called around to small area fire departments, and in one found a nearly 50 year old ladder truck, the reserve ladder truck in a rural Maryland area, and had them send that down, because it was short enough to get inside the courtyard, but it's ladder was just long enough to get fire fighter onto the roof. Lastly, the location was the original location for Hoover field, the first airport in the DC area. It was too small for a real airport anymore, so they built the larger National Airport just about a mile down the river, on a land fill area in the river Phew!.

I got to see my uncles retirement ceremony from the Pentagon in the central courtyard. They joked that the concession stand in the center was the precise location of a Soviet ICBM target.

It is apparently one of the hardest buildings to navigate due to every corridor looking the same as the one you just left. Having 5 floors above and 2 below ground with 5 rings of corridors A-E resulting in around 17 miles of corridor

Good video - some comments to amplify: - Those old army buildings on the Mall were a very common Federal style - long wide front with wings coming out perpendicular, sort of like a comb. Those wings typically had a center hall and 20-30 foot bays either side. Lots of light and ventilation, very important pre-AC. The old Navy Annex up the hill (now razed) was like that. - That Federal style runs into limits - a LONG way from the farthest wings. One early design to fit the shape basically had 5 of those buildings with wings going in. Instead, they made the rings - It’s really like 5 concentric pentagons, with windows and space in between. Some parts on the ground floor go all the way across, but above the 3rd floor, you walk indoor sky bridges between wings. - I remember 1 escalator going up when I was there in 92, in the A ring. The renovation put escalators at each of the A-ring apexes, Nice and airy. There are also elevators on each of the 10 main corridors at around the D Ring. - Tricycle carts for delivery or building maintenance still used, as are electric carts. Far fewer than there used to be, because inter office mail has been replaced by email. Much less movement of physical paper from office to office. There are ramps so they can move from floor to floor. - In the 40s and 50s, city busses came into center court and dropped passengers. There is a Metro station and bus terminal at the Pentagon. You used to be able to go from Pentagon to Metro in the building, there’s an air gap now - exit the building, walk under a covered walkway, escalator down to Metro. - The building had a ground floor and four floors above that. Almost immediately, a 5th floor was added - narrower halls, shorter ceilings. The renovation made the 5th floor a regular floor with the same dimensions as the others. - The BestBuy is now an AAFES uniform store. Other retailers include a jewelry store, flower shop, gift shop, Bank of America and Navy Federal Credit Union branch, barber shop, beauty salon, dentist, Virginia DMV service desk, optical shop, chocolate shop. Some spaces are for temporary concessionaires - trunk sale clothing, holiday/seasonal. - There are also convenience stores - Blind Operated Businesses. And a full CVS. - The center court grill, aka Ground Zero, was under renovation last time I was there. They built a really nice indoor food court with lots of the usual fast food places. There’s also a pay by weight food bar (salad bar, pasta bar, etc.) And some other places to eat throughout. - The gym, once called the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club, now the Pentagon Athletic Club, is really nice. One boss advised newcomers to get to the gym - turns one long shitty day into two short shitty days! Interesting to see the generational shift - racquetball and squash courts being converted to CrossFit boxes. - The renovations were a to the cement gutting, one wedge at a time. It had been built before computers and their increased electric, AC, and network cable needs. They modernized all of that. Also added Kevlar in exterior walls and the glass was thick laminated, like an inch thick. Laminated for blast protection, thick to thwart using a laser mic to listen in on conversations from a distance. The plane hit one of the renovated wedges, which prevented a lot of injuries from flying glass and shrapnel. - Friends who worked in the building on B-ring 4th deck could see the exit point of the plane and the engine that came to rest in the space between B and C rings. The Navy command center was one of the hardest hit. Stationed there 3x, 92-93, 09-12, 16-19. Saw the changes from the big modernization. Unlike many, I loved it - always felt like an exciting place to be, and kind of homey at the same time.

I remember being in 4th grade when 9/11 happened and our teacher explained what the Pentagon was and I couldn't help but think, "well that's random." Our teacher was correct that I would remember that day for the rest of my life but it was because I learned we had a weird building that was in the shape as a Pentagon ahahaha, I know it's not a day to laugh about but that's my memory of 9/11.

It's worth noting that the officer in charge of the construction of the Pentagon, who made a building out of all that chaos, was Colonel Leslie Groves, who was promoted to General when he took charge of his next project, codenamed "Manhattan".

