The Facade Falls: A Ballroom in the People’s House

A gilded monument to power rises where the public once entered.

On Monday, October 20, 2025, heavy machinery began tearing off a portion of the east façade of the East Wing of the White House. A backhoe ripped windows out of their frames, the entrance canopy was disassembled, and dust drifted across the grounds of the Treasury Department. The project is a proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom, a lavish new event spac…