Workers remove Trump name from Kennedy Center facade

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Preparation on 12 June for the removal of Trump’s name from the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP theguardian.com

People wait on Friday for Donald Trump's name to be removed from the performing arts centre in Washington. Photograph: Rahmat Gul/AP theguardian.com

Construction workers erected scaffolding outside the Kennedy Center on June 12 to begin removing Donald Trump’s name after the administration lost another legal fight over his attempts to rename the performing arts venue after himself (Reuters) Reuters

A crowd gathered outside the venue cheering on construction workers and chanting ‘take it off’ before the crew left the site during an afternoon downpour (Reuters) Reuters

Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty sued the Kennedy Center to block Trump from adding his name to the performing arts venue and from closing it down for construction (Reuters) Reuters

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Construction workers remove Trump name from Kennedy Center facade, court rulings say Congress controls memorial naming, DOJ fights deadline while donors are invoked

Workers erected scaffolding outside the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC and began stripping the words “The Donald J Trump and” from the building’s marble facade after US courts refused to pause an order requiring the name to come down. According to The Guardian, the work started after a federal judge rejected an emergency bid to block the removal, and an appeals court later denied a request from the Department of Justice to halt the order.

The name had been added only months earlier, after a unanimous vote by a Trump-aligned board of trustees to rename the venue, the Independent reports. The Kennedy Center was created by an act of Congress as a living memorial to President John F Kennedy, and the legal dispute turned on a simple point that usually stays in the background of cultural institutions: who is actually allowed to put a name on a national memorial. US district judge Christopher Cooper wrote in a lengthy opinion that Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name and only Congress can change it, ordering the words removed from the building as well as from the institution’s website and materials.

The litigation also exposes how quickly governance can become a branding contest when boards are treated as political spoil. The Guardian reports that Trump moved to seize control of the venue earlier this year by removing trustees appointed under Joe Biden, installing new members, and naming himself chair. In court filings cited by the Independent, the Trump-appointed board’s lawyers argued that keeping Trump’s name on the building was “integral” to the venue’s finances, claiming that donations were conditioned on the name and that fundraising would halt if the letters came down. That claim was offered as a reason courts should freeze the situation during an appeal; it also implies that the institution’s revenue strategy had become entangled with a contested naming decision made on a short political timetable.

The deadline became a public spectacle. Both outlets describe tarpaulins covering parts of the scaffolding and crowds gathering outside the building, with chants of “shame” and “take it down” as the removal began and as the venue missed a court-imposed deadline. The Justice Department sought a brief extension, citing weather-related safety risks for workers, after previously arguing that it made little sense to alter signage now only to potentially reverse it later if an appeal succeeded.

The Kennedy Center had already begun reverting its outward-facing identity before the letters came off the facade, removing Trump’s name from its website and sending communications that referred simply to “the Kennedy Center,” according to the Guardian and the Independent. The physical work, however, is the part that cannot be quietly edited.

By early Saturday, the contested words were being lifted from the building that Congress named in 1964, while the government lawyers tasked with defending the rename were still filing for delays.