President Donald Trump has fenced off Lafayette Square outside the White House as a months-long “beautification” project begins in one of America’s most symbolic public parks.
Tourists’ usual first stop on the walk up to the White House is now closed after crews ringed the 7-acre park with fencing.
The White House, which The Washington Post said had referred its detailed questions to the National Park Service, says work will start with fountain repairs before moving on to sprinklers, fresh sod, benches, and curbs through May.
Trump, 79, is also eyeing the park’s brick walkways. He has told aides he wants them repaved to remove loose bricks he fears could be picked up and hurled during protests, according to people familiar with internal discussions cited by the Post.
Lafayette Square has been a favorite location for protesters over the years. It was the scene of one of the most indelible moments of the first Trump presidency, when police deployed chemical agents and rubber bullets on June 1, 2020, to clear Black Lives Matter demonstrators, allowing the president to walk from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op with a Bible.
The fences have gone up as Trump continues with his unprecedented makeover of the White House grounds. He has already torn down the East Wing to clear space for a planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom, a project now priced at about $400 million.
Reuters reported Thursday that the National Trust for Historic Preservation is asking a federal judge for an injunction, arguing the administration skipped required approvals and environmental review before demolishing the 120-year-old structure.
Its demolition has left an open pit and construction cranes where the East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden once stood, with satellite imagery showing the entire wing ripped away. Trump later admitted that he “could’ve built the ballroom around” the East Wing and called the old building “a poor, sad sight.”
Preservationists warn that if Trump can bulldoze the East Wing without the usual checks from the National Capital Planning Commission and Commission of Fine Arts, nothing stops him from doing the same to the West Wing—or even the main Executive Mansion.
The National Trust’s lawsuit argues federal law bars building on federal parkland in the capital without explicit authorization from Congress, a process the group says the ballroom project has sidestepped.
Trump is also turning the South Lawn into a fight arena. He and UFC boss Dana White are planning a mixed-martial-arts event on June 14 this year—Trump’s 80th birthday and Flag Day—with a purpose-built arena on the lawn and weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial, part of a semiquincentennial spectacle that has already forced the G7 summit to shift dates.
But Lafayette Square’s closure highlights how far Trump’s ambitions now reach beyond the White House itself.
In October, he unveiled a “giant triumphal arch” concept to donors at a White House dinner—a towering “Arc de Trump” intended to mark the United States’ 250th birthday with a monument that could rival the Lincoln Memorial.
Local officials have little formal power over what happens on federal land but are trying to shape the fallout. The Post reported that Mayor Muriel Bowser has cautiously welcomed National Park Service money for long-neglected fountains, including a $10.68 million overhaul at Meridian Hill Park, even as National Guard troops are assigned to guard construction there around the clock.
Phil Mendelson, chair of the D.C. Council and a member of the National Capital Planning Commission, has complained that Trump’s team is slicing its sweeping plans into smaller chunks so regulators only see them “piecemeal,” rather than as a comprehensive redesign of the White House precinct, the Post reported.
Historians say Lafayette Square’s closure is the latest stage in a decades-long squeeze on public space around the presidency. “Due to security concerns, the White House has been encroaching on its surrounding environs for decades,” Tevi Troy, a former George W. Bush domestic policy aide, told the Post.
“What used to be a fairly open area is now under a tight security umbrella. Given this trend, I’m saddened but not shocked to see Lafayette Park potentially coming under that security umbrella as well.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the National Park Service for comment.
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