Demolition of the White House East Wing begins on day twenty of the federal shutdown.

Mechanical demolition of the East Wing of the White House began on Monday, October 20. The work is the first phase of a planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom addition. The new structure, on the architectural plans released by the administration in July, would be substantially larger in floor area than the existing residence portion of the White House. Cost estimates from the administration place the project at approximately $250 million.

The Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum stating that the construction is funded by private donors and that the appropriations lapse currently in effect therefore does not affect the project. As of October 20, the federal government has been shut down for twenty days. Air traffic controllers are working without pay. Eight hundred thousand federal workers are furloughed. The Smithsonian is closed. Federal Park Service interpreters are not interpreting. A continuing resolution has not been passed.

The East Wing, in its existing form, has stood since 1942. It was constructed during the Roosevelt administration to house the social secretary, the calligraphy office, the visitor entrance, and, beneath it, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. The First Lady’s offices, traditionally located there, were vacated in advance of the demolition. Photographs released to the press show heavy equipment removing the southeastern facade.

The administration’s argument that private funding insulates the project from the optics of the shutdown is, as a matter of accounting, accurate. The argument that private funding insulates the project from the politics of the shutdown is a different argument. A federal building, located on land owned by the United States, modified at the direction of the executive branch, on a timeline that proceeds while the rest of the executive branch’s payroll is on hold, is, in the public’s mental model, federal construction. The funding mechanism is a footnote.

A preservation group will sue in December seeking to halt the work for failure to follow the federal review processes that govern modifications to historic structures on federal land. A district court will grant preliminary relief in March. The litigation, on the public record, will proceed in parallel with the construction.

A serious country tears down its East Wing on a calendar that does not coincide with the day its air traffic controllers are working unpaid.

Calmly documenting the decline.