Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
1
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
Text from article: Sandy Weiswasser, 87, a retired teacher and volunteer who has been guiding visitors through the center for 18 years, was profiled in a Times article on the center, published on Monday. “This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” Ms. Weiswasser was quoted as saying. “Now it’s a black hole.” Reached on Thursday, she declined to comment. Last year, Mr. Trump removed the Kennedy Center’s leadership, cut its programming and installed a handpicked board that had his name drilled into the building front. A court ordered the name removed last month. Audiences, performers and visitors have fled from the center, which has lost about 90 percent of its staff and, for now, 100 percent of its paying audience.
Text from article: Sandy Weiswasser, 87, a retired teacher and volunteer who has been guiding visitors through the center for 18 years, was profiled in a Times article on the center, published on Monday. “This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” Ms. Weiswasser was quoted as saying. “Now it’s a black hole.” Reached on Thursday, she declined to comment. Last year, Mr. Trump removed the Kennedy Center’s leadership, cut its programming and installed a handpicked board that had his name drilled into the building front. A court ordered the name removed last month. Audiences, performers and visitors have fled from the center, which has lost about 90 percent of its staff and, for now, 100 percent of its paying audience.
Text from article: Sandy Weiswasser, 87, a retired teacher and volunteer who has been guiding visitors through the center for 18 years, was profiled in a Times article on the center, published on Monday. “This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” Ms. Weiswasser was quoted as saying. “Now it’s a black hole.” Reached on Thursday, she declined to comment. Last year, Mr. Trump removed the Kennedy Center’s leadership, cut its programming and installed a handpicked board that had his name drilled into the building front. A court ordered the name removed last month. Audiences, performers and visitors have fled from the center, which has lost about 90 percent of its staff and, for now, 100 percent of its paying audience.
1
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
1
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
Text from article: Some days no one turns up for a tour at all. Most days there are only a few, including those curious about all the reports of ruin. When people do come, what do they see? In the Opera House, which no longer has an opera, there is an empty orchestra pit scattered with trash. On the grand terrace overlooking the Potomac River, the flower beds are wilting and weedy. In the corridors and lounges, artwork has disappeared. And yet Sandy Weiswasser, a retired sixth grade teacher who for 18 years has given hundreds of people free tours of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, keeps reporting for duty. In a dogged demonstration of love and loyalty for an institution that has elevated life for her and millions of visitors, she still arrives every Monday for her tour day, knowing she may soon find the doors locked. “This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” Ms. Weiswasser, 87, said. “Now it’s a black hole.”
Text from article: Some days no one turns up for a tour at all. Most days there are only a few, including those curious about all the reports of ruin. When people do come, what do they see? In the Opera House, which no longer has an opera, there is an empty orchestra pit scattered with trash. On the grand terrace overlooking the Potomac River, the flower beds are wilting and weedy. In the corridors and lounges, artwork has disappeared. And yet Sandy Weiswasser, a retired sixth grade teacher who for 18 years has given hundreds of people free tours of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, keeps reporting for duty. In a dogged demonstration of love and loyalty for an institution that has elevated life for her and millions of visitors, she still arrives every Monday for her tour day, knowing she may soon find the doors locked. “This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” Ms. Weiswasser, 87, said. “Now it’s a black hole.”
Text from article: Some days no one turns up for a tour at all. Most days there are only a few, including those curious about all the reports of ruin. When people do come, what do they see? In the Opera House, which no longer has an opera, there is an empty orchestra pit scattered with trash. On the grand terrace overlooking the Potomac River, the flower beds are wilting and weedy. In the corridors and lounges, artwork has disappeared. And yet Sandy Weiswasser, a retired sixth grade teacher who for 18 years has given hundreds of people free tours of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, keeps reporting for duty. In a dogged demonstration of love and loyalty for an institution that has elevated life for her and millions of visitors, she still arrives every Monday for her tour day, knowing she may soon find the doors locked. “This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” Ms. Weiswasser, 87, said. “Now it’s a black hole.”
1
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
1
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
Heading and text from article: ‘Memorials Are to Dead People’ She began in the Hall of Nations, a red-carpeted entry hall festooned with flags from around the world. Energetic and assertive, with a near constant smile, Ms. Weiswasser wore her tour guide credentials on a University of Michigan lanyard (her alma mater) that was hung with a pair of silver opera glasses, a gift from a granddaughter. The center’s story, she said, began with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1958 signed legislation to establish a performing arts center in Washington. President John F. Kennedy championed the cause, and after his assassination Congress passed a bipartisan bill dedicating the institution to him. “That’s how it got its name,” Ms. Weiswasser said, adding pointedly, “This is a memorial. Memorials are to dead people.” She did not mention Mr. Trump, whose board members in December had his name added to the front of the building to make it the “Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” It was removed under court order last month. As the building took shape in the 1960s, she said, more than 60 nations contributed furnishings and art. Italy’s gift was the largest: 3,700 tons of Carrara marble that sheaths the center’s facade and interior walls, from the same region as the marble for Michelangelo’s David.
Heading and text from article: ‘Memorials Are to Dead People’ She began in the Hall of Nations, a red-carpeted entry hall festooned with flags from around the world. Energetic and assertive, with a near constant smile, Ms. Weiswasser wore her tour guide credentials on a University of Michigan lanyard (her alma mater) that was hung with a pair of silver opera glasses, a gift from a granddaughter. The center’s story, she said, began with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1958 signed legislation to establish a performing arts center in Washington. President John F. Kennedy championed the cause, and after his assassination Congress passed a bipartisan bill dedicating the institution to him. “That’s how it got its name,” Ms. Weiswasser said, adding pointedly, “This is a memorial. Memorials are to dead people.” She did not mention Mr. Trump, whose board members in December had his name added to the front of the building to make it the “Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” It was removed under court order last month. As the building took shape in the 1960s, she said, more than 60 nations contributed furnishings and art. Italy’s gift was the largest: 3,700 tons of Carrara marble that sheaths the center’s facade and interior walls, from the same region as the marble for Michelangelo’s David.
Heading and text from article: ‘Memorials Are to Dead People’ She began in the Hall of Nations, a red-carpeted entry hall festooned with flags from around the world. Energetic and assertive, with a near constant smile, Ms. Weiswasser wore her tour guide credentials on a University of Michigan lanyard (her alma mater) that was hung with a pair of silver opera glasses, a gift from a granddaughter. The center’s story, she said, began with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1958 signed legislation to establish a performing arts center in Washington. President John F. Kennedy championed the cause, and after his assassination Congress passed a bipartisan bill dedicating the institution to him. “That’s how it got its name,” Ms. Weiswasser said, adding pointedly, “This is a memorial. Memorials are to dead people.” She did not mention Mr. Trump, whose board members in December had his name added to the front of the building to make it the “Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” It was removed under court order last month. As the building took shape in the 1960s, she said, more than 60 nations contributed furnishings and art. Italy’s gift was the largest: 3,700 tons of Carrara marble that sheaths the center’s facade and interior walls, from the same region as the marble for Michelangelo’s David.
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