Underground is Where It's At in DC

So what is really being constructed under the lawn outside the West Wing of the White House?

"With all that subterranean space, think of the White House not just as a 200-year-old, neoclassical Federal-style mansion, but as the tip of an iceberg. Think of what you don’t see. It’s a building with roots, which in D.C. is not uncommon"

Underground is where it’s at in Washington — and not only for the president, who makes some of his most important decisions while at the altitude of a mole. Thanks to a height restriction that keeps the skyline in a sort of humble genuflection to the Washington National Cathedral, the city’s highest structure, there are no 100th-floor views. The elevators barely make it to double digits. From the rooftops, people on the streets below look like dolls, not ants."