Kennedy Center votes to put Trump’s name back on building and close for renovations
By Sunlen Serfaty, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s handpicked board of the Kennedy Center has voted a second time to close the performing arts institution for a two-year renovation, according to two people who were briefed on the decision.
The board on Thursday also voted to add an inscription below the Kennedy Center’s sign, saying the arts complex was “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,” the sources said.
As part of the renovation plan, the board voted to keep open part of the complex separate from the main building, called the REACH, which will host smaller scale shows, they added.
The center will need to turn over information on the renovations and closure to a federal judge by August 18.
The Kennedy Center has been embroiled in legal disputes since Trump launched his effort to control the historic arts venue and put his stamp on the nation’s capital in his second term.
Trump had announced plans in February to close the center, which he said was “in bad condition.” In December, the board of trustees voted to rename it the “Trump Kennedy Center.”
In May, however, a federal judge in Washington, DC, blocked the center’s planned closure, demanding the board consider maintaining some programming during renovations to carry out its congressionally mandated activities.
US District Judge Casey Cooper also said the center’s board violated the law when it added Trump’s name to the performing arts venue.
The law establishing the center “makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” wrote Cooper, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
Trump’s name was removed from the facade of the Kennedy Center in June after the court order. Crowds gathered to watch workers take the letters down, but the removal was hidden by a tarp and scaffolding. Large, striped tarps have remained on the center’s exterior for months, preventing the public from viewing what remains.
One of the sources briefed on the Thursday vote said that the idea is that Trump’s name now being included below the sign is not a move to “rename” the center. Another source said it would serve as a “permanent reminder” of his undermining of the institution.
CNN has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.
Nathaniel Zelinsky, a lawyer representing Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex-officio trustee of the board who sued last year to challenge the name change, told CNN on Thursday the center’s latest move is “an effort to evade the court’s justice.”
Federal law governing the Kennedy Center prohibits “additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials” from being “designated or installed” in public areas of the building.
The only exceptions are plaques acknowledging countries who gave gifts to the center, donor plaques on a theater chair or a theater box, or “any inscription on the marble walls in the north or south galleries, the Hall of States, or the Hall of Nations acknowledging a major contribution,” according to the legislation.
In Trump’s second term, the venue has served as a vehicle for the president to elevate work that plays to his cultural tastes. He hosted the Kennedy Center Honors in December, and the center held the premiere of first lady Melania Trump’s documentary in January. And earlier this summer, the center hosted the final round of Trump’s national civics contest for high school students.
The institution has faced slumping ticket sales, artist withdrawals, political controversies and a diminished staff, which have made it challenging to restart a full-scale programming schedule, multiple sources familiar with the matter previously told CNN.
The fallout continued earlier this week when a local judge ordered the center to pay jazz artist Chuck Redd’s legal fees after the institution sued him for canceling his Christmas Eve show over the addition of Trump’s name to the venue. The Kennedy Center has 45 days to make the payment.
The center is just one of the landmarks that has caught the president’s interest as he seeks to reshape Washington, DC. He has paved over the White House Rose Garden to create a Mar-a-Lago-esque patio, demolished the East Wing to make room for a massive ballroom and changed the color of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
He’s also launched efforts to expand a local golf course, construct the tallest arch in the world on a traffic circle across from Arlington National Cemetery and put a sculpture garden along the Potomac River.
The-CNN-Wire
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