WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days’ notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolishing it as President Donald Trump has threatened.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said his ruling would “avoid any confusion on that score given more recent events.”
Trump, who was named the Kennedy Center’s chairman last year by loyalists on the center’s board, said Wednesday
that his efforts to restore the aging building deserve recognition, “because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down. It’s in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape.”
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
A top official at the Kennedy Center said Thursday that he closed the iconic performing arts center temporarily due to “acute risks to public safety resulting from continued structural deterioration" of the aging building.
Matt Floca, the Kennedy Center's executive director and chief operating officer, said in a federal court filing that the building will be closed for at least seven days to "assess existing safety risks in those portions of the main building exhibiting severe structural deterioration.”
The temporary closure, which occurred without notice Wednesday, is separate from a vote Tuesday by the Kennedy Center's board to close the performing arts center indefinitely for repairs, Floca and other officials said. The closure was based on an inspection of the roof terrace canopy and a partial ceiling collapse earlier this month, Floca said. The closure may be extended after evaluation next week, he said.
The announcement of the closure came in response to a court case filed by a Democratic congresswoman who is a trustee and sought an emergency court hearing to prevent what she called the building's “unlawful closing.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board, has led efforts to block President Donald Trump’s name from being added to the building. Beatty had a verbal confrontation with the Republican president Tuesday during a virtual board meeting.
Beatty's lawyers said in a court filing Thursday that the board members' “rationale that they are only temporarily closing the Kennedy Center is a plain pretext to justify shutting down the Center permanently. The facts before the Court are deeply concerning.”
They urged U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper to hold a hearing to clarify the board's actions and intent. They also asked the judge “to make crystal clear” that his order prohibits demolition of the building.
The Trump-aligned board, chaired by the president, voted to close the center after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning Trump’s name to the building.
Trump, who was named the Kennedy Center’s chairman last year by loyalists on the board, said Wednesday that his efforts to restore the aging building deserve recognition, “because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down. It’s in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape.”
Congress has allocated $257 million to cover the repairs, but Trump said they only would happen if the board was permitted to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.
On Thursday, Barbra Streisand, a Kennedy Center honoree in 2008, questioned the closing of the center for repairs and called the controversy surrounding its operation “galling and painful to witness.”
Of Trump’s attempts to add his name to the center, she said in a statement to The Associated Press: “You can easily imagine my indignation at seeing this revered institution become the subject of such a bitter struggle over one man’s name and unchecked ego.”
The Kennedy Center board voted in August to inscribe Trump's name on the Kennedy Center’s facade so it would read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.” If the Trump Kennedy Center Fund reached $100 million, another inscription would be added reading “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
The plaza in front of the Kennedy Center would also have been renamed in Trump’s honor.
All of those proposals were shot down Tuesday by Cooper, who ruled that nothing could happen “without Congress’s blessing.”
Cooper ruled in May that the Kennedy Center illegally added Trump’s name to the building, ordering it removed. The institution’s leaders complied in June but left a tarp and scaffolding in place where Trump’s name was once displayed.
Streisand told AP she was deeply honored to be included in the 31st annual class of Kennedy Center Honorees, adding, “for me, and for so many artists, that honor represented something larger than a career recognition. It represented a belief in the importance of art to the life of a democracy.”
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Associated Press writer Glenn Gamboa in Cleveland contributed to this report.
