The West Wing of the White House

The West Wing is the part of the White House in which the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, and the Situation Room are located. Besides serving as the day-to-day office of the President of the United States, it includes offices for senior members of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and their support staff.

In the early 20th century, new buildings were added to the wings at either side of the main White House to accommodate the President's growing staff, which had previously occupied an office located in the U.S. Capitol. Both new wings are largely concealed from view because their height is lower than the main house.

Before the building of the new West Wing, presidential staff worked on the second floor. However, when Theodore Roosevelt became President following the assassination of President McKinley, he came to the White House with his wife and 8 children. Soon realizing that the existing offices in the Mansion were insufficient to accommodate his family as well as his staff, he had the West Wing constructed by the New York architects McKim, Mead & White. The West Wing was originally constructed as a temporary office structure, built overtop of the site of the greenhouse and stables. In the original design, the President's office was located in the center of the West Wing, where the Roosevelt Room now exists. In 1909, William Howard Taft had the interior remodeled, creating the Oval Office for the first time, reminicent of the 3 ovular offices in the Mansion (the Diplomatic Reception Room on the first floor, the Blue Room on the State Floor, and the Yellow Oval in the Presidential Residence).

On December 24, 1929, under President Hoover, the West Wing was significantly damaged by an electrical fire. In 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt became President, he undertook the third and final major reorganization with a new Oval Office being constructed in the Southeast corner of the West wing; he disliked the original central location because it lacked windows and, as a result, was entirely reliant on skylights (sidenote: FDR had all skylights in the White House complex covered over, including the leaded glass rotundas in the Old Executive Office Building, during World War II, as he thought they would make an inviting target for enemy bombers). The new office's location also gave presidents greater privacy, allowing them to slip back and forth between the main White House and the West Wing without being in full view of the West Wing staff. During the period, the March of Dimes constructed a swimming pool so that FDR could exercise, given his disability due to polio. The swimming pool still exists to this day, the bottom of which is viewable through a trapdoor in the floor of the Brady Press Briefing Room, where the Press Secretary gives his daily briefings.

In 1969, to accommodate the growing number of reporters assigned to the White House and based in the West Wing, Richard Nixon had the by-then unused pool covered over and turned into the Press Center, where the White House Press Secretary gives daily briefings. Nixon also renamed the room (which, prior to the rebuilding after the 1929 fire, had been the first Oval Office) as the Roosevelt Room, in honor of the two Presidents Roosevelt: Theodore, who first built the West Wing, and Franklin, who built the current Oval Office. By tradition, a portrait of Franklin Roosevelt hangs in the room during the administration of a president from the Democratic Party and a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt hangs during the administration of a Republican president.

As presidential staffs grew substantially in the latter half of the 20th century, the West Wing generally came to be seen as too small for its modern governmental functions. Today, some members of the President's staff are located in the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building —originally the State, War, and Navy Building, which housed those Departments.