History of the Kennedy Center

The official opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on September 8, 1971 was the culmination of a dream that had been part of the Washington cultural, social and political life for nearly two centuries. Although not located specifically where Pierre L'Enfant may have wished it, the Kennedy Center, because of its size, scope and grandeur contributes to the fulfillment of L'Enfant's original visionary plans for a Washington on a "grand scale." 1 L'Enfant had introduced the idea of a "grand" capital to President Washington when he requested of Washington the position of architect for the new city: "...although the means now within the power of the country are not such as to pursue the design to any great extent it will be obvious that the plan should be drawn on such a scale as to leave room for that aggrandizement and embellishment which the increase of the wealth of the nation will permit it to pursue at any period, however remote. 2 In his plans, L'Enfant included a Church "intended for national purposes" 3 of a semi-religious nature, and along the Grand Avenue connecting the "Congressional house," the three "grand Departments of State" and the "Presidential Palace" would be the "the play houses, rooms of assembly, academies and all such sort of places as may be attractive to the learned and afford diversion to the idle." 4

     The particular concern of this study is to trace those events which finally culminated in the official opening of the Kennedy Center on September 8, 1971 and, in the companion piece which follows this study, to describe some of the more prominent features of the Kennedy Center and its operations and to provide a record of performances in the Kennedy Center's Opera House, Concert Hall and Eisenhower Theater during its early years of operation. Because of the variety and multitude of activities in the Kennedy Center during its early years of operation not all those activities can be discussed; and because there are tens of thousands 5 of critical reviews and commentaries about the Kennedy Center's activities and performances, no attempt is made in these studies to categorize, analyze or evaluate the critical reaction to the performances and public functions.

     The major sources for the present study have been primarily four: the Washington Post and Washington Star newspapers; the Congressional bills, hearings and reports; the reports made annually by the Kennedy Center to its parent body, the Smithsonian Institution; and the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States.

Early Attempts to Create a National Theater

     When the six Executive Departments of the Federal Government moved to Washington in July 1800, theater followed and by August the United Sates Theater, built into Samuel Blodgett's Great Hotel on the north side of E Street, N.W. between 7th and 8th Streets, opened Theater continued to thrive in Washington and in 1835 the National Theater, a commercial enterprise, opened on the same site it now occupies.

     But Washington was still in need of a large public hall and in 1883 when the War Memorial Building at 4th and F Streets, N.W. was built at a cost of $900,000 it gave promise of satisfying a civic need. From 1885, when the Bureau of Pensions took the building over, to 1909, the central hall was the scene of Inaugural Balls of Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Taft. At this last ball in 1909, more than 18,000 people attended. In 1913 Congress proposed a 6,000 seat George Washington Memorial Hall; the building was designed but the necessary money for its construction could not be raised. What little money was collected was subsequently given to George Washington University.

     Private enterprise built the 4,000 seat Washington Auditorium at 19th Street and New York Avenue in 1923. For the next ten years it was Washington's only hall for major conventions and cultural gatherings. But shortly after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 Inaugural Ball was held there, the building was converted to government office space. In 1929 the Daughters of the American Revolution opened their 3,800 seat Constitution Hall which remained Washington's major concert hall until the opening of the Kennedy Center. But its use was limited not only by its design but also by policies of the D.A.R. 6

     Attempts to create a National Theater gained support in November 1933 when Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt asked Eva Le Gallienne, founder and director of the Civic Repertory Theater in New York, to formulate plans which Mrs. Roosevelt could present to the President. Mrs. Roosevelt was concerned about the number of unemployed actors and actresses and had discussed with the Emergency Relief and Civil Works Administration ways to create employment for them. 7

     The theater was not established but the interest the prospect generated did not die and in 1935 the Federal Government became directly involved with the idea of a National Theater when the House Patents Committee started holding hearings on a bill to establish a new Department of Science, Art and Literature. The bill suggested constructing a building on Capitol Hill which would complement the Supreme Court building and "that such building architecturally shall be in keeping with the beauty of art, the dignity of science, and the visions of literature." 8 At the June 27, 1935 hearings, plans for such a building were presented by Harry Francis Cunningham, Washington architect, and Edwin Fairfax Naulty which would contain a section "for symphony music; in another a section for drama; in another a section for the children's theater, and another for the grand opera." Each of these four theaters would seat 2,500. Although no Department of Science, Art and Literature was established, Naulty and Cunningham kept alive the idea of a National Theater. They took their plans for a Federal Academy of Arts of the Stage to the District Commissioners on July 30, 1935, and then asked the Public Works Administration on August 10, 1935 for an appropriation of $8 million to build the Academy on Columbia Island in the Potomac River. They did not receive the money and the Academy was not built.

