Kennedy Centre adds Donald Trump’s name to performing arts institution in Washington
Se Young Lee
Updated ,first published
Washington: Workers added Donald Trump’s name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts on Friday. one day after the venue’s board members voted. for change despite questions about their legal authority to do so.
The center was established by law as a “living monument” to Kennedy, just two months after the Democratic president’s assassination in November 1963; In early 1964, Congress passed legislation to rename the building that was planned as a national cultural center when Kennedy was assassinated.
The law expressly prohibits trustees from making the center a memorial to someone else or from putting another person’s name on the exterior of the building.
But on Friday morning, Trump’s name was added to the center’s exterior, above existing inscription honoring Kennedy. Washington’s premier arts venue now calls itself the “Trump Kennedy Center” at the top of its homepage.
Blue awnings were hung in front of the building to hide the workers working on the scaffolding while carrying out the transformation. Hours later, the center had a new name: Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Performing Arts Center.
The change, which could face legal hurdles, marks the latest efforts by the administration and its allies to reshape the capital in Trump’s image, including renaming the U.S. Institute of Peace after the president and building a new White House ballroom that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The U.S. Treasury is also considering minting a $1 coin featuring Trump’s face to commemorate the country’s 250th birthday.
The arts center board that renamed the venue was handpicked by Trump, who is also chairman of the board. Trump said he was “surprised” and “honored” by the decision.
The Kennedy Center said the vote recognized Trump’s work to revitalize the institution, but critics of the vote, including Democratic members of Congress who are ex-officio board members and some historians, insist only Congress can change the center’s name.
“The Kennedy Center is named by statute. Changing the name would require a revision of the 1964 statute,” Ray Smock, a former House historian, said in an email.
“The Kennedy Center board is not a legislative body. Congress makes the laws.”
The Kennedy family also opposed this move.
“It is incomprehensible that this sitting president would seek to change the name of this great monument dedicated to President Kennedy,” Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, said in a post on X on Thursday, when the board’s decision was first announced.
John F. Kennedy’s niece, Kerry Kennedy, said in a social post on X that she would remove Trump’s name herself when his term ends.
“Three years and one month from today, I’ll get a pickaxe and get those letters out of that building, but I’ll need help holding the ladder. Are you in?” he wrote on a photo of the center’s new name. “I’m applying for my carpenter’s card today, so this will be a union job!!!”
Bloomberg, A.P.
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