The number of toilets is the happy result of a bad government policy: segregation. (President Woodrow Wilson ordered the federal government to be segregated ). In addition to the usual male and female facilities, and officer and enlisted facilities, there were colored and white facilities. When segregation thankfully went away, there were more toilets available for all. It's actually one of the nice things about working in that building.

Fun fact: if was the shape of an octagon, it would be called The Octagon.

I'm happy to see the huge improvements you've been doing Phil, especially in the last few months. The quality is on another level. It feels like it has a Vox journalistic theme now. Keep up the good work.

I read an article that was all about absurd military decisions. One such decision was the USSR's choice to select a hotdog stand as a primary target for it's nuclear war plans. The thing the article did not mention was the location of this particular hotdog stand. It stood in the center of the courtyard of the Pentagon. So while it might seem absurd to target a hotdog, it makes a lot more sense to target the center of the courtyard of the headquarters of the US Military. It just so happens that a hotdog stand is in that location. Because even Generals and Admirals need to eat lunch.

Im an architect who never heard this story...im frankly shocked given the militarys need for symbolism and tradition that it WASNT designed to invoke a star fort.

Thank you for keeping it clean and not adding in offensive humor. My 12 year old son and I just watched your video so we could learn more about the Pentagon.

You have to be one of the first KZfaqrs I’ve seen where I subscribed not after the first few videos I watched, but the first few minutes. Amazing, eloquently presented content.

I remember flying into Reagan National, seeing the pentagon from the air with no notion of the true size of it, thinking "oh it's not so big." Fast forward to staying at the Hilton right across from it, seeing it from the ground for the first time, and all I could say was "shit that's a big ass building."

"Why is this the headquarters of the department of defense? A preschool level shape?" Square Buildings: **sweating intensifies**

My grandfather was one of the first residents of the pentagon and went on to work for the redstone arsenal and I believe my grandmother worked there as well doing work on the enigma decoder machine.

This was a fascinating Video and delightful to watch!

Wonderful video Phil, now I'm checking out your other stuff and finding myself subscribing! I think what's most refreshing is your ability to say a lot in a short amount of time. I feel one of the big holes a lot of people who make informative videos can get themselves into is making videos that become longer and longer and longer. That's not a bad thing, but I always find it refreshing to find these short and sweet little tidbits. Keep up the great work!

I used to think the shape had something to do with the pentagon-shaped space created in the center of the stars that a five-star officer wears. But, it turns out that the five-star rank was created after the building was designed, so this is not the case.

I made a mental note of your subscriber count roughly 3 days ago and it was at 57K. Great to see it has grown by over 50% since then. This channel deserves all the love and views!

Such a great video! You are my new favorite channel

Even more important than the exact shape was the cultural message sent by civilian leadership: all branches of service were to work together toward the common goals. The shape and deliberate choice to facilitate interaction sent a powerful message. Inter service rivalry is simply a fact of life and it’s unrealistic to expect frictionless relationships. With that said, just as an example during the Second World War, the Japanese Army and Navy were openly at odds much of the time, to the degree that the rivalry was more effective at stopping them from achieving their goals than allied military action. Likewise, the power struggles between the various German armed force cost them dearly. Whereas the leadership of other countries may have seen some value in keeping various military factions at odds to ensure balance of power, this had a negative effect on their war fighting ability. In the US, squabbling military leaders had to share the same building, and location dictated that compromise could be forced. It’s pretty hard to duck a rival when their office is in the same building!

I find it interesting how the name of the building is just it's shape. If you see the word "Pentagon" you immediately think of that building. Also, somewhere I remember seeing a video of a kids toy like that where all of the pieces could be turned to fit through one hole.

So well done. Thank you! Subscribed!

Looking forward to see what your studio will look like

i guess my trivia to share is that it's probably more a of a "kindergarten shaped building" since i just started teaching kindergarteners names of shapes. spent nearly a half hour basically arguing with five year olds that yes, a square is a rectangle.

This channel is a hidden gem! Your content is quite interesting, it answers questions I never knew I had.

I was always told that it was a pentagon for the 5 branches of the military - Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force , Coast Guard - and that each branch got one of the sides. With the addition of Space Force, I was wondering if they were going to make it a Hexagon.

Love the humor! Subscribed!

This is the first video I've seen from you, and let me just say, your videos are super interesting. I hope you get more attention in the future. Also, the new background COMPLETELY improves the vibe, it just feels much more personal with the warmer set and it really invites a sense of connection. I wish you the best of luck in future videos!

