At high noon on Saturday at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, one vigil gave way to another, as patrons and visitors pivoted from concerns over the center’s name to the fate of an institution mired in legal uncertainty.
About 150 people had gathered in front of the building under a blazing sun, having heard that the center had until noon to certify that President Trump’s name had indeed been removed from the facade, as a federal court had ordered.
The center filed the certification with the court before the deadline, but visitors looking to confirm the results with their own eyes were out of luck: The marble front remained shrouded in white- and blue-striped tarps, with no clear answer on when they would be removed.
“I was hoping for a reveal, honestly,” said Katy Bigge, a student at Rutgers University who was visiting Washington with her parents. Her father, Philip Bigge, was squatting on the ground, peering through a crack between the tarp and the building’s front to try to make certain that Mr. Trump’s name was gone. He could not be sure, but he thought he had detected that the letters were missing.
“I think overall the message is that the process works,” he said.
Ms. Bigge, 21, was less sure about the removal’s larger civic meaning, but she was pleased to witness its aftermath. “Something like this is a little satisfying,” she said.
It was far from clear how long the satisfaction of Mr. Trump’s critics, some of whom had also gathered at the Kennedy Center on Friday night, would last. Representatives for the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday afternoon about plans for the facade.
The president’s allies on the center’s board, who voted in December to add Mr. Trump’s name to the building and who consider him key to the institution’s revitalization, are continuing to fight the judge’s order in an appeals court.
In the ruling late last month, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington found that only Congress, which dedicated the building as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy in 1964, could alter its name. But if a higher court disagrees, it is possible that the letters will go right back up.
Hanging in the balance of the appeal is also Mr. Trump’s plan for a two-year closure for renovations, after the judge ruled that the board had not properly scrutinized the plan.
Even if the institution stays open, it will do so with a staff depleted by firings, layoffs and departures; with a calendar largely empty of programming; and with the financial headwinds brought about by boycotts from artists and audiences.
“The name change was the most legible imprint of the White House on the center, but so much damage had already been done at that point,” said Cathleen O’Malley, a former manager in the center’s artistic programming department, who left her job in February.
Ms. O’Malley was among the crowd at the Kennedy Center on Friday, spending 14 hours waiting for Mr. Trump’s name to come down. She said one of the biggest challenges going forward would be the loss of experienced employees who had spent years building relationships with artists and donors.
Those “nursing a fantasy that the Kennedy Center will spring back to life when these letters come down,” she said, “are missing the breadth and depth of damage that has been done over the last 16 months.”
Mr. Trump and his allies have argued that the rebranding has benefited the institution. In a briefing filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Justice Department argued that millions of dollars in donations had been contingent on having Mr. Trump’s name on the building.
“Removal of President Trump’s name threatens to impede the center’s fund-raising efforts and contribute to the financial decline of the center,” the filing read.
No public financial documents have taken stock of the economic impact of Mr. Trump’s takeover, but tax filings that cover part of his first year as chairman of the center are expected to be released in the coming months.
Amid the uncertainty of the legal battle, the National Symphony Orchestra, which performs at the center, has been left in limbo, without an approved budget to fund its coming season. On Saturday, the orchestra will play what could be its last concert there before the closure. Mr. Trump’s takeover has divided some Kennedy Center supporters, with some favoring boycotts of the symphony and other programming, and others insisting that boycotts only harm the musicians.
“I have so many amazing memories here,” Paige Carter, a recent graduate of American University’s law school who let her Kennedy Center membership lapse after the president took over, said on Saturday. “I desperately miss it.”
Mr. Trump has argued that a two-year renovation of the Kennedy Center is exactly what the institution, which opened in 1971, needs to thrive. Last year, he helped secure $257 million from Congress for the work.
Matt Floca, the center’s executive director and the president’s point person for the renovation plans, has said the building is in desperate need of maintenance, pointing to serious water leaks, outdated equipment and discolored exterior marble.
Judge Cooper, who temporarily blocked the closure, agreed that maintenance was “sorely needed.” But he said that in quickly approving the president’s plan, the board had been “ill-informed” and needed to properly assess the potential consequences of shuttering Washington’s pre-eminent arts institution.
The judge gave the board the option to scrutinize the consequences of a two-year closure more seriously before it could proceed with such a decision. It is not clear whether the board will do that or focus on getting approval for the plan through the appellate courts.
The tarp-covered matrix of scaffolding at the front of the building had already made the arts center seem like an active work zone.
The work on Friday night pushed past the initial midnight deadline set by Judge Cooper. He approved a 12-hour extension after Mr. Floca submitted a filing saying that thunderstorms had delayed the letters’ removal.
But the work also appeared to be contingent on the outcome of the down-to-the-wire appeal by the Kennedy Center. It was only after the district court and an appeals court rejected the center’s requests for a stay on the order that a work crew finished constructing the scaffolding.
Lawyers for Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat of Ohio and an ex officio member of the board whose lawsuit resulted in the court ruling, did not oppose the request for the extension but shared a note of skepticism.
“Defendants had two weeks to comply with the order,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing, “and only need an extension because of their inexcusable delay.”
It was not clear when Mr. Floca, who is in regular communication with Mr. Trump, planned to give the signal to take down the tarps and reveal the facade.
The post At the Kennedy Center, a Name Change Shrouded in Uncertainty appeared first on New York Times.
