The J. Edgar Hoover Building was widely praised when first erected. "Washington Post" architectural critic Wolf Von Eckardt called it "gutsy" and "bold" architecture in 1964. It was, he asserted, "...masculine, no-nonsense architecture appropriate for a national police headquarters. It is a promising beginning for the new Pennsylvania Avenue." "Chicago Tribune" critic Paul Gapp was more equivocal. Writing in 1978, he felt the uneven cornice line gave "the taller facades of the building a rather intimidating, temple-like look vaguely reminiscent of an old Cecil B. Dé Mille set". He also criticized the open second deck for having a dark, cavernous look and the interior for being "Federal drab". But on balance, Gapp wrote, while the FBI building "falls considerably below C.F. Murphy's general level of design excellence[,] ...it is not the visual disaster some of its detractors have made it out to be." He declared it mediocre architecture, but not worse than any other federal building built in Washington, D.C., the past decade. "New York Times" architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable was also less enthusiastic. Although she enumerated several of the building's flaws, she nonetheless felt the design did a "superior job" in reconciling numerous problems facing the site and the uses to which the structure would be put.