A new casualty has emerged in Donald Trump’s teardown of the East Wing: Satellite imagery has revealed he has destroyed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.
It is the second time the 47th president has taken aim at the legacy of his predecessor John F. Kennedy’s wife, after concreting over the grass in her Rose Garden to make way for a Mar-a-Lago style patio.
Now satellite imagery has revealed that the garden dedicated to Kennedy after her husband’s assassination has been torn up in his full-scale destruction of the East Wing.
The garden, also know as the First Lady’s Garden, has stood south of the East Terrace Colonnade since 1903, when then–First Lady Edith Roosevelt created a colonial-style plot, according to the National Park Service.
But Kennedy created it in its current form by commissioning designer “Bunny” Mellon, who also created the Rose Garden, to beautify the plot. She incorporated a lawn and French elements, inspired by Kennedy’s love of France, to create the garden as it was until this week.
When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration took over the renovation. After it was completed, then–First Lady Lady Bird Johnson dedicated the garden to her predecessor at a ceremony she attended. The pergola was designed by I.M. Pei. Its current fate is unknown.
The “moving” ceremony to honor Jackie O’s sacrifices was held in April 1965, according to White House archives, featuring speeches from First Lady Johnson and Jackie Kennedy’s mother, Janet Auchincloss.
The intimate area has played host to outdoor receptions over more than six decades. From 1994 to 2000, then–First Lady Hillary Clinton staged eight outdoor exhibitions of American sculpture in the garden.
During Trump’s own first term, his youngest son, Barron, an avid soccer player, practiced with a goal post set up in the garden.
Trump began demolishing historic spaces on Monday to make room for his massive new ballroom, breaking a vow he made this summer to leave the White House as it is during construction of his pet project.
Now, Trump is on the verge of having torn down every last structure in the East Wing.
Since the plans were revealed, the cost of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom has ballooned to $300 million up from $200 million. Private donations will reportedly fund the construction work after Trump claimed he would pay for it. It is now expected to hold 900 people, up from the 650 in the original plan.
Among the offices flattened was the Office of the First Lady, where the likes of Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, and their predecessors spent hundreds—if not thousands—of days working inside the East Wing.
East Wing Magazine reported that staffers from previous administrations made a last-ditch effort to save the historical area ahead of its destruction.
“In our small, little way, some of us from Mrs. Nixon’s staff have been trying to push back on this devastation,” Penny Adams, Mrs. Nixon’s radio-television coordinator, told the publication.
Anita McBride, former chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush, also told the publication that alumni of the East Wing of multiple administrations are “stunned” by the images of Trump’s destruction.
“The walls may be gone, but those East Wing stories must be preserved and shared for future generations,” she wrote in a statement.
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