     The tiny, 511 seat, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Auditorium in the Library of Congress opened in 1935. Although it is a public hall, its size and restrictions placed upon its use by the Library of Congress limits its usefulness.

     Interest in large public halls or auditoriums was renewed in 1937 when Congress created an Auditorium Commission which recommended a hall to be erected at 4th and D Streets, N.W. but nothing happened. Again in 1938, Congress passed a resolution calling for the construction "of a public building which shall be known as the National Cultural Center," but -it was not built. The first War Memorial Building had been constructed in 1883 and another War Memorial Building Citizen's Committee was formed in 1945 but a resultant bill died in Congress without hearings.

     In August 1948, the National Theater, Washington's only professional legitimate theater, closed because of its racial discrimination policies. That fall, Melvin D. Hildreth, Father Gilbert V. Hartke, Patrick Hayes, and Richard Coe called a meeting in the Auditorium of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History to formulate plans for the development, of a Federally supported National Theater. (Both Hayes and Coe were to remain actively involved for the next thirty years.) No theater was forthcoming from that meeting and on June 1, 1950 George Jessel announced that President Harry S. Truman was supporting his plan to raise $3 million for an integrated theater owned by the Federal Government. This theater was never built.

     That same year, 1950, the idea of a theater as a national memorial to a president was raised when Rep. Arthur G. Klein (D. N.Y) introduced a bill on August 14, to authorize $5 million for planning and construction of a Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Theater to be built on public land under the control of the National Capital Parks. One of the bill's special features was its prohibition of "any discrimination in cast, audience, or incidental employment...." 9

     Although the theater as a national memorial to President Roosevelt was not built, the impetus toward a national theater continued when Rep. Charles D. Howell (D., N.J.). introduced bills on March 2, 1953 for a National War Memorial Theater and Opera House to be built and backed by federal funds. In the Senate, a companion bill was introduced by Senators James E. Murray (D., Mont.), Matthew Humphrey (D., Minn.) Estes Kefauver (D., Tenn.) and William Langer (R., N. D.). A controversy developed when Carl W. Berueffy, a Washington attorney and a Vice President of the National Opera Guild, charged David E. Finley, Chairman of the Commission on Fine Arts, "of obstructing the building of a national theater and music center in Washington, as well as any Nation-wide encouragement and assistance to the living arts." 10

     Howell's bill did not reach the hearing stage and, on January 18, 1954, he introduced a revised version to create an American National War Memorial Arts Commission in Washington, create a commission to encourage the arts throughout the country, and provide Federal grants to states to develop state arts programs and projects. Identical bills were introduced simultaneously by Reps. Richard Bolling (D., Mo.) and Lee Metcalf (D., Mont.). The beginnings of the Kennedy Center as we know it today can be traced in an unbroken line from the introduction of Howell's revised bill, and the testimony before the Bosch Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee on June 8, 1954, when nine witnesses enthusiastically supported National Theater and Opera House and Federal grants to States for fine arts programs under a national arts commission. 11 Although the hearings generated much support and interest in a cultural center for Washington, months would pass before any further action would be taken.

The District Auditorium Commission

     Howell did not return to Congress and it looked as if the drive toward a national cultural center would languish, but his successor, Rep. Frank Thompson, Jr. (D., N. J.), reintroduced, on January 6, 1955, Howell's old bill with some changes. At the same time, Keams reintroduced his bill to establish a National War Memorial Theater and Opera House. On February 15, 1955 the special House District Subcommittee headed by Rep. James H. Morrison (D., La.) started hearing testimony supporting the bill to set up a Federal commission to form plans for a cultural center in Washington. Among the supporters were Clarence Derwent, President of the American National Theater and Academy (ANTA), Robert W. Dowling, Chairman of the Board of ANTA, and Patrick Hayes. Hearings continued over to February 23 when testimony was taken from members of the House sponsoring identical legislation for the civic auditorium. At the end of the hearings on the 23rd, Rep. Morrison announced that Dowling, head of a New York investment firm, had volunteered to raise money from private sources to build the proposed national cultural center.

