Construction on Donald Trump’s controversial new White House addition is off to a disastrous start if his model of the glitzy East Wing ballroom is anything to go by.
Plans shared by the MAGA administration suggest “a hurried process,” the New York Times reports, noting that a miniature mock-up of the 90,000 square foot annex, proudly unveiled to the press Wednesday, featured some truly bizarre architectural features.
These include a staircase leading up from the South Lawn directly into a brick wall, and at least two woefully misaligned windows that appear to open out onto one another.
Demolition of the existing structure, which began Monday, has prompted fierce outcry as cranes and backhoes were seen tearing down sections of exterior cladding and ripping windows off their hinges at one of the most instantly recognizable historic sites on the planet, with the scale of destruction now even visible from space.
The White House can’t seem to decide how many guests the new ballroom will accommodate, with official estimates ranging from 650 to 1,350 people. Once Trump has flattened the old East Wing, he has toyed with naming the $300 million new venue after himself.
Though the plans were first announced months ago, backlash to the actual start of construction has been swift. Critics, like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, have lamented what they describe as the president treating the physical structure of the nation’s highest office as if it was his own personal backyard.
“To take literally a wrecking ball to the White House… it’s grotesque, just grotesque!” the Morning Joe host said Tuesday. “It’s not yours! You rent it from the American people for four years.”
Others have compared the Trump administration’s work on the building, which the president had previously promised would leave the existing structures untouched, to ISIS’s desecration of historic sites and artifacts during the terrorist group’s brutal reign across parts of Syria and Iraq.
“The first reaction I had was, what the f—? It’s not OK. The White House doesn’t belong to Donald Trump—it’s a federal building, a taxpayer building, belonging to the American people,” archaeologist Matthew Vincent, who spent two decades documenting the recovery of artifacts looted by the Islamic extremist movement, told the Daily Beast.
“What he’s doing is horrific and done without any oversight or acknowledgment from the bodies that should oversee this—and certainly not with the American people,” he added.
The NYT says Trump has indeed failed to follow established procedure for renovations on White House grounds, bypassing the usual reviews from federal groups like the National Capital Planning Commission.
JFC. I’m with every statement and feeling of outrage here. Possibly most of all this one:
“It’s not yours! You rent it from the American people for four years.”
Seems to apply to most things this admin is doing.
They’re not sharing any info, because there seems to be no clear plan as this NYT article clearly shows (lots of pictures):
Will President Trump’s East Wing ballroom hold 650 people, or 999, as Mr. Trump said this week? Or maybe it will hold 1,350 people, according to a drawing Mr. Trump held up in the Oval Office this week.
The East Wing was demolished this week, but the ballroom design is still in flux, even though construction was slated to begin in September. The project is supposed to be completed before the end of Mr. Trump’s term at a cost of $300 million — $100 million more than the previous estimate.
And you can bet your kidneys that the final cost will be much higher - if they finish it. (I’d love to see a half-completed skeleton to remind us of the horrors of the Trump regime.)
They keep shooting themselves (and the country) in the foot, then make sure that body part does not show up in the photographs.
Now that I’ve established that we’re on the same page, I do have a tiny niggle:
one of the most instantly recognizable historic sites on the planet
Sorry, but no. Not even in the top 10. Without the inevitable American flag (and iron fence) I could not distinguish it from many other neoclassical buildings. And that’s something I always liked about it; it’s not as pompous as many other seats of power around the world.
Given the preliminary basic design and conceptual failures, it seems highly likely this project is destined for major problems
Embarrassing Flaws Emerge in Trump’s New White House Design
JFC. I’m with every statement and feeling of outrage here. Possibly most of all this one:
Seems to apply to most things this admin is doing.
They’re not sharing any info, because there seems to be no clear plan as this NYT article clearly shows (lots of pictures):
And you can bet your kidneys that the final cost will be much higher - if they finish it. (I’d love to see a half-completed skeleton to remind us of the horrors of the Trump regime.)
They keep shooting themselves (and the country) in the foot, then make sure that body part does not show up in the photographs.
Now that I’ve established that we’re on the same page, I do have a tiny niggle:
Sorry, but no. Not even in the top 10. Without the inevitable American flag (and iron fence) I could not distinguish it from many other neoclassical buildings. And that’s something I always liked about it; it’s not as pompous as many other seats of power around the world.
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