Public access to the White House has been suspended for about two months because tours started at the East Wing, and the demolition of parts of that wing and construction of the new ballroom have made the visits impossible, officials told CBS News.
White House officials said that although the tours are still paused, they expect to accommodate an updated tour route in coming days, as well as other public events, such as Halloween trick-or-treating.
Members of Congress, who receive White House tour requests from their constituents, told CBS News that bookings were suspended in late August.
The tours included public rooms in the East Wing as well as the Vermeil Room, Library, China Room, Blue Room, Red Room, Green Room and State Dining Room in the White House residence.
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A message on the tour website, posted over the summer, says: “The White House Ballroom will be substantially separated from the main building of the White House, but at the same time, it’s theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical. The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits.”
During construction, first lady Melania Trump’s office has moved to the ground floor of the White House. East Wing staffers’ desks have been set up in the China Room, and aides now gather in the map room.
Staff from the calligraphy office, White House Military Office, legislative affairs and the visitors office have decamped to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for now.
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The White House Historical Association, a nonprofit organization that aims to protect, preserve and provide public access to the White House, confirmed that it took steps to document the White House East Wing this summer, prior to demolition. The association was founded by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961.
This week, construction crews began dismantling the White House’s eastern facade to make room for the forthcoming White House ballroom.
A spokesperson for the association said it undertook “a comprehensive digital scanning project and photography to create an historic record” of the East Wing and gardens.
On Tuesday, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit chartered by Congress to further the historic preservation policy in the U.S., wrote a letter urging the Trump administration to pause the demolition of the East Wing of the White House until a review of President Trump’s ballroom plans is completed. The letter expressed concern about the size of the ballroom annex — that “the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself.”
