Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Grab bag and a puzzle
Dropped a few new photos in of various areas, including an intriguing one of the Roosevelt Room. The new one shows the ceiling very well with what appears to be a skylight. My (well, Pete's) floor plan of the second floor does not show a skylight well, so I wonder if it's really just a flourescent fixture, but Pete pointed out that there is a roof pylon in the right place that presumably is a skylight.
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The more I look at the photos the more I wonder if they're really skylights. They may be strictly decorative. When you look at the 1948 WW photo you can see the glass pilons on the roof. But since then? Maybe they changed it?
ReplyDeletesorry this is out of point, but while looking at the resolute desk page, i realised the eagle on the Seal of the President of the United States is turned to face the arrows instead of the olive branch. Any idea why?
ReplyDeleteLee,
ReplyDeleteThe eagle panel door on the resolute desk was put there by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to hide the braces he wore on his legs because of polio. The direction of the eagle facing the olive branch was changed by President Harry Truman. So the panel was made before Truman changed the direction of the eagle.
Also, if you will look at the bottom of the desk carefully, you will see the desk has been raised, this was to accomodate FDR's wheelchair.
I also heard that they desk was raised again to accomodate Ronald Reagan's 6'2" frame. Is this true?
ReplyDeleteI don't know about that, I had never read that anywhere. The Reagan Library might be able to answer that question or the Curator of the WH. Interesting though! The reproductions that are on display in the presidential librarys do have the raised bottom. I have seen the ones in the Carter Library (both in the reproduction Oval Office and President Carter's private office in the Carter Center) and the Clinton Library.
ReplyDeleteT
I know that many of Derek's photos of the Oval show the desk with the added bottom.
ReplyDeleteI read it on page 35 of Stephen William's "How to be President"
ReplyDeleteThe 1963 Kennedy Guidebook shows the Resolute Desk already raised on the blocking - or plinth - or whatever the correct term would be, but it was painted black then.
ReplyDeleteIt makes total sense that it would have been raised to acommodate FDR's wheelchair/braces., etc.
I remember seeing the real Resolute Desk at the Smithsonian - probably around 1973 - Nixon's term - when he was using another desk in his office. It looks very, very, very heavy.
thats prolly why it comes apart to make it easier when they move it.
ReplyDeleteProlly.
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember reading somewhere that President Reagan was so easy going that he lived with the desk being too low for awhile before he realized it could be raised up.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the height of the desk says something about the average height of men during the 19th century.
In looking again at the Oval Office pictures in the West Wing to check out the bottom of the desk, I noticed that the picture of Ike "in the Oval Office" is not correct. The Fireplace is completely different from the OO Fireplace which has been the same since the room was built.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that is an error of the Eisenhower Library.
That's a really nice pic of the South Portico on the "What's New page.
ReplyDeleteIt got me thinking (uh-oh..) about how essentially timeless the exterior of the White House is - and how it provides a constant background through changing times.
Think of the John Plumbe 1846 photograph - the house looking very much as it must have when the South Portico was first completed -yet instantly recognizable to us today.
Or a photograph of Union soldiers on the South Lawn during the Civil War. Taken when my ancestor was fighting for General Lee in Virginia... Then, later, pictures of Benjamin Harrison's grandchildren, being pulled in their goat (!?) cart - high button shoes and funny clothes.
The White House enters the automobile age - William H. Taft and Nellie riding in their car back from his inaugural. A smiling Woodrow Wilson, dapper in his Blue Blazer, bounding down the steps, with Edith at his side. and still -in the Roaring Twenties - Mrs. Jaffray's marketing carriage holds the line against the new upstart! (We DO have our standards!)
Franklin Roosevelt's hand-operated Ford, or Eleanor's Plymouth roadster in the driveway. A picture of all the Trumans, dressed up for Church, with the big, black Cadillac, all bulbous curves and chrome, standing by. Ike on his putting green, with the South Portico in the background.
John and Jackie Kennedy, the epitome of "60's" style, meeting a foreign head-of -state, flags bristling in the breeze, with the windows of the Blue Room beyond looking exactly like they did during Lincoln's time. Ronald Reagan, boarding his chopper, waving to the press. "Dubya" checking out a "Green" pickup truck, the South Portico behind him, so very much unchanged.
Take way the mature trees and the ivy on the steps up to the main floor and it could all be yesterday.
The players come and go - the stage - and the presidency - remains.