Judge Orders 30-Day Notice Before Kennedy Center Demolition
Is this a stealth move to demolish a national landmark, or just overdue safety repairs?
Above: Kayakers on the Potomac River protested the Trump Administration's management of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 17. Image credit: Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
The Spin
Anti-Trump narrative
Shutting the Kennedy Center overnight, with fences up and a "DEMOLISHED" poster on Air Force One, reeks of a scheme to bulldoze a national memorial before any court can stop it. A safety inspection doesn't require locking the public out of a monument Congress created and funded. The 30-day notice order is the bare minimum needed to keep one man's ego from leveling a landmark.
Pro-Trump narrative
Plaster crashing 60 feet from the Grand Foyer ceiling and corroded structural steel are real hazards, and closing the building for a week to inspect them is a basic responsibility. Decades of deferred maintenance left this place rotting, and the people finally paying to fix it get dragged into court for it.
