White House Press Release

16 # 457 January 11, 1946 The following outline of plans for construction work on the White House grounds is for the information of correspondents: The $1,650,000 construction projects at the white House, may be divided into four main units: (1) Addition to the Executive offices. (2) Completion of the recently constructed East Wing. (3) Interior alterations to the Mansion. (4) Landscaping and improvements to the Grounds. NARA 1. The first construction work will be the addition to the Executive Offices - the West Wing. This new addition will extend south of the Executive office along West Executive Avenue and will be similar in construction and detail to the existing building. The new West facade will be symmetrical with a new main entrance in the center. There will be fifteen thousand feet of new office space to accomodate the President's Executive Assistants, together with a large clerical force, now in office quarters outside the White House. An auditorium will be constructed to the south of the President's Office with seating arrangements for three hundred and seventy-five (375) persons. This will provide urgently needed facilities for ceremonies, Press Conferences, Radio Broadcasts, Photography, Television, Motion Pictures and for other purposes such as meetings and social entertain- ments that have been held in the formal East Room of the Mansion. There will be facilities also in the new addition for increased filing room space, a larger mail room, a small cafeteria, a mimeograph room, and necessary storage and utility rooms. 2. When the West addition is finished the personnel now occupying offices in the East Wing will be transferred to the new quarters and construction will begin on the completion of the East Wing for its originally intended purpose as a White House Museum. Plans for the East Wing were under way the day after war was declared and the corner- stone was laid by the late President Roosevelt on November 5, 1942. During the war, emergency offices in this wing were used by Admiral William D. Leahy, Harry L. Hopkins, Secretary Vinson, Secretary Byrnes, John W. Snyder, and other Presidential Aides. The late President was most interested in the development of plans for this wing and Lorenzo S. Winslow, Architect of the White House, had made numerous sketches for a new East Entrance and Museum at intervals since 1935. The new East Wing will facilitate the reception of guests at large White House social functions, and its use as a museum will tend to further the privacy and homelike atmosphere of "The President's House", as the Executive Mansion was called in the early days of its occupancy. Historic furniture, chinaware, papers and other articles used by the various Presidential families were on display on the ground floor of the White House before the war and the Museum will contain various rooms that will permit these articles to be shown according to the historical and political periods of the country's history to which they belonged. The East Wing now contains also the quarters of the White House guards, the wartime bomb shelter and various store rooms and offices. 3. All alterations to the Mansion itself will be within the building. The architect, Mr. Winslow, emphasizes that no exterior changes will mar the historic appearance of the White House. These interior alterations include complete modernization of the heating system, which utilizes hot air, hot water, and high and low pressure steam, and has been in use since 1902. (OVER)