Happy Birthday, 501 Pennsylvania

After 30 years as Canada’s architectural avatar on ‘America’s Main Street,’ the Canadian embassy in Washington has become part of the local furniture.
The Embassy of Canada to the United States in Washington, D.C., is the best-located chancery in the capital of the free world, and over the past 30 years has gone from mystery monument to local landmark to popular social, cultural, and political attraction, writes Lisa Van Dusen.
Who could have known, when the government of Canada purchased an abandoned Washington, D.C., lot a stone’s throw from the U.S. Capitol for $5-million in 1978, that one day, owning a piece of prime real estate could be a diplomatic advantage during the roller-coaster reign of a president for whom â...

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