Washington Post - So what is the Kennedy Center now?
For one thing, it’s getting a Trumpian revamp. He ordered new marble and the repainting of the exterior columns in austere white. Portraits of the first and second couples now hang in the center’s Hall of Nations, and the building exterior is occasionally lit up in red, white and blue (a move that, many staffers joke, makes the building look like the flag of France, not America).
“It was in rough shape,” Trump said at an event Saturday ahead of the Kennedy Center Honors. “But we’ve fixed the White House, and we’ve fixed the Kennedy Center.”
Even the medallions for the Honors, created by Ivan Chermayeff and made for nearly 50 years by a D.C.-area family, have been redesigned by Tiffany & Company.
And — wittingly or not — the new leadership has made the center a political football for the first time since its opening in 1971. House Republicans have suggested renaming it for Trump (the whole building) and the first lady (just the Opera House). Conservative groups have flocked there to host conferences and meetings. Senate Democrats are investigating the Kennedy Center, accusing Grenell of “self-dealing, favoritism, and waste,” which he has denied.
No comments:
Post a Comment