White House

A preview of the below here.  See the two illustrations.  Paul Krugman on the issue October 24, 2025.  A brief history of the East Wing of the White House can be read here.

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You’ve likely heard that there is a little remodeling project underway at the White House.  Here’s a PDF reference map of the area: White House Google Map 10 23025.    This view is as of 8 a.m. CST October 23, 2025.

The current (at the time of your visit) google map of the same area can be viewed any time you visit, is here.  Note the status of the east wing below.  Today’s photo shows an intact east wing.  Yesterday the east wing was demolished and presumably this will show in subsequent updates of the satellite map.

Here are two closer up views of the White House itself, from the same Oct 23 google map.

note especially the East Wing (to the viewers right).

I’ve been to the White House twice, in January, 1980, and the end of October, 2000, days before the 2000 election.  I’ve been by the White House quite a number of times.  The National Education Association, a few blocks up 16th Street NW, was the organization I worked for, and a few times I was at NEA  for some meeting or other.  I’d always walk down the street to the White House area.

The White House Tour book we have is easily available as a used book: “The White House An Historic Guide”. Our edition was 1999, 159 pages.  It is a worthwhile inexpensive purchase if you are interested.  The East Wing gets sparse reference at page 10: “Most visitors to the White House enter through the East Wing lobby…Construction of the East Wing began under Theodore Roosevelt…Completed in 1902, the building changed little until the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration when it was enlarged to provide office space.”

These few words possibly give me some context about the reason for this demolition.  Seems to me that the East Wing, beginning with FDR, seems to have become office space for, among others,  the First Ladies.  Best I can recall these were: Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, Jacqueline Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, Melania….  Eleanor Roosevelt, most especially, was a power in her own right.  In effect, in my opinion, she essentially had the same status as FDR.  An unelected President and World Leader in her own. right.

Melania?  I can’t get inside the mind of the current president, nor can most anyone else, but I think the specific psychological target of his demolition of the East Wing was women, generally, and I don’t think minding the White House legacy was Melania’s priority.

1999 edition of the White House Historic Guide

I’ve been pretty uniquely privileged to visit “The People”s House”, the White House.  The estimate is that a half million visitors take the tour each year.  Against the U.S. population of 340,000,000, and allowing for visitors from other countries, and repeat visitors, a half million is a very minute fraction of the U.S. population.  Of course, tours won’t happen while the current project is under way.  The huge ballroom will not be a People’s Ballroom, that is a certainty.

Renovation work at the White House is not unusual.  But nothing with the current President is usual, and this is the rub with the current massive ballroom project.  This is not a routine matter, and a very bright light deserves to be focused on the project.

POSTNOTE: I am trying to be dispassionate about this.  But I am watching it very carefully.  At the same time, the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis is engaged in a major renovation of my church, the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, designated co-Cathedral of the Diocese.  The church is over 100 years old and needs expensive preservation work, and thus is in an incessant fundraising mode.  The church survives because of parishioners who contribute time and money, but for something like renovation, the fundraising doubtless focuses on what I’ve heard described as “high net worth” individuals – rich people.  This is understandable: it is easier to catch someone with a spare million lying around, than to collect a dollar each from a million donors….  I’ll leave it at that for the moment, except to say that from the beginning, 2015, it has been known and obvious that the President of the United States is loyal only to himself.  We knew that and we elected him anyway.