Tourists and locals made a final stop at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, with the building’s Donald Trump nameplate set to come down by June 12. Some came to see it one last time. Others came hoping not to miss the moment it disappears.
Barbara, visiting from Colorado, said she and her husband wanted pictures of the Kennedy Center before Trump’s name was taken off it. They support Trump and like seeing his name “out there for the world to see.” Scott, who was with her, described Trump as “bombastic” but said he has “a good heart” and credited him with doing “a lot to clean up the area and the country.”
The deadline gives the name change a fixed date, and that has turned the Kennedy Center into a stop for people who want to witness the handoff before it happens. Bill and Cheri Collins, who visited from outside Atlanta, said they had come hoping to watch Donald J. Trump being taken off the building. Bill said they were even planning to bring Champagne just to watch. The couple said they lived in the Washington area before moving to Georgia in the early 2000s.
Not everyone arriving Friday came to celebrate Trump’s name on the building. Some visitors want it removed, while others want to catch it before it is gone, leaving the Kennedy Center as a rare public landmark where the same deadline pulls people in opposite directions. For Donna Merz, that split has already kept her away. She said she had not set foot inside the center since Trump’s name was added last year, but that she would return with her season tickets once everything is official, and come on at least a monthly basis.
What happens on June 12 is the question now hanging over the building. The name was due to come off then, and Friday’s crowd showed that the change itself has become part of the attraction, even before it is complete.
