Letter: Here’s How To Protest Trump’s Renovation of the White House. We Have Until March 4
Demolition of the East Wing of the White House, October 2025. Photo: c/o Alt National Park Service
Last week, I published an article in the Indy about threats to our public art and architecture and the effort to save the Wilbur J. Cohen building in Washington, D.C. from demolition. But the issue is broader than the fight to save this building. There are a number of onslaughts on public history more generally. These start with the assault on DEI work and the impact of that assault on interpreting historic sites and teaching history (See also here).
A timeline from the Southern Poverty Law Center examines the steps the Trump administration has taken to revise history. Revisionism, as a practice in the academy, is a useful trend that can do much to expand and deepen themes and topics in the study and teaching of history. Revisions are part of how we understand our past, confront our present, and build better for the future, but the unprecedented (back when this word had meaning) reverse curve in policy is now fueled by racism. It seems to have begun in February 2025 when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced unilaterally that the administration was restoring the Confederate name [Fort Bragg] for Fort Liberty in California.
More recently, we have witnessed the demolition, again, with total impunity and no due process (as with other actions by the current administration), of the East Wing of the White House. Trump has got tech billionaires to agree to fund a massive ballroom to take its place.. And the US Commission on Fine Arts (with appointees replaced by Trump in Jan. 2026) has now agreed to his plans.
A good place to stop this general assault would be to pick your battles and shore up your firepower (especially for the midterms), but in the meantime, it would be helpful to oppose the renovation of the East Wing (its so-called “modernization”) by writing to protest the over-sized casino-style proposed ballroom that emulates other Trump projects. It also echos Putin’s similar love of red carpets, gilt, and pseudo-Neo-Classicism.
I am sharing here a call by the National Trust for Historic Preservation that asks citizens to comment on the East Wing proposal. We have until March 4 to submit comments about the proposed ballroom, and they should be sent to the National Capital Planning Commission. To comment, click on this link, then click on the “Submit Written Comments” button. Next, select “East Wing Modernization Project” from the pull-down menu.” Write your comments and don’t forget to press the submit button. Note that the project is called “East Wing Modernization” on the pull-down menu. Here is a possible draft as wording for your comments, although the more specific and personal they are, the better.
I am writing to oppose spending $300 million on the East Wing Modernization project. In my opinion, it razes an important era in American history, when the White House became a place that embraced the work of the First Lady and her staff. This proposal was initiated without proper authorization, or permits, or design review. The East Wing was destroyed with no warning, no Architectural & Engineering Request for Proposals, no bids from contractors, and no abatement of hazardous materials; all as required by federal law.
I would like to see the East Wing rebuilt to its former design (that was scaled and in proportion to the rest of the building) and the administration’s project canceled. The current design is for an out-of-scale, out-of-place, and out-of-time pseudo-historical building.
No one is above the law and to permit this project to go ahead without penalizing those who broke the law would be an affront to all law-abiding Americans.
Hetty Startup
Hetty Startup is an architectural historian who lives in Amherst, where she serves on the Historical Commission and works with college students. She is a frequent contributor to the Amherst Indy.
Here is a follow up from the letter-writing campaign
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-white-house-ballroom-vote-approve-b2932313.html
The Washington Post and CNN reported yesterday (3/5) that the committee that must approve the ballroom has postponed its decision until April 2 after receiving 35,000 letters about the project, 97% of which were opposed. Nonetheless, CNN reports that the project, “despite scathing criticism”, is “poised for approval.” See an architect’s rendition of the ballroom that dwarfs the White House here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SB1B25ykFFtvfQWFN4sDtcqWIbbAL65q/view?usp=sharing
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/05/white-house-ballroom-public-comments/
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/politics/trump-east-wing-ballroom-commission-vote
Here’s an update on Trump’s wanton assault on Washington, D.C.’s traditional architecture. This is from Heather Cox Richardson’s ” Letters from an American”.
“In the Washington Post on Monday, architecture critic Philip Kennicott examined how Trump is smashing the historic lines and architecture of the national capital.”
“Trump’s plan for a gargantuan 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dominate the original White House and cut into the lines of the driveway designed a century ago by the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. His proposed 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery would be the largest triumphal arch in the world, overshadowing the nearby Lincoln Memorial. His proposed “National Garden of American Heroes” between the Lincoln Memorial and the Tidal Basin would take the park near monuments dedicated to Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and fill it with hastily made statues to “showbiz stars, folk heroes, and sports celebrities.””
“By stuffing oversight panels with his own cronies, Trump has destroyed the process of design review intended to preserve Washington as a city whose layout and design reflects the simplicity, dignity, and majesty of the American people. Yesterday the White House began the process of ripping the beige Tennessee flagstone pavers out of the West Colonnade that connects the Oval Office and West Wing to the Executive Residence. Trump wants to replace them with black granite, which will contrast more effectively with the gold doodads and the gold-framed portraits in the “Presidential Walk of Fame” Trump has installed along the walk”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-24-2026
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/03/23/trump-washington-architecture-ballroom-arch/
Thanks for adding these links, Art. Just to keep this going, here is a recent piece from PBS about this topic, that I found particularly poignant for veterans. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trumps-vision-for-d-c-draws-design-backlash-and-court-challenges
A century ago, the circular driveway could be used, and was — people lined up along it to shake hands with the President, memory is as late as Harry Truman this was done.
Today it can’t be used because of security concerns. That’s the world we live in and have to deal with.
I don’t know — don’t want to know — the extent to which FDR‘s 86-year-old bunker, designed to meet threats of that era, isn’t sufficient to protect THE President. Not Trump, not Biden, but the president. I strongly suspect that the USSS is it least strongly, supportive of a new bunker designed to meet today’s threats, including CBW.
Likewise, while I don’t want to know the details, I would be very disappointed if this new ballroom wasn’t armored enough to stop a rifle bullet, and at least slow down on RPG — which a tent clearly can’t do.
We live in a dangerous world. We need to protect our president and we need to protect the guests that are coming to various events, and I firmly believe that a good portion of the push for this ballroom is to have a secure envelope where we don’t have to worry about VIPs being assassinated. We really don’t want that to happen for a whole bunch of reasons, anyone remember how World War One started???
How much of the opposition of this is based on the facts, and how much is hatred of Trump? The Be honest folks, what would you have said if Obama had done this?
I’m serious about the security, people have shot bullets into the White House, and that is in the public record, this is the world we live
I don’t like the fact that Pennsylvania Avenue is closed, it makes a mess of traffic. But this is the world we live in…..