By SAM COHEN
Capital News Service
WASHINGTON – The sounds of destruction echoed around the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue Wednesday afternoon.
“Where is the outrage?” asked Nadine Seiler, a Waldorf, Maryland, resident and activist. “There is no way that…Republican voters would have been okay…with Obama or Biden or Clinton demolishing part of this building.”
“I’m like, really really angry,” she said.
Despite President Donald Trump’s promise that his plans for a massive, $300 million ballroom would not “interfere with the current building,” demolition of the East Wing began on Monday. The destruction has sparked widespread alarm from the public, Democratic lawmakers and historic preservationists.
The first lady’s offices and a visitors’ entrance were located in the East Wing. Originally, the space was a terrace during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. The East Wing was built in 1902 under President Theodore Roosevelt and was expanded in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, providing both office space and housing for staff.
Trump’s ballroom, which is intended as an entertaining space and designed to fit host 999 people, is planned to be 90,000 square feet. The White House is currently an estimated 55,000 square feet.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation on Tuesday urged the Trump administration and the National Park Service “to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes.”
“We acknowledge the utility of a larger meeting space at the White House, but we are deeply concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself…and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller, and lower, East and West Wings,” Dr. Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the organization, said in a statement.
Seiler, a former employee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said that it is not possible to get approvals to do any renovations on a historic building such as the White House in fewer than nine months.
“The fact that he could come… and demolish this building, he is number two-ing and peeing all over the Constitution,” Seiler said.
John Sentena, a Colorado resident, views the president’s actions as “pushing the boundaries,” which is what he said he believes the president should do.
He also commented on the lack of legal pushback, saying that nobody has pursued legal action over the demolition.
“If someone sues him for it, then there’s probably something to it,” Sentena said.
He said he has supported Trump’s presidency thus far and especially appreciates the impact of his actions. “It’s only been not even a year… and all these people that are riled up. I wonder how long it can last,” he said,
But Cathy Raines, a Washington resident, said that the “president of the country should be a role model for following protocols.”
Raines said that Trump’s actions are unsurprising because she believes that every department of his administration has failed to follow legal guidelines.
“The White House is a long standing symbol of our country, meant to be the people’s house,” Raines said.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, blistered Trump Wednesday for the destruction of the East Wing.
“President Trump’s desecration of the White House is an insult to the American people and a betrayal of his obligation to safeguard our history and heritage,” King said in a statement.
The senator is the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s national parks subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over, among other things, national historic sites and historic preservation.
“The White House does not belong to President Trump; it belongs to the American people – he is but a temporary resident with no right to despoil this iconic landmark on his personal whim,” King said. “The house was purposefully never intended to be a palace, but rather a residence befitting a democratically-elected leader, and an important symbol of our rejection of the trappings of royalty.”
