photo #9397464

Here’s an interesting bit of White House history.When Harry Truman became president in 1945, the White House was literally falling apart. The building had been altered repeatedly over nearly 150 years, with plumbing, wiring, heating systems, and additional floors putting enormous stress on its aging wooden structure. Floors sagged, walls cracked, and chandeliers actually swayed.Then, in 1948, something happened that symbolized just how serious the problem had become. A leg of Margaret Truman’s baby grand piano broke through the floor of her second-floor sitting room, knocking plaster from the ceiling below.Engineers concluded that the White House was structurally unsafe. The Truman family moved across Pennsylvania Avenue to Blair House, where they lived for more than three years.What followed was extraordinary. Workers completely gutted the White House, leaving the historic exterior stone walls, roof, and third floor. Inside, they constructed a new foundation and a massive steel-and-concrete framework, then rebuilt the rooms around it.Truman insisted on preserving the historic exterior. When the family finally returned in March 1952, the White House looked much as it had before—but underneath, it was essentially a brand-new building.So the White House, the People's House, we see today is, in large part, the house Harry Truman saved. Yet, the vast majority of Americans either forgot or didn't know. Why is that? BECAUSE IT'S NOT CALLED "THE WHITE HOUSE, RENOVATED BY HARRY S. TRUMAN!!!" And along the very same lines, leave the fucking John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts alone!!! Fix it...yes. And then move on. Leave the name alone. Adding someone else's name won't make it better. Doing so will cause membership, participation, and revenues to keep declining. Artists will continue to avoid it. Only the Lee Greenwoods of the world will accept a place in the Kennedy Center Honors events. Presidents are temporary occupants and caretakers of national institutions; they don’t own them, even when they renovate or reshape them.