Talk:White House/Archive 1

It should be mentioned that initially it was called the Executive Mansion, only officially being called the White House later. --141.219.44.92

A friend of mine went to whitehouse.com one time at work. Not a pretty sight, having to explain that to his boss (who saw it). Koyaanis Qatsi 00:17 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Someone keeps changing the whitehouse.gov link and other links to porn sites - can the external links be locked down?

I've just added on the Shropshire page the fact the the Shropshire regiment burned it down in 1814... User:Alun Ephraim 16th October 1814 ;)

West Wing TV show

The sentence about the TV show The West Wing and its set is confusing. Is it meant that the TV show makes the west wing look larger than it is in real life? As it stands, the sentence seems to say that the TV show somehow makes the real west wing look bigger.

I'm rearranging the sentences in the West Wing section; is it really that important that the common understanding of working arrangements was altered by a TV show? JHCC 15:12, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I stumbled across what looks like the source material for the line about the set versus reality: [1]. Press Secretary McClellan says "I've only been able to watch the TV show a couple of times. One thing I notice that stuck out was the large number of people running around the west wing. There are a relatively small number of maybe 50 - 70 people that work in the west wing and you don't see people running around the hall ways all the time." That sounds to me like it means a small number of people work in the real west wing, and the real one looks less crowded. I admit that the quote has some ambiguity, but I interpret it as described because he presumably knows how many people work in the real west wing. McClellan goes on to say that "The offices and rooms on the show appear to be quite large -- while the west wing is in the center of activity -- the offices and rooms are somewhat small." So regarding the size of the rooms, this sounds less ambiguous and matches the current state of the article. If it helps anyone, I think the information about the TV show originally appeared on this wiki page on 11 Feb, 2003. If I don't see any further comment about this topic, I will change the article to say "real one has fewer people" in so many words. It feels like overkill to include the whole quote for a small but worthwhile (IMO) bit of information. --Officiallyover 05:41, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Maybe I expressed it badly. When I meant was the west wing is actually very small. It was designed to accomodate a handful of staff under FDR, who rebuilt the interior after a fire. But as the number of people working there has increased I think someone said tenfold the space has become crowded. McClellan is right. There is far less running around. (That's just a TV device to give the image of activity. Showing people at their desks looks less active, even if they are doing a lot of work on their computers.) But it is ludicrously small to run a government from. It is the same as with 10 Downing Street; a small building now the hub of a massive governmental system. Blair once considered moving to another building completely but it would have been too controversial. People can be moved to the Old Executive Office Building where there is more space, but people still demand to be in the West Wing for its symbolism. Even the press won't move, even though their space is ludicrously limited. The place is so small the current press room is constructed on false floor over the old presidential swimming pool.

Just how small it is isn't captured in the sets. But then also TV seriously distorts scale. I was in a news studio recently. On TV it looks like a massive high tech space. It actually is a tiny clump of plywood desks, with decorative striped lines on the backdrop that are really strips of celotape. Many people have bigger bathrooms than that studio really is. The same is probably true. Even if the set is exactly the same scale as the real place (and it can't be to create camera shots, enable cameras to move. etc) the visual distortion that is natural on television will make the place look bigger anyway. FearÉIREANN 21:30, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Presidents

Why was John Adams only the first president to live here? User:Patricknoddy User talk:Patricknoddy 16:39 August 22, 2004 (EDT)

It took 17 years to build the White House (1792 until 1809). George Washington died in 1799, before construction was finished. John Adam moved in while construction was still going on. →Raul654 21:47, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

the comment 'With inflation, this would be approximately equivalent to $2.4 million today.' is very interesting, but since 'today' keeps changing (along with the inflationary value of the dollar), why don't we change this to be a fixed date?

e.g.: With inflation, this would be approximately equivalent to $2.4 million 2004 dollars.

It should also be noted as the unofficial headquarters of Halliburton.

• No, it shouldn't. This is utter nonsense. That is why every time you attempt to add it to the main article, it is being removed. --Durin 00:33, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

• Actually, I would argue that thought eh Halliburton bit is ridiculous, the inflation bit is VERY important. What if this document should last for 5 years, with an annual inflation rate of roughly 2%, that adds up over a few years. And what if the figure were from say, 1998? Then the inflation rate is already outdated greatly.

Truman Balcony

The Truman balcony on the south portico actually slightly predates the renovation of 1948, contrary to what the article says, but I'm not sure how that should be worked into the article. Schuminweb 05:30, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Urban legend?

Ive had multiple profs of American history, and some texts of American history tell me that the White House was only named so after the British burned it during the war of 1812.

Is there any documentation to this claim that it was called the white house prior to the burning?

I have such information somewhere in my books about the name "White House" being informally used from the beginning, even before the 1814 fire. I'll have to look around and see what I can find. I know that the name "White House" did not become official until the administration of Teddy Roosevelt, but I want to say that it was referred to as the White House prior to the fire. Again, I'll have to go hunting and see what I can find. Schuminweb 04:28, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay... according to White House History: Journal of the White House Historical Association (1983) at the top of page 39, "Faded documents among old federal records tell us that in 1797 laborers at the unfinished President's House began mixing whitewash to apply to the mansion's newly laid stone walls. The Aquia Creek sandstone of which the White House is constructed is a porous material, and the whitewash was intended as a sealer. The brilliant white, semi-transparent wash also gave uniformity to the mottled stone, making it, indeed, a 'white house' three years before a President came to occupy it."

So that's what the documentation that I can find says. It leaves the original question ambiguous (was it called "White House" before the fire?) but does establish that the building was first painted white well before the 1814 fire. Schuminweb 04:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

The "Lincoln Bedroom"

Is there room in the article for the fact that the floor plan of the White House was changed during the Truman administration reconstruction, and that such rooms as the "Lincoln Bedroom" were so named at that time? I seem to remember a mini-scandal when one guest or another was accomodated in that room. Too Old 01:52, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

That's my understanding - that the Lincoln Bedroom was so named during the Truman renovation. In Lincoln's time, the room was Lincoln's office, and it served other functions before and since. So the "Lincoln" designation is appropriate, having served as Lincoln's office.

As for changes to the floor plan, as I understand it, the floor plan was not changed significantly, with any changes mostly being minor things like turning the West Sitting Hall into a true room, and turning the Center Hall into a sitting room as well. Both of these rooms that I mentioned, by the way, are on the second floor. The only major exception was the grand staircase, which was repositioned to open into the Entrance Hall, instead of the Cross Hall as it did before. But otherwise, they stuck quite faithfully to the floor plan as renovated by Theodore Roosevelt. Schuminweb 04:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Whitehouse Tapes

I came across this site http://www.whitehousetapes.org/ WhiteHouseTapes.org which has Presidential recordings with relevant research materials of the 5,000 hours of conversations secretly recorded by six American presidents Between 1940 and 1973 and wondering in which article and where it can be included. Any suggestions are welcome - Mahadevan Subramanian 10:03, August 11, 2005 (UTC)