Här har vi en bild inifrån ett utblåst Vitt hus ...
... En till, notera gubbarna på den mark som skall bli källarplan ...
... Ännu en, notera hisschacktet till vänster med grinden ...
... Och så exteriören. Det var 1950, under Trumans tid, som man tog rejält tag i det underhåll som man tydligen legat efter med lite väl länge, och så kom kriget emellan, inte hade det blivit bättre av att administrationen under tiden vuxit rejält. Det började med en balkong (månne några hemmafixare känner igen sig?):
Not long after the Truman Balcony was completed, the main body of the mansion was found to be structurally unsound. Floors no longer merely creaked; they swayed. The president's bathtub was sinking into the floor. A leg of Margaret's piano broke through the floor in what is today the Private Dining Room. Engineers did a thorough examination and found plaster in a corner of the East Room sagging as much as 18 inches. Wooden beams had been weakened by cutting and drilling for plumbing and wiring over 150 years, and the addition of the steel roof and full third floor in 1927 added weight the building could no longer handle. They declared the whole house to be in imminent danger of collapse.
Och på byggde man i princip om allt utom skalet.
White House Museum: Truman Reconstruction
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