The removal of President Trump’s name from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which was ordered by a federal judge, was carried out this month behind a towering matrix of scaffolding and tarps, obscuring the work from curious onlookers.
But photos of the building’s marble facade, circulated to the news media by an activist group that has opposed the Trump administration’s takeover of the center, show the public for the first time the blank marble where the president’s name had once been.
The photos were shared with journalists by Mallory Miller, a former employee of the Kennedy Center who co-founded the group Hands Off the Arts, which started organizing protests around the arts center after the president took over its board as chairman.
The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Late last month, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington ruled that the center’s board, which is stocked with Mr. Trump’s allies, did not have the legal authority to rename the center. He said that power rested with Congress, which dedicated the institution as a living memorial to President Kennedy in 1964, not long after his assassination.
The Kennedy Center is appealing the judge’s decision, arguing that “people and companies, who have given, or will be giving, millions of dollars to the center were only willing to do so with the name ‘Trump’ on the building.”
The center filed its notice of appeal shortly before a legal deadline to remove Mr. Trump’s name. Both the district court and a federal appeals court rejected initial requests to pause the judge’s decision pending its appeal.
As the deadline loomed on June 12 and hundreds of onlookers watched, workers covered the scaffolding with white tarps before removing the 18 letters from the marble. A gap in the tarps allowed a New York Times photographer to observe a worker pulling the letter “A” from the wall.
The following morning, the center’s executive director, Matt Floca, filed a sworn declaration with the court confirming that the name had been removed, though the public was not able to see for itself.
The obscuring of the facade has drawn complaints from Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex officio member of the board whose lawsuit led to the judge’s order. In court papers filed in the case, Ms. Beatty’s lawyers argued last week that the tarps were a “bizarre and unnecessary privacy screen” intended to “assuage Defendants’ vanity or massage broken egos.”
Officials for the center said last week that the “scaffolding and tarp will remain up as crews address maintenance needs of the marble and soffit panels.”
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