National Aquarium in Washington, D.C. /

The National Aquarium in Washington, D.C. is an aquarium in Washington D.C. It is located in the Herbert C. Hoover Building (Department of Commerce headquarters), which is bounded by 14th Street NW on the east, 15th Street NW on the west, Pennsylvania Avenue NW on the north, and Constitution Avenue NW on the south. The National Aquarium was established in 1873 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts under the auspices of the Federal Fish Commission. It moved to the Washington Monument in 1878 and consisted of holding ponds known as "Babcock Lakes." During the 1880s, the aquarium consisted of a hatching station and a small aquarium at Central Station near the site of today's National Air and Space Museum. The Fish Commission was incorporated into the Department of Commerce in 1903 and renamed the Bureau of Fisheries. When the Commerce Department building was completed in 1932, the National Aquarium moved to the lower level of the building. The Bureau of Fisheries merged with the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy (later the Bureau of Biological Survey) in 1940 to form the Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. The National Aquarium remained based in