President Donald Trump’s name was removed from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. after Trump wasted taxpayer dollars trying to keep it on, notes ABC News.
However, Trump did have workers hang heavy white tarps to obscure the process from public view, reports The New York Times.
Workers spent about eight hours on Friday building towering scaffolding in front of the section of the facade bearing Mr. Trump’s name.
Then, in the early hours of Saturday, they hung heavy white tarps from the structure. It obscured views of the removal, which was a significant symbolic victory for opponents of Mr. Trump’s takeover of an iconic performing arts center.
But a gap in the tarps allowed a New York Times photographer to observe a worker pulling the letter “A” from the wall. (The signage had read “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”) There was no sound of power tools; the letter appeared to come off by hand.
For all of Friday, lawyers for Mr. Trump and the center had been seeking legal intervention to keep his name on the marble as they pursue an appeal.
But after both the district court and a federal appeals court denied their requests for an immediate stay on the ruling, workers began erecting scaffolding in earnest to reach the letters. A rowdy audience of a few hundred people gathered to watch…
A short walk from the Kennedy Center, residents of the Watergate were planning impromptu house parties at the sprawling condominium complex. Two volunteer organizations, Hands Off the Arts and Free the Kennedy Center, coordinated to livestream the signage on the building from a webcam situated on a balcony at the Watergate.
(Sources: The New York Times, ABC News)