Brendan Smialowski/AFP / Getty Images

Updated October 29, 2025 at 4:34 PM PDT

When workers tore down the East Wing to make room for President Trump's new ballroom earlier this month, several longtime White House staples were also lost: the public entrance to the presidential grounds, the first lady's office, the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and a movie theater. First Ladies and their staff worked there for decades.

"It has long been a space of female power and a female niche in the White House," said Elizabeth Rees, a historian and research fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. "With the West Wing being a traditionally male-dominated space, the East Wing was a unique physical space for women to work…and provided them with their own environment in which to flourish."

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