(Adnkronos) – The Kennedy Center board loyal to Donald Trump will not be able to proceed with demolitions of the historic performing arts center, a memorial dedicated to JFK which Trump had ordered closed amidst a legal tug-of-war to impose that it be named after him, without one month’s notice. This is what District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered in response to the appeal filed by Democratic congresswoman Joyce Beatty, one of the non-voting members of the board who has been leading the legal battle for months against Trump’s plan to take total control of the Kennedy Center. For almost two years, the president has thrown the center, considered a landmark of the capital’s artistic and cultural life, into chaos and brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.
After the board recently ordered the closure of the center, citing urgent renovation works, and Trump explicitly stated that the center would be “demolished” without a renovation that would only happen if the renovated building were dedicated to him, concern and controversy arose from a photo, taken from outside Air Force One, showing Trump intently reading a project with the inscription “Kennedy Center demoli (to)”.
Beatty immediately filed an appeal asking the judge to “clearly order that the structure cannot be demolished,” stating that the photo and Trump’s words prove that the president “is actively considering the demolition of the entire building.” For his part, Judge Cooper did not grant the request for an emergency hearing but issued the order to prohibit any arbitrary demolition and asked the parties for an update by September 23.
While not providing answers or clarifications on the project analyzed by the president in the photo, the White House stated that “for years Democrats have let the Kennedy Center rot and, as President Trump said, without his intervention, it would continue its inexorable decline.”
Meanwhile, another stance from artists against Trump’s campaign to take control of the center arrives. The indie pop band Matt Pond Pa canceled the concert they were supposed to perform last night in the part of the Kennedy Center still open to the public, because their “performance would have appeared as support for the administration’s actions,” the group wrote on Instagram.
“The decision to close the main building, the lack of respect shown towards the artists, staff, and public who made the Center what it is, has created chaos and uncertainty that we do not feel we can support,” adds the group, the latest in a long series that has canceled performances and ended decades-long collaborations with the center in protest against Trump and the new management he installed. Ticket sales and donations to the Center have also plummeted after, last December, the board had Trump’s name added to the facade of the Kennedy Center, later removed after the judge’s ruling last May, against which the president appears determined to fight at all costs.