Constantly some of the best content on KZfaq. Love the videos, keep up the great work.

I've watched quite a few videos of yours now, fascinating channel, you're extremely underrated I hope you'll blow up !

Just found you today, loving your vids, quality.

I don't know if you'll read this, but this felt like the best written video essay I've seen in months due to the personal touches you added to the script. Great job Phil, you just earned a new subscriber.

damn I thought that was Marisa’s mini-Hakkero in the thumbnail

One of my co workers carry’s a pice of metal with him every day. That piece of metal was part of the plane that hit the pentagon. It reminds him that even though he’s having a bad day somebody had a worse day

"Why is the pentagon a pentagon?" You know I've never once wondered that but now that you've brought it up I actually need to know

Had a tough day and finishing it with watching your latest offering made it all worth it with another insightful, clear, personable and interesting piece. Thanks for putting a smile on my face.

I am shocked that you only have 12.5k subs! The quality of this video immaculate, the storytelling is engaging. +1 sub my friend

Finally getting the views you deserve! Keep it up Phil!

That was an unexpectedly cool video!

I started with this video and went on a massive binge of all of your videos. These video's have so much effort put into them and the prestation of these weird and fun topics is amazing. I looked at your sub count and was actually shocked, you surpass the quality of channels 50x your size. would not be surprised if you passed 100k very soon, keep it up man these videos are great.

This is amazing, it's the creative mind of a man that he takes up a simple question, explains the history attached to it, and leaves his audience with something to think about. 👏 🙌

I love your videos!

Short n sweet I loved the video

Fun Fact The limestone for the building came from central Indiana. When it was hit by the plane on 9/11 they had to reopen the quarry from where the stone came so the color could be matched.

I remember a Murderous Maths book joking that it was related to the fact that you can’t tile with it - if they were the Hexagon, then fake hexagons could be tiled right next to it, fooling the agents

Your channel was a nice little find. Thankyou….subscribed 😁

Quicker internal foot travel may have been originally one of the shape's advantages, but it's no longer the case today. Probably through various renovations over the years, so many of those corridors have been closed off creating effective cul-de-sacs within, it's really a big (and 3-dimensional) maze. Had one tour where I wound up visiting the Pentagon a lot for meetings/conferences/etc. Gave me just enough familiarity to thank my lucky stars I never had to work there as my main daily job. Not enough familiarity, however, to actually navigate through the place on my own to a not-before-visited location. I always wanted to leave a trail of bread-crumbs behind when going someplace new, lol.

I'm so amazed by your ability to come up with such engaging ideas! Great video as always Phil :)

I wonder how long it took, and how difficult it was, to retrofit modern electrical systems into this WW2-era structure...

Just saw this! Well done on having a video blow up 🎉 checking out the rest of your channel atm :)

The wall looks perfect!

Thank you! This has bothered me for a long time because I was always told the shape was chosen to represent the 5 branches of the armed forces. The problem is that when the building was made there were only 4 branches, the Air Force wouldn’t come along until after WWII but I never had an answer for why it was shaped that way until now. Thank you

Fun fact about the pentagon, it is a five sided polygon whose interior angles add up to 540 degrees.

This reminds me of Johnny Harris videos but you definitely have your own vibe and hell yeah man! Keep at it!

Great video! Im first time viewer and just subbed :) I'm digging the vibes

I thank Johnny for showing me your channel. Great work!

When my dad was a chef in the Air Force, I used to go to work with him some times. We could sneak out of the dining room windows, and walk around in between the corridors. This was with the Air Force "blue Room and, the Sec Def Mess. Pretty neat.

why does this video have a million views? the algo shines brightly on Phil. congrats!

Always wondered why. Thanks!

Great content and useful references in the Description section. Crisp catchy editing, but the background techno music sometimes looms over your voice (though of course, the degree of damage would depend on the output device. It's tolerable on TV, but jarring on my laptop). I dig your at-ease (even goofy, but in a likeable way) camera persona. Keep them coming, Phil.

As a young man, I was fortunate enough to have toured the Pentagon, both inside and out... as one might expect, the halls are lined with historic artifacts and art of various time periods. I must have walked one hall, for over an hour, examining just one painting... a soldier on a U-boat, peering through a set of binoculars, and from no matter where you stood, he always appeared to be looking directly at you.

