9th Street NW runs through the image in the foreground off to the left. L Street NW runs into the foreground from the right. The photographer was standing just in front of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. A tunnel/concourse will lead from the Washington Marriott Marquis to the convention center, linking the two.

The building still standing to the far left is the headquarters of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry (the Pipefitters union), a national trade union in the U.S. It was constructed in 1916 and designed in a Modernist-modified Chicago School style by Louis Sullivan. The cornerstone was laid by President Woodrow Wilson. It served as the first headquarters of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the largest trade union federation in the U.S. and the forerunner to the modern AFL-CIO. The AFL vacated the structure in 1956 after its merger with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The Pipefitters union purchased it. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, and the facade of the building is being incorporated into the Washington Marriott Marquis as a preservation effort.