Ceremony will not be hosted at its traditional home for the first time since awards began in 1978 The Kennedy Center Honors will take place away from its traditional home this year for the first time in its history as the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts remains in jeopardy amid Donald Trump’s ongoing battle to have it named…
Page D2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 2 October 2026
Trump calls Kennedy Center 'destined to doom'; his board obliges, relocating the Honors after 48 years.
As it ran on the front
The Kennedy Center Honors tradition of coming home each December died this year, forty-eight years old. It was born in 1978, the year the first class of honorees took its bow under the roof of the only building in Washington built expressly to outlast politics. It is survived by a relocated gala, booked for December 7 at Capital One Arena, a hockey rink three miles downriver. It was preceded in death by the plain use of the center's own name, which a federal judge has twice now had to defend from the man who appointed its board.
The timeline is short and it does not meander. On September 15, Judge Christopher Cooper ruled for the second time that the board could not put the president's name on the building's exterior, even under the cover story of honoring his "current" service. Within hours the president pronounced the whole institution "destined to doom" — a phrase that reads less like a prophecy than a work order. Two days later, a photographer caught him on Air Force One studying a printout that read "Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED." Malarkey, you'd think, if the next entry weren't a board vote.…
…(cont) On September 18, the board he had handpicked voted to close the center's main building. The same day, the family of the man the building is named for called the campaign "small-minded" and "narcissistic." A niece had already called it "hostage-taking" the day before that, and accused the president of bankrupting the place he could not rename. The building did not test unsound. The shit was entirely upstream, in the boardroom he stocked.
So the Honors move. Not canceled — moved, which is its own kind of message: the show can go on anywhere, which means the home was never really the point of keeping it. Forty-eight years at one address is not a law, not a deed, not even a tradition anyone voted on. It was just where the thing happened, until the people holding the keys decided where was negotiable and the name was not.
Born 1978. Survived by a relocated gala. Preceded in death by the name its own board could not stop fighting over.
In lieu of flowers, buy a ticket to the Honors wherever they land this year, and ask, out loud, whose name is still on the building the rest of the year.
“They call it "destined to doom" and then the board he picked goes and dooms it — that ain't a prophecy, that's a work order. Forty-eight years in one building, gone, because a guy who can't legally get his name on the wall decided he'd rather lock the doors instead. Watch what they do to the thing they can't own; they'd sooner break it than let it stay somebody else's.”
“Relocating a gala is just smart logistics — Capital One Arena seats more people, better parking, this is basically an upgrade, not a crisis. The building needed renovations anyway, that's maintenance, nothing to do with — wait, the "destined to doom" quote, I didn't clear that, who signed off on that line. This is fine. This is a venue change.”
The receipts
· Trump Says Kennedy Center Is 'Destined to Doom' After Judge Stops Him From Slapping His Name on It from the morgue, 15 Sep 2026
· Trump 'Narcissism and Incompetence' Denounced After Kennedy Center 'Demolition' Plan Exposed from the morgue, 17 Sep 2026
· JFK's family slams Trump over Kennedy Center: 'How small minded, how narcissistic' from the morgue, 18 Sep 2026
· Kennedy scion accused Trump of ‘bankrupting’ Kennedy Center as ‘hostage taking’ name change battle persists from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.