     Congress did establish by joint resolution a 21 member commission to plan an auditorium-civic center for Washington. On September 19, 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed his seven nominees 12 to join those previously appointed by Vice President Richard Nixon 13 and by Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. 14 This 21 member commission was given to February 1, 1956 to report to Congress with suggestions on what the center should include, where it should be built and the manner in which it could be financed on a self-liquidating bases. 15

     The prospects for the long awaited cultural center seemed to be looking up and the Washington Star on September 20, 1965 recognized that even though the Auditorium Commission faced a difficult task because of the lack of funds and the lack of a chairman, "fortunately, the caliber of the membership obstacles will be overcome and the objective achieved. That important objective is a practicable plan for providing Washington with a long-sought civic auditorium and cultural center." But the Washington Star editorial identified the main problem which was to plague the Commission for weeks:

Presumably the commission itself will have to select a chairman from among its members--but who is to call the members together for the organizational meeting? The problem of organizing the group is being discussed informally among the members with a view to having someone--perhaps one of the legislators on the body--to take the initiative in convening the commission at an early date.

     For weeks, nothing happened with the District Auditorium Commission because of this lack of leadership. Growing impatient with the inactivity of the Commission, Interior Secretary McKay announced that he had appointed Conrad L. Wirth, Director of the National Park Service, the executive officer of the Commission with instructions to call an organizational meeting. However, Senator Neely and Senator McNamara objected to the intrusion of McKay and Wirth because they were not members of the Commission. McKay replied that he was only trying to help get the Commission started and if they did not want his help, it was "all right" with him. Once again the Washington Star, on October 13, 1955, called upon the Commission to get started:

Unfortunately, Congress neglected to give the commission any guidance in the choosing of a chairman or the formulation of an organization plan. Someone, obviously, has to take the initiative if the commission ever is to get down to the important business of working out plans for an adequate civic auditorium and cultural center in Washington. Legal quibbling over who should issue the call for the first meeting ought to be abandoned in favor of a concerted effort by all concerned to get the commission organized and functioning, despite lack of an appropriation. The undertaking, is handicapped enough without adding to the difficulties.

     Finally on October 25, 1955, the Commission met and elected Agnes E. Meyer, wife of Eugene Meyer, Chairman of the Board of the Washington Post, its Chairman and Dowling its Vice-Chairman. Although there was no money to operate, the Commission members agreed to pay the bills themselves, hopeful that a requested $25,000 would be approved by Congress in January 1956. Also at this meeting the Commission discussed possible sites for the center--the Southwest Development area, Foggy Bottom, and a site on the Mall opposite the National Gallery of Art. Although the Commission did not know it at the time, the selection of the site would embroil the Commission in controversy for years.

     The idea that the center should be of a national character rather than merely local seemed to be gaining support and in December 1955 eight of the country's most prominent architectural, engineering and planning groups agreed to volunteer their services to help plan the cultural center because of this "national" nature of the enterprise. 16

     Progress was finally being made and when the February 1, 1956 deadline approached for the Commission to report back to Congress, the Senate District Committee approved a bill extending to May 1 the deadline for a report and legislation which would officially designate the civic-cultural center as a "National Auditorium." The Senate also approved operating funds for the Commission which had been provided by the members themselves.

