smaller government?

Is this what they meant?

I wonder what they're doing with all those windows...

I don't think anything is being salvaged, just destroyed.
Quite symbolic from my point of view.

inside...

some history...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Wing
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/photos-white-house-starts-east-wing-demolition-to-build-trumps-ballroom

Christopher Weeks wrote:I wonder what they're doing with all those windows...

My cousin ran a salvage business for years...beautiful things carefully removed and stored. Folks bought flooring, windows etc...all kinds of reuse materials....and stained glass, sometimes furniture, weather vanes...a really lucrative business.

Somebody missed a lucrative opportunity apart from anything else - windows reclaimed from the White House would be worth 10x any other reclaimed window, let alone the other fittings.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I wonder what they're doing with all those windows...

Commercial projects across the US typically consists of 2 sets of documents. The construction drawings and the project manual. Both of these are subject to modifications as the projects bids and gets underway. These modifications are called addendums. For a reference, a typical new construction school will have 300 ish pages of drawings and 600 ish pages of project manual.

The construction drawings consist of all the plans including site work, demo, structural, architectural, mechanical, electrical, etc. The project manual is broken into sections. One section is the "Demo section".

In the demo section, it'll specify if the demolished material becomes property of the demo contractor. If it does become the contractor's property, materials may be salvaged and resold or reused. If the material remains the owners property, you break the contract if anything is salvaged. Breaking a contact can result in a business ending lawsuit.

I would bet that the government retained ownership of the demolished materials and they must be disposed of in a manner that would not make them salvageable.

Also, there are not many contractors willing to go to the trouble of salvaging materials for resale due to the labor cost and logistics of reselling on these large commercial projects. Typically, the lowest bidder is selected.

"This isn’t his house. It’s our house—just as our money isn’t his money, and our army isn’t his army. He is just another citizen. He is not a king. This is not a palace to be remade or destroyed on his whims."

Elliot Kirschner
Filmmaker, writer, and optimist.

Jackson Magnolia wrote:I would bet that the government retained ownership of the demolished materials and they must be disposed of in a manner that would not make them salvageable.

Bummer for the lost history and opportunity, if true.

Also, there are not many contractors willing to go to the trouble of salvaging materials for resale due to the labor cost and logistics of reselling on these large commercial projects. Typically, the lowest bidder is selected.

I'm sure that's quite sensible for normal random materials but it seems like there could be a business marketing these particular materials.