8 thoughts on “The triumphant return of Peter Sharkey”

  2. Have you seen the White House turkey pardoning spoof video? Lots of carpet-level footage of the West Wing. I don’t think I’ve seen the WW from that perspective before.

  3. Re the state dinner this week, the photos show that the guests arrived at the East Wing entrance and proceeded to the Visitors Foyer for the photo op, then they entered the WH at the ground floor level center hall. Did they pass in front of the library and go up the center hall staircase to the first floor? Is that stairway a continuation of the grand staircase? How did the guests get to the tent on the South Lawn from the main floor of the White House?

  4. Hi Martha,

    The media is reporting that there was a cocktail reception in the East Room at the beginning of the event. So they did arrive and walk past the Library, up the stairs over to the East Room. The stairway is not a direct continuation of the Grand Staircase. I’m not sure exactly what path they took to get out to the tent, but in some past events the path has been from the East Room to the Cross Hall, then Blue Room, then out the South Portico steps.

    In this photo you can see people exiting past the musicians to go to a tent.

  5. Hi Peter

    Nice photo. Thanks. Love the shot of the cellist sitting in front of the railing. (I used to play the cello.) On further examination, I noted that one of the “windows” in the blue room is actually a door which provides an exit to the South Portico.
    There doesn’t seem to be a photo on this website of the top of the center hall staircase where it exits into the cross hall.

  6. Hi Martha. There are also job doors on the Green Room and Red Room which allow for exiting out onto the South Portico. The reason there aren’t many if any photos of the top of the staircase is that it doesn’t exit onto the cross hall, but has the Entrance hall to it’s left and State Dining Room to the right. the specific landing at the top of the stairs ( to my understanding) is a pretty unimpressive spot. But it would be interesting to find a photo somewhere.

    In this photo you can see the doorway built into the window off the Red Room onto the South Portico.

  8. Peter

    Didn’t you mean that the center hall staircase exits to the entrance hall and the East Room? Actually that’s practical as it enables arriving guests to be steered away from the bottom of the grand staircase where the Presidential couple and the guests of honor make their grand descent to start the party.

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