Fencing goes up around Kennedy Center as activists worry it will be demolished | CBC News

Centre's board voted to close after judge blocked return of Trump's name to institution

Fencing went up Wednesday around the main Kennedy Center building, a day after the Trump-aligned board voted to close most of the performing arts centre for repairs.

The Republican president had said in a social media post that the closure was needed for safety repairs. But he said the repairs, which Congress has allocated $257 million US to cover, would only happen if the board was permitted to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.

"The worst case scenario is a wrecking ball," she said, adding that the Trump administration can't be trusted because "look what they did to the East Wing."

The administration demolished the East Wing of the White House and is replacing it with a massive ballroom. Trump also plans to build a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery and is eyeing a golf course renovation along the Potomac River.

The plaza in front of the Kennedy Center would also be renamed in Trump's honour.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board, requested an emergency court hearing Wednesday regarding what she called Trump's "unlawful closure of the Kennedy Center." Beatty has led efforts to block Trump's name from being added to the building, and had a verbal confrontation with Trump Tuesday during a virtual board meeting.

A staff member for a legal team representing Beatty was denied entrance to the building on Wednesday, Beatty's lawyer said in a court filing. The staffer "was informed by several security staff members that the building is currently closed to the public," the filing said.

"Given the unexplained and unlawful closure, it is possible Defendants intend to undertake immediate steps in order to make public access practically impossible for the foreseeable future, including by demolishing public avenues of access to the building, and thereby evade the court's order," the filing said.

"Compounding systemic infrastructure failures from decades of neglect have left a crumbling building and safety concerns require an immediate closure of @TKCOfficial main building," she wrote on X. "Chairman @realDonaldTrump continues to support this great American institution while legal battles halt the progress to save it."

And so here we are. This statement from Trump blows my mind. That a sitting president would not let any renovations to a public building go on unless he gets to first put his name in the said building… What a sad state of affairs. What a tragedy. Actually, how small minded, how… pic.twitter.com/FlZl5ifWxs

Maria Shriver, John F. Kennedy's niece and former first lady of California, called the standoff over the name "a sad state of affairs" and a "tragedy."