St. John stretch reverent rob fischer. Law welcome good evening my name is rob fischer i am the director of st. Johns church, and i am thrilled that our friends at the White House Historical association asked us to provide space for tonights conversation. Stewart asked if i would share a little bit of a history of this historic room that you are sitting in tonight, and so i will share with you this church was completed in 1816. The architect was Benjamin Henri vitro, and not only did he designs church, he was working on rebuilding the white house after it was destroyed by the british in the war of 18. 12 in 1818, he built what is now the home of the historical association. And if you go inside the dictator house, and you look up, you see a similar entrance. Its almost like a miniature of this dome of we have in our church space. The Original Church was built as a greek cross, so it wasnt even four sides. In just six years later, in 1822, they expanded the Church Building to make room f
The association. I would like to welcome our friends who are joining us by cspan and those who are here with us tonight who are the really smart people in washington because you have chosen to be here above the National Baseball game and above the televised president ial debate tonight so we think that weve got the best thing going and we are glad that you chose to be with us tonight. I would like to acknowledge some very important people. Who are with us this evening. Mats appearance, tim and Debbie Costello who are here with us tonight. And his wife christian, who is here. Tonight and of course in my book the two most important costellos or sofia and theodore and they are at home, i guess. They can come next time they are mad and christians wonderful little kids. Id also like to welcome the members of our board of directors who are with us tonight. We have and stop, lets give and a hand. applause and bob mcgee. applause and we have two that are in route Anita Mcbride and gayle west.
applause welcome good evening. I am rob fisher, the director of st. Johns church. I am thrilled that our friends at the White House Historical association asked us to provide space for tonights conversation. Stewart asked if i would share a little bit about the history of this very historic room that you are sitting in tonight and so i will share with you that this church was completed in 1816. The architect was Benjamin Henri literal. Not only did he design this church but he was working on rebuilding the white house after it was destroyed in the war of 1812. In 1818 in 1818, he built what is now the home of the historical association. You see a similar entrance. It was built as a green cross and was an even four sides. In 1822, they expanded the Church Building to make room for more seating. We do not know who the architect was who did that expansion and built the bell power belltower. Tragically, he had already died at that time, in new orleans. There might be some historians in the