The images are breathtaking. Where part of the White House's majestic East Wing once stood is now a demolition site – full of construction equipment and debris, the side of the building completely torn off.
In its place, if all goes according to plan, will be a 90,000-square-foot ballroom costing $250 million. President Donald Trump announced in Julya grand event space that will dwarf the existing 55,000 square foot executive mansion.
This is a shocking sight for both Washingtonians and tourists. After all, President Trump said the construction “will not interfere with the current building.” The new ballroom will be the largest structural change to the White House since the renovation and expansion of the East Wing in 1942.
Why did we write this
President Trump's new ballroom and proposed arch will reportedly be funded by private donors. But expenses aside, his modus operandi seems to be to go for it and deal with any consequences later.
On Tuesday morning, the day after demolition began, a crowd of White House photographers with ladders and telephoto lenses gathered outside the fenced perimeter to capture what they could through the trees and around other obstacles. However, the best photos were taken from the nearby Ministry of Finance. employees were told to stop sharing.
Late Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that “much of the East Wing” was destroyed. judging by the photo, the paper was received. The East Wing houses the offices of the First Lady, her team, and the White House Social Secretary.
For Mr. Trump, a real estate developer by trade, the ballroom project is by far the most striking example of how his public and private identities have merged. Since his second inauguration in January, he has quickly set about adding his own touches to his residence and work space: decorating the Oval Office with gold filigree, paving the Rose Garden and turning it into a private café, and installing 88-foot-tall flagpoles on the North and South Lawns.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts – which Mr. Trump took over in February as chairman – is also being renovated, as is the bathroom in the famous Lincoln Bedroom at the White House. No detail is too small, including the type of grass planted in public areas of the capital, even at traffic junctions.
“I know more about grass than any man, I think, anywhere in the world,” Mr. Trump, owner of many world-class golf courses, bragged at a meeting with U.S. Park Police officers in August.
In this regard, no project is too big. The President announced plans to build a large arch, similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, at the roundabout at the end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. At a dinner last week for donors contributing funds to the new ballroom, Mr. Trump held a model of the planned archinevitably dubbed the “Trump Arch,” which he hopes to install by July 4, the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding.
It is reported that the new arch will be financed by private donors. Last week, about 130 people attended a donors' dinner at the East Wing Ballroom, which included representatives from companies including Lockheed Martin, Meta Platforms, Alphabet, Amazon and Palantir Technologies. according to the Wall Street Journal.
With all these projects, Mr. Trump is demonstrating a characteristic of his second term: Just do it and see if anyone tries to stop him. In his first term, when he installed new security fencing and a 1,200-square-foot tennis pavilion on the White House grounds, the National Capital Planning Commission spent more than a year in the approval process for each. NCPC is the federal agency that inspects the construction and renovation of federal buildings.
This time the NCPC was not involved – and there was no need to. According to White House Staff Secretary Will Scharfa key figure in Trump's inner circle, whom the president appointed to head the NCPC. When President Harry Truman oversaw a massive renovation of the White House, he got Congress to pass legislation that created a commission deal with the project.
In his previous career as a real estate developer, Mr. Trump prided himself on his “can-do” approach. One chapter of his book, The Art of the Deal, describes how he took over New York City's failed six-year attempt to renovate the Wollman Ice Rink in Central Park, completing it in 3.5 months and under budget and earning plaudits from Mayor Ed Koch.
The stakes are much higher today as Mr. Trump embarks on the biggest construction project of his two terms. The White House is not just a building, it is a symbol of the United States, known as the “people's house.”
The public reaction was harsh, as was the response from the White House on Tuesday afternoon.
“In the latest case of manufactured outrage, crazed leftists and their fake news allies are clutching their pearls over President Donald Trump's visionary construction of a grand, privately funded ballroom at the White House,” the president's communications team said. in a long statement including photographs of White House renovations over the past decades.
On Tuesday morning, as photos of a gaping hole in the East Wing wall circulated online, a small crowd of locals and tourists from around the world gathered to check it out.
One man, a local university employee, called the ballroom project an expression of “Trump's ego.” Another, visiting from Lebanon after running the Chicago Marathon, asked to be photographed in front of the Treasury building with part of the nearby structure visible. The family, visiting from the United Kingdom, seemed intrigued by the sight as the jackhammers rang out.
Someday, a new White House ballroom capable of seating 650 or even 999 people as Mr. Trump says now – may feel completely normal. But for now, it's another defining moment for the Trump era.
