Inside the Paul Greenberg House

By: Dara Kahn

Posted: 9/7/07

The first floor serves as a reception and lounge area, with welcoming couches and wooden tables. Oversized scrapbooks of past House events sit behind the reception desk. A framed photo of Paul Greenberg, who gave the House's naming gift, is displayed on the wall.

"It has all those nice little touches that you miss about SU," senior Allison Horton said. "It has a lot of pictures and banners and SU history, a lot of memorabilia from some of our more renowned students or patrons or professors."

The grand room, where most events are held, is on the second floor, said Ann Donahue, executive director for regional operations for Greater Washington.

Up one more level is the House's largest seminar room, the international relations office suite, computer cluster and book collection donated by Greenberg. SU sports memorabilia line the walls, along with framed photographs of the Washington, D.C. landscape. Most administrative offices are on the fourth floor.

"It's a beautiful building, a lovely reflection of Washington, D.C.," Donahue said from her SU-inspired orange office chair.

Conveniently located in the Woodley Park area of D.C. and accessible by public transportation, the House's neighbors include Stanford University and Boston University facilities, as well as several embassies, Donahue said.

It was originally home to a senator from Ohio, said Mary Anagnost, director of programs and facility operations at the house. However, documents prove it may have been the home of Attorney General George Wickersham, who served during William Howard Taft's administration.

During the years, it was also a brokerage house and antique gallery, Anagnost said. In the 1970s, it housed the Talleyrand Bar and Seafood Restaurant, according to the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.'s Web site.

In the late 1980s, a research committee was created to find a location for SU's new Washington, D.C.-based satellite facility. In 1988, the committee decided to use the building at 2301 Calvert St. in Northwest D.C., according to SU Archives.

Greenberg, an Arts and Science graduate from 1965 and founder of Greenberg Realty Co. in Bethesda, Md., gave the naming gift of about $1 million. The remaining costs for the building's renovation "came from funds raised by the Campaign for Syracuse regional drive in Washington, D.C.," according to the House's Web site.

Former U.S. Sen. Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) delivered the dedication address at the naming ceremony in 1990, Donahue said, and has since then dedicated his former senate office flags to the House. They currently stand in the largest seminar classroom on the third floor.

"Paul's definitely our strongest advocate to make SU in D.C. a success," Anagnost said. "He's been our biggest proponent to make the Greenberg House successful."