I’m worried about the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as it was called when I lived in suburban Maryland, 10 miles west of Washington, D.C. I was a tween when it opened in 1971, gleaming white marble on the outside, chandeliers and red carpets on the inside. You couldn’t miss the rough-hewn bust of the building’s namesake. The 8-foot-tall, 3,000-pound bronze was directly across from the Opera House, where I attended many a dance performance. In those days performing artists were actively defecting from the Soviet Union, which trained the best ballet dancers in the world. I came away from watching Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova together on that stage, thinking: I want to do that, too.
In short, it’s been deeply disturbing to imagine the place under the thumb of President Donald Trump as he commandeered Kennedy’s living memorial, appointed himself chair of the board of trustees and renamed the building after himself. I’ve followed the alarming news of diminishing audiences and growing deficits, staff departures, artist cancellations, and a proposed two-year closure for renovations. While Trump hosted mixed-martial arts fights over the weekend on the South Lawn of the White House, the National Symphony Orchestra, to which my parents were decades-long subscribers, could soon be homeless.
I witnessed a historic presidential power check at the Kennedy Center on August 8, 1974.
I thought this country was better protected against the whims of a domineering leader. In fact, I witnessed a historic presidential power check at the Kennedy Center on August 8, 1974. That’s the night Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, and, along with a packed Opera House, I heard his speech during a performance by the U.S.S.R.’s preeminent folk-dancing troupe.
One minute we were watching the Moiseyev Dance Company perform “Polovetsian Dances” while the orchestra played Alexander Borodin; the next, the sound system was broadcasting live audio of Nixon announcing that he would step down in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The news generated an eruption of applause and a spontaneous full-house standing ovation that lasted longer than any I’ve witnessed since.
Even at the young age of 14, I remember wondering how the Soviets backstage would interpret this display — which they might perceive as disloyalty — in the nation’s capital. Would someone explain to them why the audience was clapping wildly during intermission? That their president had broken the law — or at least stood by while others did — and was opting to leave office rather than serve out his term in shame.
I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder to be an American. Embarrassing as it was, democracy worked. That’s what I took from the night, anyway.
Similarly, last month a federal judge ordered the Kennedy Center to remove Trump’s name from the building. In the ruling, he argued that only one entity could change its honoree: the U.S. Congress, which authorized the construction and dedication of the Kennedy Center in 1964.
The letters were supposed to come off the wall by noon on Saturday, and Washingtonians gathered outside to bear witness. Tarps obscured the façade at that hour, but the Associated Press has since confirmed the Kennedy Center complied. Still, its board of trustees quickly appealed the federal court ruling. A higher court might reach a different conclusion about the legality of Trump’s takeover.
In a June 13 story, the New York Times quoted Cathleen O’Malley, a former manager in the programming department. She warned that those “nursing a fantasy that the Kennedy Center will spring back to life when these letters come down are missing the breadth and depth of damage that has been done over the last 16 months.”
Personally, I have a bone to pick with the archivists. In fact-checking my memory of this experience, I could not verify that Moiseyev performed at the Kennedy Center on August 8, 1974. Searching online, including the performance history of the Opera House, I couldn’t find any mention or record of the show. Good thing I kept the program! Fifty-two years later, it’s right there in black and white.
Turns out a souvenir from my ballet days was also a harbinger of a different career — in publishing — and the enduring power of print to accurately document history.
This article appears in June 17 • 2026.
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