Navy Mess corridor
There are some great new photos available on the White House Flickr photostream, including shots of the Halloween decor and photos showing the Oval Office corridor and outer office as well as this great one of the corridor in the ground floor leading to the Navy Mess.
I’ve changed the front page to one of the Treaty Room in Taft’s time. Oddly, this is the first time the Treaty Room has served as the front page in all of the 3-and-a-half years since I started the site.
Also added a marvelous Halloween photo of the north lawn.
I’ve added a few new photos based on your suggestions, including some of the vegetable garden groundbreaking and harvest. Thanks!
I did another pass thru the Library of Congress and found a few new photos, including the Roosevelt Room before it was even the Fish Room and the Ushers Room and Linen Room. These happen to feature staff, and it’s nice to see Mr. Crim and Mrs. Nesbitt in what are practically portraits.
I also added a couple of brand new photos of the Tennis Court as basketball court.
There are some great new photos available on the White House Flickr photostream, including several of the tennis court as a basketball court and some showing new carpet in the West Wing. Thanks to Colton for pointing this out!
New photos were added to the White House Flickr stream yesterday. There a few nice ones in the White House itself, including one in the Family Theater.
Oh, and, uh, the Treaty Room has been redecorated apparently in burlap.
Have you seen me?
I got a question about the location of Hassam’s The [or Fifth] Avenue in the Rain painting during the second Bush administration. I recall looking for it at one time and not finding it, but does anyone recall seeing it hanging anywhere in one of the White House videos, perhaps?
It hangs now in the Oval Office, next to the desk, as shown in the new photo I’ve posted.
I’ve changed the front page for October to one of my favorites: Jackie Kennedy’s bedroom.
I’ve continued looking for new photos on the Library of Congress site, the Google Life photos site, and the White House Flickr feed, but there isn’t much new. I have some video captures that were sent to me that I’ve been meaning to add, but there’s not a whole lot that’s really new, just slightly different perspectives.
Painter in the Cross Hall
At last we’ve got some good new photos on the White House Flickr feed. These include some in the West Wing and also a rather nice one of fresh paint in the Cross Hall. Here’s a close up one that one.
I changed the front page to a beautiful photo of Mrs.s Ford and Rockefeller in the yellow-clad Solarium that I first used three years ago.
I also added a couple of new photos that I found on the Google-Life magazine site.
The White House has released some more new photos over the last several days, but there aren’t many that show interesting details of the mansion or wings. One that show the Resolute desk could have been nice, but the depth of field is so short that the president is in focus but the front of the desk isn’t.
The summer time of the first year of an administration is a natural period of a lot of travel. I suspect the first family will settle down soon as the holidays approach, and we’ll see some more interesting photos come out.
I’ve just added two new photos of 1 Observatory Circle that Seth B pointed me to. Great pics of the back of the house.
Multi-time White House hopeful, brother to statesmen John and Robert Kennedy, Senator Ted Kennedy died last night after a lengthy period of poor health. Certainly a polarizing figure in his personal as well as political life, the senator was personally known to be generous and capable of compromise. Condolences to his family.
Peter Sharkey writes:
I was watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire yesterday and a contestant was able to work all the way up to the Million-dollar question and that question was:
For ordering his favorite beverages on demand, LBJ had four buttons installed in the Oval Office labeled “coffee,” “tea,” “Coke” and what? A. Fresca, B. V8, C. Yoo-hoo, D. A&W” Basin answered Yoo Hoo which was wrong, and lost the $1,000,000 prize money.I thought it was an interesting tidbit of info.
Oh, man. I totally knew that one.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: LBJ was the crazy uncle of American presidents. Policies aside, I would be just like him. “More water pressure! Shut off those lights! I’ve named my dogs after pronouns! I named by daughter after myself! I don’t trust a man unless I’ve got his @#$%#$ in my pocket!”
The September issue of the typewriter enthusiast’s ETCetera Magazine is out, and features an article by Peter Weil detailing the creation and operation of the old White House telegraph and communications room. I’m happy to say that WHM was a help to him in the creation of the article, and he graciously acknowledged the site for information, photos, and diagrams. Thanks, Peter!
Just a few months into the new administration, and fresh and interesting photos of the White House have become few and far between. I’ve been spending most of my time on my other websites, but today, I’ve added a few new pictures that freshen up the Entrance Hall, Situation Room, and Elevator Hall. See the What’s New page.
Had a short phone interview with an Esquire writer who is working on their answer column. We talked about the front door and the role of the chief usher in handling arrivals of the first family.
