Precisely when it began appearing remains a bit unclear. But black tape is showing up in spots across the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In grand halls? Yup. In nondescript parking garage entryways? Yup.
On visitor maps, artistic posters and various signs, including one pointing the way to the lost and found? Yup, yup and yup.
In places it looks like parts of one of the country’s pre-eminent arts institution have been redacted.
Visitors began noticing the tape (some of it red, actually) this week and quickly realized what it covers up: the Kennedy Center name and former logo.
Is this all part of the rebranding that began with a vote of the board last month to change the name to the Trump Kennedy Center? Yup.
“The signage will reflect the bipartisan name that the board designated,” Richard Grenell, the center’s president, said in an email response to questions about the arrival of the tape. He added that “it doesn’t change the congressional directive for the memorial.”
The latter sentence pushes back on assertions by Democrats that the name change violated an act of Congress that gave the institution its official title in 1964 as a memorial to President Kennedy after his death.
The latest, very temporary alterations to the building’s interior signage are but a coda to the concerto of change that brought large new lettering to the building’s marble facade. It now reads: “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
The name change, approved by a Trump-aligned board, has unleashed a fury among Democrats who say it was unlawful and disrespected the slain 35th president’s legacy. Democratic legislators introduced a bill that would block the renaming attempts, with Senator Bernie Sanders calling for “an end to this narcissism.”
But among Mr. Trump’s Republican allies, it is a well-deserved honor to a president who installed himself as chairman, securing $257 million from Congress to help with capital repairs and stepping in to host the center’s annual honors event.
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“They’re complaining about the fireman who’s come in to literally rescue it and put out the fire,” Mr. Grenell recently said on Fox News of the criticism.
When it comes to renaming a decades-old institution, some cosmetic changes are easier to make than others.
Mr. Trump’s name was swiftly added to the center’s official website, and the center’s social media and fund-raising emails soon touted “The Trump Kennedy Center.”
But the original name remains etched into marble in some places, and as of Friday afternoon, visitors to the National Symphony Orchestra’s “The Rite of Spring” would see a variety of signs that have the old name and a bunch that have the new.
If they take the elevator, for example, a sign calls it “The Trump Kennedy Center.”
If they think to bring a beverage into the Opera House, they see a cautionary sign warning that only “Kennedy Center Lidded Cups” may be taken inside.
But higher on the sign, on the image of the cup itself, the Kennedy Center name has been covered with tape.
The interior remains a monument to Kennedy, with its towering golden bust of the former president and its exhibit honoring his legacy. But Mr. Trump’s name is growing more plentiful by the day — especially on electronic signage, which requires no order to the manufacturer. One digital sign offered a QR code to “the ONLY official website of The Trump Kennedy Center.” (A comedy writer who worked on “South Park” and “MadTV” secured the web address for TrumpKennedyCenter.org, turning it into a parody of the institution.)
Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat representing Ohio and an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board, has filed a lawsuit arguing that the only legal way to change the center’s name is through an act of Congress. The aim of the suit is to halt the name change altogether.
But the Kennedy Center, whose staff has been significantly reshaped over the past year, is proceeding apace. This week, staff members received a notice reminding them to change their email signatures and other documents to the new name.
A more complicated prospect may be the fate of the gift shop. It remains stocked with shelf after shelf of Kennedy Center T-shirts, totes, keychains and mugs.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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