WASHINGTON — Following a two-year hiatus, the White House Visitor Center reopened this Saturday after a $12.6 million renovation. The admission is free.
It’s tough to get a tour of the actual White House; tickets are in high demand and you need a security clearance to get in. Instead, the Visitor Center seeks to offer more information than you would get at the White House.
“This, I think, will be the new crown jewel for the visitor experience in D.C.,” says Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association.
“Some of you have tour tickets,” National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis told the first group of visitors on Saturday. “You can actually see more about the White House in here.”
The Visitor Center offers virtual tours of the West Wing and Oval Office. In addition to the high-tech parts of the museum, more than 90 White House artifacts — like the gold eagle that’s topped the White House flagpole for 100 years — are on display.
There’s also a 14-minute film that details what it’s like to live in the White House. It’s told through the voices of former presidents and their wives.
“I was one of the first visitors here,” says St. Louis resident Amber Yin, a young girl in town with her family for her birthday, “and I got the week off from school.”
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