Just subbed, what an absolutely wonderful explanation and fun had with the studio!

very interesting, well done

My step dad used to work in the Pentagon, so I had the privilege to tour the building back in the mid to late 00s. At least at that time, all the fixtures like the water fountains, lights, floors, etc. seemed dated, but as soon as you entered the restored section (the part of the building destroyed on 9/11) everything was updated with a completely different style; I think I also remember seeing escalators in this area as well. It's interesting that our most important military building doesn't seem to get regular remodeling and updating especially considering the military's budget.

Everyone know that a hexagon is the bestagon, but I always thought that it was because generals have stars and thus the most space effective 5 vertex which is half of the star is a pentagon

There are freight elevators. Great building, so much history. I enjoyed 14 years in that building.

Great Channel 👍

Too bad it wasn't a hexagon. Because hexagons are the bestagons.

After your DeLorean video over at Vox, you did another cool and informative video about stuff I didn't know before. Thank you =)

Just discovered this video and I love how you explain things or tell history. Couldn't of clicked the subscribe button any quick myself :)!

Wow this is informative ❤️❤️

Really strong video this week, Phil! I really liked the exposed brick look, btw.

When I was young, I was told the shape was more defensive because any approaching forces would be in the firing arc for two sides of the building no matter their direction of approach.

FIRST MILLION VIEWS! GO PHIL!

I didn't really learn a lot from this video like I was expecting but I did learn it moved from one spot to another

I like to think that there's a huge missile silo in the middle of the Pentagon

One thing I just noticed while looking at your aerial photos of the most recent Pentagon, you see the roof on two of the layers on one side looks a different color than the rest of the roofs. This is because those were the sections damaged by the 9/11 attack. So they rebuilt a new roof.

What a great channel

Thank you 😊

I like the idea that the Pentagon was originally meant to be next to Arlington Cemetery, seems strangely appropriate. That it looks a lot like a Star Fort seems appropriate too. It is a magnificent accomplishment and we saw on 9/11 just how well it was built, even in such a short time, just like it was a fort. Looking at pictures of the roof, I see sheds and antennas and other interesting things...the mystic of the military culture, how we love it!

Thanks for brightening up the set! You did look hella dark. Also, I'm only 48 seconds in but feel the need to repeat CGP Grey's assertion: "Hexagons are the bestagons." Not sure if it's going to be relevant, but I love hexagons and wanted to put that out there. Ok. Back to the video. Cheers, Phil!

Congrats on the successful video

Thank you.

That building played a role in my existence, in a weird way. My grandparents both worked there during Vietnam. Back when computers needed punch cards to work. It's where they met, too. He operated the computers and she would bring punch cards down to him. My grandmother had friends fighting in that war and she was one of the first people to get casualty reports from the battles out in the jungle. She worried constantly that she would see someone she knew on those reports. Thankfully, I don't think she did from what I can recall.

Whoa... That's crazy they broke the ground on Sept. 11, 1941, considering what happened 60 years later to the day. Odd coincidence.

You’re channels about to absolutely explode if you keep producing content like this

Really interesting!

Wait. So 9/11 2001, the day they crashed an airplane into the pentagon, was the 60th anniversary of the pentagon’s initial construction?

Interesting historical fact: Because segregation was state law, the Pentagon was built with twice as many bathrooms as needed for a desegregated building of its size.

I like the single strip of wallpaper idea!

thank - you .

This guy is gonna flip out when he learns that most buildings are an even more elementary shape :s

i am pretty sure that FDR quote is satire. As most US 17th century stone military bases were shaped like a pentagon(like Fort Independence, or Fort Knox Maine ). Presumably to cover all angles reasonably well with cannons. Which is the reason why the shape is now the icon of US defense that it is.

The Pentagon is something I saw quite often growing up as I went my dad into DC and Baltimore and so I often saw his work on construction sites across those two cities. I remember one day in school hearing about the towers falling and then later the Pentagon was attacked. My dad was going to the pentagon that morning to get permission and plans for a construction project he was going to be doing in DC and wouldve been there at the time of the attack if it had not been for horrible traffic causing him to be late. Never have I ever been so happy for traffic as I was that day.

I live in downtown Baton Rouge very near the Pentagon Barracks. The site was involved in both Battles of Baton Rouge, one in the Revolutionary War the other in the Civil War. Currently it houses the offices of the lieutenant governor. It’s a neat old place. Cool channel