There are at last some new photos of the White House on the official Flickr photostream. I don’t think there’s anything there that it new to us, but I’ll keep looking.
Also, I’ve been sent some great video captures from recent video tours of the WH. I’ll add some of those soon. And I just got delivery of Reilly of the White House, a 1947 memoir of a Secret Service man that promises to have some interesting tidbits.
I’ve changed the front page for August to a pic of the Family Dining Room around 1900 that I had used a couple of years ago.
Not much has been happening lately that has resulted in photo releases by the White House or other outlets, either of new or historical photos, and I’ve been quite busy with work life, but I continue to monitor the usual sources.
Meanwhile, Jack M sent along a link to a terrific article on Harry Truman from the perspective of his grandson, from the National Archives. This is mostly the post-White House Truman but includes the description of a trip to the Johnson White House. Very amusing.
I don’t usually address WH security at all, but I was e-mailed a question about the history of the perimeter fence and ended up finding a very interesting Secret Service report on WH security (hosted by the Federation of American Scientists). It was written at the time of some security incidents in the mid-1990s that resulted in the closing of Penn Ave in front of the mansion. It includes interesting tidbits like the history of presidential security and the number of trespassers in the then-recent past.
UPDATE: The question in question was graciously answered by William Bushong of the White House Historical Association. I reprint his excellent reply here with respect.
While not always restricted to the public, walls and fences have surrounded the White House grounds almost as long as the mansion has been occupied. When John Adams moved into the new house in 1800, construction sheds and debris littered the yard. Trespassers chopped down many of the older trees for firewood. Thomas Jefferson prepared plans in 1803 to cultivate the grounds into lawns, groves and gardens. He cordoned off eight of the 82 available acres within President’s Park erecting a split-rail fence to the north and an eight-foot-high stonewall to the south, thus introducing fences to the White House landscape by 1808.
Though the immediate South grounds became a vegetable and flower garden for the first family, the enclosed North grounds remained open, as did the White House itself —a symbol of Jefferson’s commitment to an open and free democracy. By 1820, President James Monroe had replaced the rail fence with one of black-painted iron, the same style still seen there today. Iron gates on stone posts remained open during daylight hours. However, the stone barrier on the south remained unchanged. Mischievous youths often painted their names on the wall until its removal in 1873.
President Grant built a new iron south fence at the end of his first administration. With time, the South grounds became accessible for public strolls and band concerts, as its gates were open daily. The introduction of May garden parties in the late nineteenth century brought ever more guests to the grounds, offering sweets, music, and a cherished visit by the president to those invited. One event, however, left the South gates closed for some time. During his second term, Grover Cleveland’s beloved daughter Ruth was plucked out of her baby carriage on the south lawn by a group of visiting women and passed around to receive their coddling and kisses. So alarmed was Mrs. Cleveland that the South gates were ordered locked, not to be reopened for some years. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the start of World War II, the grounds were closed to all but those with appointments and guarded at their perimeters from newly installed gatehouses. The driveway was emptied and the custom of leaving calling cards at the North door was discontinued.
Today, copies of Monroe’s fence surround the White House and its 18 acres of lawn and gardens. While ever-present security concerns usually keep the grounds closed to all but invited guests, the public is still welcomed in three times a year for fall and spring garden tours and for one of the White House’s most historic traditions – the White House Easter Egg Roll.
Interesting look at the homes of government leaders from around the world.
Some time ago, I created a blueprint-style image of the south elevation of the mansion as a front page. Today, I’ve followed up with a north elevation in the same style. As usual, you can see all the front pages on the Front Page Gallery.
Happy Independence Day!
The White House photo stream has some nice new pics of the south lawn and West Wing interiors. In some of them, the president has got that football again. He’d better not come crying to me if he breaks something and gets grounded for a week.
Tonight, Secret America aired on the Discovery Channel, and one portion of it concerned the White House. At one point, a Library of Congress curator shows a detailed drawing of a castle-like design for a summer White House in the Rocky Mountains. This is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before; and it doesn’t appear to be available on the LOC website.
Does anyone know more about it?
The White House has released a number of new photos taken in the West Wing. Here are an interesting couple of photos of the president chatting with Congressional leaders on the patio outside the Chief of Staff Office, a site rarely seen. Also, a really good one of the ceiling medallion in the Oval Office. And here is one looking thru the passage between the Blue Room and the Green Room that really shows the paneled storage doors.
And cheers to Nancy Reagan (shown here on left) on the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth.
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