     The refusal of a House Appropriations Subcommittee to approve the $25,000 operating budget again threatened the project. Chairman Meyer directed the Commission to suspend its work when she heard on March 15, 1956 that the money had been refused. Immediately, Rep. John McMillan (D., S.C.) promised to try to get action taken on the Senate approved measure to extend the life of the Commission and to provide operating money. And in May, Rep. Michael Kirwan (D., Ohio), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee, told Commission Chairman Meyer that "there is not a member of the Committee who does not appreciate the need for a civic auditorium to meet the many requirements of the Nation's Capital." 17

     The Commission did survive and decided the only way the cultural center could be built would be to evoke national as well as local interest and it established an Advisory Council made up of representatives of national organizations. During the summer of 1956, the Commission investigated eight possible sites and narrowed its choice to either the Foggy Bottom area south of Virginia Avenue, N.W. between 23rd Street and the river or the Southwest Redevelopment Area, lying east of 10th Street between D and E Streets, S.W. At the same time the commission was looking for a site for the cultural center, Carl Griffith, owner of the Washington National baseball team, was receiving offers to have a new stadium built in the Southwest for the team. Fearing a conflict over the same site, Chairman Meyer wrote to Harland Bartholomew, Chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, on October 16, 1956 that the Commission would have its final choice by the end of December and that she hoped the Southwest project site would still be available.

     Within two weeks it was clear that the Commission favored the site in Foggy Bottom. Immediately intense opposition arose to this choice. The 25 member Federal City Council's Executive Committee announced its "unqualified opposition" to Foggy Bottom and Council President George A. Garrett sent telegrams to each of the 21 members of the Commission asking for a hearing. Garrett explained that the west leg of the inner belt highway would have to be shifted west next to the banks of the Potomac River; that if this were to happen, as a National Capital Planning Commission study indicated, the road would run through blocks slated for Potomac Plaza's luxury cooperative apartments; and that the Peoples Life Insurance Company had plans to start in the spring a new $2.5 million headquarters in the same area.

     This opposition by the Federal City Council, some members of the Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) and the Potomac Plaza Corporation did not deter the Commission; but when the Commission asked the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) if it were feasible to move the highway, the NCPC resisted giving its support. On November 9, 1956 the Washington Post also expressed its opposition to the Foggy Bottom site:

he expressed, preference of District Auditorium Commission officials for a site in Foggy Bottom to house the proposed national cultural center raises questions of grave importance to the city, Approval of the site would require a change in the routing of the Inner Belt Freeway in this area. This, in turn, would disrupt important private and public projects for which plans and financing are in hand or within sight....

At stake are the $100 million development of the old Washington Gas Light Co. property by Potomac Plaza Corp.; already under way the construction of the new office building by People's (sic) Life Insurance Co.; and the connections and feeder for the new Constitution Ave. bridge. Moreover, such a location for the auditorium would jeopardize the success of Southwest Washington redevelopment--a project that will add many more millions to the city's tax rolls and go far toward preserving the balance and economic health of the District of Columbia....

More than commercial interests or tax dollars are at issue in this, of course, but they are also involved....The projects with which the Auditorium Commission's choice of a site conflicts are the very means by which Washington is endeavoring to eliminate its disgraceful slums, alleviate its choking burden of traffic, restore its central area as a place of beauty and make the entire city a better place to live. The objective ought to be to place the cultural center in a location that will contribute to this over-all effort, rather than diminish it by wiping away much of the hard-won progress of the past several years....

     The Commission bowed to the various pressures and, after conferring with its advisory board of engineers and architects, announced on November 26, 1956 that it would restudy the original possible nine locations.

     Chairman Meyer, however, did not take lightly the criticism leveled at the Commission by the Washington Post. Speaking before the Soroptomist Intentional Club on November 28, 1956, she complained that the Washington newspapers editorially had been "unscientific and arbitrary" in commenting on the possible sites of the center when those sites required "the most careful study by experts." 18

     The Commission had been formed in September 1955 and it was able to have ready its report for Congress by January 31, 1957, its deadline. 19 The report called for four basic facilities: a "Great Hall" seating up to 10,000, an auditorium-concert hall, a theater, and an information center. Also included were parking facilities and restaurants. The plan also limited the possible sites for the center to three: two in the Southwest and the preferred Foggy Bottom location which was bounded by New Hampshire and Virginia Avenues, 23rd, 26th and E and Water Streets, N.W. Of the total 26.9 acres, 86 per cent was in private hands. The east site in the Southwest was bounded by 6th, 10th, D and E Streets, S.W. and the scheduled Southwest Freeway. Although privately owned at the time, the Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) expected to acquire its 27.2 acres as part of the Area C Southwest project. The west site in the Southwest was comprised of 18.2 acres of private land which the RLA expected to acquire. It was a rectangle bounded by 9th, 12th and D Streets and the proposed Southwest Freeway.

