First ladies impacted by East Wing demolition

CLARIFICATION: The White House is exempt from the legal required approval process that applies to other historcial landmarks.

By Grace Bertrand

As the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, a space historically significant for first ladies, sank in for Myra Gutin, a first lady historian and retired Rider communications professor, she began to feel the greater implications of losing part of what she calls “a national symbol.” 

On Oct. 22, President Donald Trump’s administration led a leveling of the East Wing, a place that held the offices of the first ladies and was lined with historical art related to first ladies, to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom in its place. The National Trust for Historic Preservation urged the Trump administration to halt construction until going through the legal public review process that is required to make any architectural changes to the White House, according to a New York Times article. 

“This is not [Trump’s] house. You’re a tenant. You come in for four years or eight years, but then you’re out. The fact that the [approval process] was ignored is troubling,” Gutin said. 

Gutin explained that the demolition was not something that she or her colleagues, who also study the presidency, could have anticipated. 

Senior political science major Noel Almeida said while he was surprised Trump went through with implementing the ballroom he had been talking about for years, he sees the demolition as Trump trying to spark more controversy. 

He said, “It really seems like he’s trying to make a push for trying to just avoid all the bureaucracy of getting things done. He’s trying to brute his way through things, whether it be making policies or things like this.”  

Trump’s unapproved structural change to the White House has been compared to former President Joe Biden’s administration’s removal of several Confederate statues. For Gutin, that comparison does not hold up. She said, “Pulling down a statue is not demolishing a building that’s been part of our national image and ethos for many years.”

Retired in 2020, Gutin formerly taught communication classes that were partnered with political science, such as classes on campaign persuasion, the history of first ladies and the making of the president, which she taught every four years. 

As part of the course on first ladies, Gutin took Rider students on a trip to Washington to take a public tour of the White House, which included touring the East Wing. 

Having visited the historical landmark at least four times herself, Gutin explained that it was important to have her students visit the White House because of the national symbol it represents for Americans as “the people’s house.” 

“It’s a different way to look at history, communication and politics,” Gutin said. “[The history of first ladies] is another set of stories. … I always thought it was a segment of students’ education that I could fill in a little bit.”   

Since the demolition, news coverage on the White House’s construction has zeroed in. CNN’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Thompson has reportedly told staffers to “ease up” on covering Trump’s demolition after he paid a visit to the presidential palace, according to an Oct. 27 article from the New York Post, while The Washington Post editorial board praised the controversial decision. 

“The White House cannot simply be a museum to the past. Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness,” The Post wrote in their Oct. 25 editorial. 

An Oct. 23 edition of East Wing Magazine, a publication dedicated to covering past and present presidential first ladies, called out the first ladies who have not yet commented on their historic workplace — former first ladies Jill Biden, Michelle Obama and Laura Bush. 

Almeida explained that Trump’s demolition of the East Wing is working in his favor by playing into what he calls the “negative publicity is good publicity” motto. He said, “If I were in his shoes, it just seems like a desperate attempt to be put in the history books.” 

With the demolition of the East Wing having several snowball effects, Gutin said her biggest concern is the removal of the first ladies’ offices. While Jill Biden was at the White House serving alongside her husband, former President Joe Biden, she had an estimate of 15 people who worked under her. Gutin explained that first lady historians, like herself, have noted how little first lady Melania Trump is seen in the White House, and more specifically, in the East Wing. She has also not commented on the demolition. 

Gutin said her biggest hope is that the offices of future first ladies will still exist somewhere else. 

 “I don’t want to see the first lady buried,” Gutin said. “I want her, or maybe someday him, to have the physical structure there to support the first spouse, whoever it is.”