Historian 'devastated' by White House East Wing demolition

Описание: (24 Oct 2025)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4613041

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Washington - 23 October 2025
1. Wide of White House East Wing demolition

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ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Washington – 18 August 2022
2. Pan from East Wing corridor to first lady portraits
3. Zoom out of East Wing corridor

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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania – 24 October 2025
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Katherine Sibley, history professor at Saint Joseph’s University:
“The East Wing is indelibly linked with the office of the first lady and has been, really since the time of the Roosevelt Administration. Increasingly, of course, in the last 50 years, since Rosalynn Carter professionalized the office.”

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5. SOUNDBITE (English) Katherine Sibley, history professor at Saint Joseph’s University:
“I was devastated. I was really devastated. I was, because we had heard that they were going to save this building, and now it seems they didn't…To me, the devastating piece of it was, not so much the building, but the attitude kind of behind the destruction, which basically said that the first lady's work doesn't really matter to this administration, that it's not important.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE Washington – 21 October 2025
6. Side view of demolition on the East Wing of the White House

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Washington - 23 October 2025
7. Wide of White House East Wing demolition

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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania - 24 October 2025
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Katherine Sibley, history professor at Saint Joseph’s University:
“So, the building is gone, right? We know this now. So, does that mean the first lady is going to stop being significant in American society? I do not think so. ... I think, most likely, no matter what happens, there will be another East Wing. It's really important that the first lady have an office. She has important work to do. So, that is certainly my hope. It may take a while. It may look different. But I don’t think, even when the time, when it’s gone, the building is erased from us, that the legacy of the first lady will ever disappear.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Washington – 17 December 2007
9. STILL of Laura Bush meets with U.N. Special Adviser to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari in her East Wing office in Washington (Photo ID: 25294699721143)

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ARCHIVE: Washington – 20 May 2025
10. STILL of portraits of Laura Bush, Donald Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the East Wing (Photo ID: 25140586055761)

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Washington – 29 April 2022
11. STILL of artworks on display at the East Wing as part of an activity organized by the office of first lady of Jill Biden. (Photo ID: 22119513526627)

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania - 24 October 2025
12. Wide of Sibley working



STORYLINE:
A historian who has spent years studying America’s first ladies said she was “devastated” when hearing of the demolition of the East Wing of the White House — a space she called “the heart” of the first lady’s work since the Roosevelt era — to make way for a new ballroom.

The East Wing, where first ladies created history, planned state dinners and promoted causes, is now history itself. The two-story structure of drawing rooms and offices, including workspace for first ladies and their staffs, has been turned into rubble, demolished as part of President Donald Trump's plan to build a ballroom nearly twice the size of the White House at an updated cost of $300 million.


AP Video by Tassanee Vejpongsa



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