Workers begin removing Trump’s name from US Kennedy Centre
A judge rejected a request by the board, run by Trump allies, to pause Friday’s deadline to remove all references to him from its operations
Workers began removing President Donald Trump’s name from the facade of the Kennedy Centre early on Saturday, hours after a court-ordered Friday deadline to remove references to Trump from the building and other aspects of the iconic performing arts venue’s operations.
Scaffolding was erected on Friday around a section of the building that includes Trump’s name, but shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Centre asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon Eastern Time on Saturday because of thunderstorms that had swept through the Washington area, causing a delay.
In the filing, the Kennedy Centre offered assurance that the “removal work is presently ongoing” and would “conclude in the early hours of the morning”.
A few hours later, workers began covering the scaffolding with tarps before they eventually started taking down Trump’s name. They packed up and left the site around 3.30am, though the tarps remained, leaving it impossible to determine if all the letters had been removed.
Dozens of people spent hours on the plaza in front of the Kennedy Centre taking pictures and cheering occasionally as they broke into chants of “take it down”.