The current resident in the White House made a hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center last year shortly after taking office. Since that time there have been numerous changes surrounding the Center from massive departures of personnel, cancelled performances, and most recently an announcement of a long-term shutdown for a major renovation.
The upcoming closure is the latest item to make headlines after a coalition of cultural and historic preservation groups has filed a suit to block any further physical changes to the Kennedy Center.
The lawsuit is not aimed at the Kennedy Center, but those who run it – including the White House – to prevent any further substantial changes outside of normal maintenance and repairs. The group insists that any proposed changes to the Kennedy Center go through the usual review process that is used for major projects involving buildings in the Nation’s Capitol.
The suit includes, “demolition, new construction, major reconstruction, major renovation, or major aesthetic transformation of the Kennedy Center would permanently destroy historic fabric, degrade the monumental core’s vistas and public grounds, and compromise the Kennedy Center’s memorial purpose and architectural integrity, causing permanent, irreversible harm that no subsequent remedy can fully undo.”
In the suit lawyers have pointed out a, “broader pattern of unauthorized damage to historic buildings in the capital district.”
While saying that the building would not be torn down, the White House does note that the renovations “could be so dramatic that the steel supporting the structure could be fully exposed.”
The East Wing was not supposed to be destroyed either…but it was.
White House spokesperson Liz Huston said they are “committed to making the Trump-Kennedy Center the finest performing arts facility in the world.”
Adding, “we look forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”
Last year with the help of the hand picked loyalist board of directors, the name of the Kennedy Center was changed. Congress named the Performing Arts Center after assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Last week Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio noted, “Congress was clear in its intent that the Kennedy Center is named for the late President John F. Kennedy — and no one else.”
In a motion she states, “Renaming the Kennedy Center for President Trump — without any authorization from Congress — undermines the Center’s raison d’être, and frustrates its purpose as the only memorial to President Kennedy in Washington, D.C.”.
The motion continues, “Congress was particularly sensitive that no other names appear on the Center’s exterior walls, other than the signage designating the institution as a memorial for President Kennedy.”
Beatty’s lawyer Norm Eisen said, “we are asking the court to enforce the law and reverse this illegal renaming. This abuse of power is an attack on the rule of law and the memory of John Kennedy and cannot stand.”