I just did a Google Maps measurement of the White House grounds
We are told that Trump wants to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom and that he needed to remove the East Wing of the White House to get it in there.
According to Google Maps, it's only 150 feet from where the west wall of the East Wing used to stand to the fenceline encasing the White House property. Security considerations preclude taking the building all the way to the fence, so we'll say the ballroom can be no more than 100 feet wide. 90,000/100 = 900 feet long. If you start at the northern wall of the former East Wing, 900 feet lands your southern wall in the middle of E Street. The logical place to put this ballroom would have been below-grade on the north side of the White House - the fancy part that all the tourists want to see is on the south side - and by doing so, no demolition would have been required.
The question I'm starting to ask myself is, is Trump really planning to build a ballroom or did he just rip one end off the White House to be a vindictive dickhead?
= new reply since forum marked as read
This image taken Thursday from a SkySat Earth observation satellite shows that the East Wing of the White House is gone. Credit: Planet Labs PBC
Without press access to see the demolition firsthand, it fell to a camera hundreds of miles above the White House to see what was really happening at the East Wing. Planet Labs released an image taken Thursday morning from one of its SkySat satellites showing the 123-year-old annex leveled.
What became known as the East Wing was first constructed in 1902 and was then rebuilt in 1942 during the Franklin Roosevelt administration to create more office space and provide cover for a bunker during World War II. In modern presidencies, the East Wing was typically home to the first lady’s staff.
Planet Labs, based in San Francisco, operates a fleet of hundreds of small Earth-imaging satellites mapping the planet every day. The company sells its imagery to commercial customers and the US government, including intelligence agencies, which use the imagery to augment the surveillance capabilities of more exquisite government-owned spy satellites.
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The SkySat satellite used for Thursday’s examination of the White House flies at an altitude of approximately 295 miles (475 kilometers). It can capture imagery with a resolution of about 20 inches (50 centimeters) per pixel. Planet Labs owns 15 SkySats, each with three overlapping 5.5-megapixel imaging sensors fitted under a downward-facing 14-inch-diameter (35-centimeter) telescope, according to the company.
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Presidential Emergency Operations Center, basically a pre-existing bunker to ensure the safety of the very important, entitled people in a large-scale emergency. The bunker is beneath the now destroyed East Wing. If Trump wants to expand this to anywhere near his proposed ballroom, I guess all his donors could fit in there too with gilded, posh accouterments; a well-stocked bar (and a lifetime of Diet Coke); food supplies; medical supplies including recreational drugs; and underage girls galore.
The question is, of course (if this has any credibility): Why would Trump want a Dooms-Day bunker?
Is this where he plans to hide once the American Citizenry have had enough and decide to storm the Bastille, as they say? Or is this in case whatever war he decides to enter goes sideways?
Inquiring people want to know.
