Press Briefing Room (Washington, D.C.)

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The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room is a classroom-sized theater in the West Wing of the White House where the White House Press Secretary gives daily briefings to the news media and the President of the United States sometimes addresses the press and the American nation. It is nowhere near as big in person as it looks on TV.

Originally housing laundry rooms, this area was converted into a swimming pool in 1933 for then-president Franklin Roosevelt, who used it as therapy for his crippling disease, poliomyelitis. John F. Kennedy swam in it twice daily, and had a mural commissioned to cover three of the walls. However, the postwar years brought with it a rise in TV news, and in 1970 the pool was decked over in order to create today's press room (the pool is still under there, and reportedly can still hold water). It received a remodeling in the early 1980s (installing new seats and replacing the '70s-style brown decor with the general blue look still with us today), tech upgrades in 2000, and finally a major renovation in 2006-07.

The lastest redo - the most extensive to date - replaced the wood floor with steel-and-concrete decking (the wood plus all the wiring was considered a fire hazard), installed new chairs, carpeting, energy-efficient lights, fiber-optic cabling, larger heating and air conditioning units, and utilized the pool basin for electronics equipment. Although the size of the room is the same, they managed to squeeze in one more chair for the press, bringing the total to 49, as well as five new chairs for the press secretary's staff.

The most noticeable change occured to the podium background, which saw the removal of the blue curtain, being replaced with a more compositional background of a softly lit blue screen, columns and two video screens.

For a more thorough history and pictures: www.whitehousemuseum.org/west-wing/press-briefing-room....