Alban Towers - Historical Connections

Historical Connections

• Alban Towers was the Washington, D.C. headquarters of supporters of the presidential campaigns of John F. Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
• Its hotel suites were frequented by such celebrities as Bette Davis and Frank Sinatra.
• It was the Washington residence of Thomas Dewey and Edmund Muskie, prominent American politicians.
• During World War II it was discovered that Japanese spies had used the Alban Towers residence of the Japanese Naval attaché as a lookout point to the city as well as a place to tap into official radio frequencies.
• Its apartments were leased by the embassies of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa and others to house their diplomats. However, during the 1950s, this created controversy when the embassies of the newly independent African states attempted to lease some of its apartments; Washington was still a racially segregated city and the African diplomats were refused residence in Alban Towers and other area apartment buildings.
• Wilhelm Reich, the psychoanalyst, lived there from November 1955.