Friday, January 18, 2008
South Portico sun room?
Along with the better image of the 1911 lights picture, Robert Martin sent along a good one of Cortelyou in his bay-windowed office in the old West Wing and an interesting one of Coolidge with bankers outside the South Portico, where there appears to be a glassed-in room built between the columns. (LOC page for a higher-res look.)
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Cortelyou was appointed Secretary of Commerce and Labor in February of 1903 and held a couple of other cabinet postions after that. So, the photo has to be pre-February 1903.
ReplyDeleteHe spent more time with President McKinley, including being there when McKinley was shot in Buffalo, New York.
1903, got it.
ReplyDeleteThese were actually screens set up to block the view from East Executive Avenue. I have a GREAT picture of the White house taken by my Great Grandmother in 1924 that shows them. I wrote a letter to the White House curator in the early 1990s asking about them and Lydia Tedrick Assistant Curator answered back saying that the Coolidges often liked to eat out on the South Portico and that they had them installed for privacy.
ReplyDeleteThat "glassed-in" structure on the South Portico - could it possibly actually be "screened in"?
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, but the doors in the old west wing (like the pic in Cortelyou's office) - with the transoms look almost exactly like the doors in my place in New Orleans - minus the "White House" cornerblocks on the door casings. Weird to see my doors in a totally different setting!
yeah. I'm thinking screened-in.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine that happening today? I find it more offensive than the Truman balcony. Screening off part of the south portico? Weird.
ReplyDelete