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Pentagon Makes Grand Entrance, Opens New Metro Entrance Facility
Thursday, November 21, 2002
By SFC Doug Sample
U.S. Army
American Forces Press Service

Aren Almon-Kok (left) presents Ray DuBois with an award from her organization, Protecting People First, for the blast-resistant windows and other protective features the Defense Department had added to Pentagon renovation work that were credited with saving workers' lives when terrorist attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. DuBois is the director of administration and management for the Pentagon.
Image Credit: John Harrington -- courtesy of Protecting People First.

"This has been real fulfilling project. ... Architecturally and functionally it's turned out to be fantastic," said Tom Schwieger, an operations manager for one of the construction companies on the project. "Realizing that you were a part of making the Pentagon a safer and better place to work is a sobering experience."

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
Although its aesthetics are quite pleasing, it still lacks the opulence of Grand Central.

However, grandeur was not the reason Department of Defense officials spent $37 million on a new Metro Entrance Facility at the Pentagon.

Today during a grand opening ceremony at the Pentagon, project leaders talked mainly of the safety and security the new facility would provide for the more than 25,000 people who pass through the Pentagon each day. The Metro, the Washington area's major public transit system, serves the building with two of its five subway lines and a spider web of bus routes.

"Even before 9-11, the original subway entrance into the Pentagon was a long threat tube right into the heart of the building," said Ray DuBois, director of administration and management for the Pentagon. He praised the new facility as the "Grand Central Station of Northern Virginia."

"Security for the building and the people entering the building was the principal driving factor," he said.

The ceremony brought to a close the final phase of a congressionally mandated Pentagon security upgrade. Work on the facility had started long before Sept. 11, 2001, but the terrorist attack on the building that day increased the impetus to finish.
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

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