A bust of Robert F. Kennedy that greeted visitors for decades in front of the now-razed D.C. stadium that bore his name has gone missing.
The bronze memorial bust of the former U.S. attorney general and senator for New York was installed near the stadium’s main entrance in 1969 soon after it was renamed for Kennedy following his assassination while running for president in 1968.
It remained there until at least mid-September, the last time it was seen at the location. A spokesperson for Events DC, the city’s convention and sports authority, which manages the RFK Stadium campus, said the agency reported the bust stolen. The pedestal was not stolen, the spokesperson said, and has been placed in storage.
An Events DC employee alerted D.C. police to the theft Oct. 1, according to a police report. The “statue was removed by an unknown manner and taken from the location,” the report reads. “The suspect is unknown at the time of this report.”
The bust is by sculptor Robert Berks, who also created the much larger 3,000-pound bust of John F. Kennedy at the Kennedy Center.
Skip Strobel, a D.C. native and longtime Capitol Hill resident, said he saw the bust Sept. 15 when he stopped to check on the small garden where it was located.
Strobel, 75, has a close relationship with the bust. When he came upon it eight years ago, after the stadium had stopped holding events, he found the site overrun by weeds and garbage. He said he soon began a one-man campaign to have Events DC clean up the site. After that was completed, Strobel took over maintenance and upkeep of the location, he said.
He planted sunflowers and native perennials and hauled water to the site to help restore its dignity even as the stadium behind it crumbled. When the actual demolition process of the stadium began, Strobel rotated the bust to face west down East Capitol Street so it wouldn’t have to watch the stadium come down, he said.
“Bobby Kennedy is my number one hero since I was like 14,” Strobel said early Wednesday morning as he looked at the empty space where the plinth supporting the bust once stood. Kennedy’s assassination in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen when Strobel was 17 left him devastated, he said. Taking care of Kennedy’s bust and the garden around it was a way he could pay respects decades after the loss.
The depth of meaning the site holds for Strobel has only grown through the years. A small sign among the flowers reads “Gideon’s Garden.” It was placed there, he said, following the drowning death of 8-year-old Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean, the great-grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and grandson of former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, RFK’s firstborn child.
Gideon and his mother, Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, 40, died in 2020 when they were swept into the Chesapeake Bay from a canoe. They were Capitol Hill residents.
Efforts to reach Kathleen Kennedy Townsend for comment on the apparent theft of the bust were unsuccessful.
A spokesperson for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of RFK’s 11 children, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Strobel is helping lead an effort to create a museum on the new stadium campus honoring Robert F. Kennedy. The RFK Democracy Center & Stadium Museum would, Strobel said, introduce Kennedy to younger generations and explain his impact. The museum would also include a full history of the stadium and the teams and events it hosted.
The stadium, previously known as District of Columbia Stadium, sits on federal land. It was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium by Interior Department officials in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration just days before Richard M. Nixon took office in January 1969.
The move was made without the approval of Johnson, who according to historians had a long-running feud with Robert F. Kennedy and thought he had tried to undermine his presidency. Johnson was reportedly livid when he found out.
Last year the D.C. Council approved a $3.7 billion deal to build a new stadium on the former RFK site alongside a sprawling mixed-use development. The new stadium, which will bring the Washington Commanders back to D.C., is expected to open in time for the 2030 season.
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