The Washington Monument and the National Cathedral got most of the press coverage, but the Capitol Hill beehive for financial industry insiders also sustained a bit of damage in Tuesday's earthquake.
Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building may sound like an obscure address, but bank lobbyists will recognize it as the House Financial Services Committee's hearing room. It's an ornate room with high ceilings, and during important hearings it often becomes so crammed that an overflow room has to be established.
Last week Congress was not in session, so the Capitol complex was less busy on Tuesday than it might have been otherwise.
Still, officials evacuated the buildings following the earthquake.
The next day, Financial Services Committee staffers posted on Facebook photos of cracks in the plaster along the hearing room's walls and doorway.
Fortunately, the damage was minor, said Eva Malecki, a spokeswoman for the Architect of the Capitol.
The agency maintains more than 17 million square feet of facilities on and around Capitol Hill.
"Really, with regard to the earthquake there was very little damage," Malecki said.
"So really we were very lucky," she said.
Malecki said that her office is assessing instances of cosmetic damage throughout the Capitol complex and will be doing repair work over the next couple of weeks.
Across Washington, the historic Treasury Department building also suffered some minor damage, apparently because of an earthquake aftershock and not the main event. In a blog post on Friday, the agency posted photos of granite railings that had come loose and fallen over on the outside of the building.
As a result, the Secret Service has closed the 15th Street entrance, although Treasury employees were cleared to continue to work inside.
