Kennedy Center Director Tells Court Building Closed For A Week For ‘Structural Assessments’

The government submitted a court filing Thursday after Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, asked the court to schedule an emergency hearing over the Kennedy Center being closed to the public on Wednesday.

The sudden closure, which the Kennedy Center’s spokesperson confirmed on social media, came amid broader fears of the Trump administration tearing down the historic venue, as the president told reporters Wednesday night that if his government didn’t “get involved” with overhauling the venue, “it’s going to close, it will end up being ripped down.”

In its court filing Thursday, the Trump administration alleged the building was being only temporarily closed due to “acute risks to public safety resulting from continued structural deterioration at the Center,” and argued that wasn’t in violation of the court’s order, because the order does not “[forbid] a temporary closure like this one.”

The government submitted a declaration from the venue’s Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Charles Matthew Floca, who alleged the building was being closed for a week—“unless extended”—after he “determined that continued life-safety hazards to individuals who might access certain public portions of the building have created untenable risks to the health and safety of those individuals.”

The filing came shortly after Beatty submitted an additional filing to the court with Trump’s comments on “ripp[ing] down” the Kennedy Center, saying that was further evidence of the need for a hearing, also pointing to social media photos appearing to show Trump reading a placard that says “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.”