What President Trumps REALLY needs to add to the White House

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth this past week about the latest antics of President Donald Trump.  The East Wing of the White House has been effectively destroyed, to make way for a new ball room.

Here's the way the White House complex looked prior to the demolition of the East Wing:

The East Wing only dates back to the 1940s.  It really hasn't done too terribly much, to be honest.  It's become more or less the province of the first lady, though that's never been a designated official capacity.  The East Wing can't honestly be said to be part of the truly historic and traditional White House grounds.  And the White House has never been a static location anyway.  It's been added to, remodeled and renovated almost since its beginnings more than two centuries ago.  America has grown and evolved (ideally for the better) and the White House has evolved with it.  And it probably always will be, for as long as America is a republic (if we can keep that).

The East Room of the White House has always been a relatively small setting for formal and especially diplomatic functions.  A spacious environment for such affairs is something that pretty much every other modern state has.  The United States does not.  We've had to do with the tiny East Room.  And I'm wondering what Ronald Reagan would have done about adding a ball room.  He would have probably been all for it, though I think that at that moment in American history he would have been more fixated on ending the Cold War.  Still, a ball room for state occasions would have been right up his alley.  It would have been quite an elegant and versatile addition to the White House.  One that would doubtless bear witness to much history for generations to come.

So count me as someone who believes there's nothing inordinately inappropriate about what Trump is doing with the East Wing.  The plans were already announced months ago that this would be happening.  It's not like this is suddenly out of nowhere.

But personally, I think that President Trump isn't going far enough in his design for the presidential residence...

One of the things that was demolished this past week, along with the rest of the East Wing, was the White House movie theater.  Originally a cloak room that was converted on Franklin Roosevelt's orders in 1942, the movie theater has since been enjoyed by every president and his family .  Reagan was particularly fond of it.  I've heard from a few sources that the White House will sooner than later have a new movie theater, one that's much more modern and high-tech.

Well, here's my idea: if Trump wants to go all out for the White House, it can't get much bigger than installing its own IMAX screen:

For less than a million dollars IMAX will install your own private movie screen.  That's less than peanuts to a man like Donald Trump.  Or he can really make his mark on the Washington D.C. landscape by constructing an adjoining IMAX building like the one in Branson, Missouri.  Heh-heh... can you imagine the sight of something like THAT next to the core White House mansion?  It could have the big IMAX logo and everything.

I'm only trying to think a little forward, is all!

Categories: Donald trump, history, imax, movies, washington d.c., white house