A look at 55 years of the Kennedy Center
Pres. Trump continues to threaten the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is the site of a dispute between President Donald Trump and the Washington community and arts community.
The center is currently shut, with rising concerns that Trump will try to knock the building down. Trump has claimed the building is dilapidated, and photos were taken of him reviewing a poster with the words “Kennedy Center Demolished” on it.
A different president laid the foundation for what has become the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. President Dwight Eisenhower, a military man, signed legislation in 1958 to create a national cultural center for the American capital.
The Kennedy family did a lot of the fundraising for the center. President John F. Kennedy told an audience, “Art knows no national boundaries,” and “Genius can speak at any time, and the entire world will hear it and listen.”
Following Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed legislation designating the building and its productions as a living memorial to President Kennedy.
The building opened on the shores of the Potomac River on Sept. 8, 1971, 55 years ago, with a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.
The Kennedy Center is home to the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington Opera. Its four theaters have hosted classic operas, Broadway shows, high school graduations and the play ‘Shear Madness,’ as well as free performances by artists from around the world. The center expanded in 2019 with a multi-use space known as the REACH.
The fate of the Kennedy Center is now unclear. The president said it will be closed for the next week, but what happens after that is unclear.
Trump wants his name on the facade of the building and is angry that a judge ordered him to take it down, given that the building is a living memorial to Kennedy. Friday afternoon, he again insisted to reporters that only he can rebuild the center and his administration should receive credit for the work and fundraising.
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