     On February 6, 1957, the Commission met with President Eisenhower who told the members that he hoped the proposals for a national cultural center could go ahead as planned. And on February 8, after a meeting before a joint House-Senate Subcommittee, the Senate Subcommittee headed by Senator Wayne Morse (D., Ore.) approved a measure that would direct the Civic Auditorium Commission to select and recommend one specific site. The measure also changed the name of the group to the Commission for a National Cultural Center. The Commission had presented three possibilities even though they had stated often they preferred the Foggy Bottom location.

     Immediately controversy over the site flared up again. William Zeckendorf's New York firm, Webb and Knapp had publicly supported a center in Southwest Washington. It had sent a "confidential" letter to the Commission on January 25 outlining its support for the center in Southwest, but on January 30, it reversed its decision and gave its support to Foggy Bottom. But Royce F. Ward, Vice President of the Potomac Plaza apartment and office building development, and William T. Leith, Vice President and general counsel for the Peoples Life Insurance Company, again objected to Foggy Bottom. They were supported by John Remon, Chairman of the RLA.

     But the Commission received support for its choice from Leon Chatelain, Jr., President of the American Institute of Architects, who said that "the area happens to be the only remaining beautiful site along the Potomac River. This location automatically will give the proposed cultural center the proper and most attractive setting." 20

     What everyone had known for almost two years became official on February 15, 1957, when the District Auditorium Commission's Executive Committee unanimously selected Foggy Bottom as its choice for the new Cultural Center, and Congress lent approval on April 8, 1957, when a Senate-House Conference Committee proposed that the $36 million Cultural Center be placed in Foggy Bottom. Only Rep. Broyhill voted against the location.

     Prospects for the Cultural Center seemed to brighten when the Senate approved on May 15, 1957 the Senate-House conference report which would authorize the General Services Administration (GSA) to acquire the tract. When the House approved the conference report the GSA would be able to ask for an appropriation. But Broyhill refused to support the report because he claimed that a number of private projects would suffer if the Center were placed in Foggy Bottom, that the cost of acquiring the private land was grossly underestimated, and that there was plenty of government available land in the Southwest.

     Chairman Meyer answered the, argument concerning the cost of acquiring the land in a speech before the American Institute, of Architects at its centennial convention in Washington:

It is disconcerting that some private real estate interests have raised the price of the land since our commission made public its preference for this site.

I hope the Congress will not be disturbed by this but will take note that District assessors valued the property, together with improvements, at a little more than $2.5 million when we were preparing our report last year. 21

     But Chairman Meyer, the Auditorium Commission, the Senate and all the supporters of the National Cultural Center underestimated the power and persuasiveness of Broyhill.

     As early as May 18, 1957, the Washington Star berated Broyhill for his opposition: "Representative Broyhill has waged a strong and lone fight to locate the cultural center in the Southwest redevelopment section. But the preference of House and Senate members working on the problem has been so solidly in favor of Foggy Bottom that continued opposition by Mr. Broyhill could serve no other purpose than to sabotage the entire project."

     The legislation to authorize acquisition of a site in Foggy Bottom has passed the Senate on May 15, but Broyhill's argument that the land would cost $20 million and not the $2.7 million as claimed by Chairman Meyer stalled it in the house. On May 29, the Washington Post joined the Washington Star in berating Broyhill for his opposition:

The principal opposition has come from Rep. Joel T. Broyhill, who has displayed some remarkable misconceptions about the site problem. He has opposed The Foggy Bottom site (as did this newspaper before it appeared that conflicts with other public projects there could be resolved) and urged that the center be placed on land planned for this purpose in the Southwest Washington redevelopment project. This would be a good site--but not for the reason Mr. Broyhill advances.

He has said or implied on several occasions that the Southwest location involves land already owned by the Federal Government or available at little or no cost through the redevelopment program. At the same time he has suggested that Foggy Bottom site might cost as much as $20 million. Mr. Broyhill is wrong on both counts.

     But Broyhill continued to oppose House approval for the purchase of the site 22 and in July 1957 a permit was issued for the construction of the headquarters of the Peoples Life Insurance Company on the site in Foggy Bottom chosen for the National Cultural Center.

