The Kennedy Center starts work to add Trump's name onto the building

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Kennedy Center started the work of adding Donald Trump's name to the building on Friday, a day after the president's handpicked board voted to do so.

Several blue tarps were hung in front of the institution early Friday to block views of the work being done by workers on scaffolding. A large letter D, and later “The Donald,” were seen at the entrance to the center originally named for John F. Kennedy, a Democratic president.

The board of trustees voted to add Trump's name, making it the The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Trump, a Republican, is chairman of the board.

Critics of the vote, including Democratic members of Congress who are ex-officio board members, as well as some historians, insist that only Congress can change the name.

“The Kennedy Center was named by law. To change the name would require a revision of that 1964 law,” Ray Smock, a former House historian, said in an email. “The Kennedy Center board is not a lawmaking entity. Congress makes laws.”

Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial to Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated. The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person's name on the exterior of the building.

Some Kennedy family members oppose the renaming.

The Kennedy Center is the latest building in Washington to have Trump's name added to it. He recently had his name added to the building for the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Friday.

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Associated Press National Writer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.