President Trump on Sunday announced that the White House helipad — which was redone at his request last month — has been completed. Trump posted a photo on Truth Social of former President Eisenhower on the White House lawn before departing in an Air Force H-13J helicopter in July 1957, becoming the first U.S. president...
Page B1From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 7 September 2026
BUILT IN HIS NAME
Trump finishes his helipad, breaks ground on an unauthorized arch, and threatens to demolish the Kennedy Center.
As it ran on the front
The norm that a president does not rebuild the nation's capital in his own image is dead. No formal age is recorded; it was never chartered, only observed, generation after generation, by men who came to Washington and left it standing more or less as they found it. It died this weekend, in the ordinary way institutions die when the room simply stops asking anyone to enforce them.
The last months were not gentle. On August 25th, the Department of Justice put the capital on notice: the Kennedy Center could be demolished if the president's renovation plan, closing the hall for two years, is blocked. Two days later, on August 27th, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick offered a mercy of sorts — the center could "acknowledge President Trump" for his role in the very renovation used as the threat, a bruise and a Band-Aid delivered by the same hand.…
…(cont) By September 4th, the pattern had a second address. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced excavation would begin within two weeks on a white-and-gold triumphal arch near the capital, honoring the president, on a legal foundation an attorney for government watchdogs described publicly as absent altogether — "no legal authority," in his words, to dig at all. The start date holds anyway.
Then, on Sunday, the third monument crossed the finish line the other two are still approaching. The president announced the new White House helipad complete, posting a photograph of Dwight Eisenhower and a helicopter from 1957, noting that Eisenhower never needed one. The helipad, unlike its siblings, asked nothing of anyone's legal authority to be built; only money, and the room to spend it.
The Times, watching all three progress at once against the backdrop of a war still grinding on, called it momentum. That is one word for it. Another is malarkey.
The dead norm is survived by three structures bearing one name: a helipad, complete; an arch, scheduled to break ground without a deed; a concert hall, held over its own renovation like a hostage with a press office. It is preceded in death by the last president who left the capital's skyline alone, whoever that quietly was.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that Congress send the arch a permit before it sends anyone a bill.
“They keep saying there's no money for the rec center roof. There's a crew ready to dig an arch with no permit, and a helipad that got finished the minute it was asked for. Same week, the Kennedy Center's told to put his name on the marquee or watch the wrecking ball show up — that's leverage, not a renovation plan.”
“Look, the helipad's straightforward infrastructure — every White House needs a landing pad, presidents have always had — well, not always, but functionally always, in spirit. The arch is a beautification project, purely aesthetic, nothing triumphal about it, and the 'no legal basis' business is just Interior working through some paperwork sequencing that's being handled as we speak. And the Kennedy Center thing isn't a threat, it's an incentive structure for renovation compliance — did I say incentive? I meant leverage. Scratch that, I meant incentive. That's what I meant the first time.”
The receipts
President Trump is basking in the momentum of the various projects he has spurred around downtown Washington.
President Donald Trump said on Sunday that construction on the new helipad he requested at the White House has finished. “Dwight Eisenhower didn’t need a Helipad at the White House for those little Choppers, but America needs one now — Just completed, and MAGNIFICENT!” Trump said on social media alongside a photo of former President […]
Government watchdogs and opposition lawmakers in Congress are calling foul once again on President Donald Trump's plans for another "vanity project" in Washington, DC, after his Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, announced Thursday that—despite the lack of legal authority—excavation would soon begin on a white and gold arch built to…
· DOJ warns Kennedy Center could be knocked down if renovations blocked from the morgue, 25 Aug 2026
· Lutnick floats new way to add Trump's name to Kennedy Center from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
· Work on Trump-backed Triumphal Arch will start in coming weeks from the morgue, 4 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.