     Broyhill won. On August 8, 1957, by a standing vote of 108 to 74, and then by a subsequent roll call vote of 115 to 284, the House of Representatives defeated the bill to locate the Center in Foggy Bottom. Leading the opposition to the bill besides. Rep. Broyhill were Reps. O'Hara and Hyde. Supporters of the bill were led by Reps. Morrison, Thompson and Kearns. Not only was the Foggy Bottom site rejected, but also those portions of the bill which would extend the life of the Commission until the Center was completed. Naturally, Chairman Meyer, who had guided the Commission through the hard, and grueling years of work, was vastly disappointed at the outcome: "It was perfectly clear that the House had no concept of the importance of the Center for the happiness and education of our own people and for the prestige it would give our Nation abroad. 23

     Broyhill won, but he also came under some strong criticism for his stand, not only from his fellow Congressman Frank Thompson, Jr., who said that Broyhill did not even take "the trouble to attend even one of the Commission's meetings" 24 of which he was a member, but also from the Washington Star of August 9, 1957:

It would be a great shame if the vote in the House yesterday has killed not only the Auditorium Commission but any early chance for an auditorium and cultural center in Washington....

For surely Congress will not permit the three years of work by the commission to go down the drain. The chances to obtain the splendid facilities envisioned by the Auditorium Commission never seemed so bright, nor the opportunity so available, as those presented in the program of the Auditorium Commission. Given the land, in an appropriate location, the money to build in the American Capital a fitting symbol of the spiritual aspirations of our people undoubtedly would have been forthcoming--not from the Treasury, but from citizens all over the country. We heartily commend Mr. Morrison for his attitude. And he is familiar enough with the legislative process to know that changes in its direction may quickly occur.

Representative Broyhill, whose instinctive ability to take the wrong side on a question affecting the ultimate welfare of his own constituents and their neighbors can be attributed only to an extraordinary genius, concentrated his efforts to defeat the conference report on a sensitive spot--the pocketbook nerve of his economy-conscious colleagues. He won, for the figures on cost were pretty well muddled. But it was an empty sort of victory. Approval of the auditorium project would have meant much for all the people, particularly those whom he is supposed to represent in Congress.

THE NATIONAL CULTURAL CENTER

     The Kennedy Center died on August 8, 1957, even before it was born. And had it not been for the tenacity of Representative Frank Thompson, Jr. of New Jersey the drive for the creation of a National Cultural Center might never have been revived. On August 12, only four days after the House killed the Civic Auditorium Commission when it voted down the Foggy Bottom site, Thompson proposed new legislation that would continue the life of the Commission. His new proposal eliminated any reference to Foggy Bottom.

     By September 21, 1957, copies of Thompson's proposal were being circulated among interested Federal agencies. It provided that the new National Cultural Center be placed under the jurisdiction of the Smithsonian Institution and that it be located on the Mall in an area bounded by 4th and 7th Streets, S.W. and Independence Avenue and Adams Drive, S.W., an area that the Smithsonian had been eyeing for its new Air Museum. Thompson based his site suggestion on the 1938 Congressional resolution which called for construction on the site "of a public building which shall be known as the National Cultural Center."

     Thompson joined forces with Senator J. William Fulbright (D. Ark.) to co-sponsor the Fulbright-Thompson National Cultural Center bill, but when the Senate Public Buildings Subcommittee approved a bill in March 1958 to locate the National Air Museum on the Mall site, the Cultural Center seemed doomed once again.

     The idea of the Cultural Center, however, did not die, only its new proposed location. On April 22, 1958, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) and the Fine Arts Commission (FAC) suggested at a hearing of the Senate Public Works Subcommittee that the land occupied by the old Pension Office at 5th and F Street, N.W. be used for the National Cultural Center. And once again Foggy Bottom was suggested as the site for the Center, but a different area in Foggy Bottom. The suggested new Foggy Bottom site encompassed ten acres, nine of which were already owned by the Federal Government. Nobody at this hearing could possibly have envisioned how difficult acquiring that one acre would be.

     The drive for the National Cultural Center picked up momentum.

     On June 18, 1958, Thompson was joined by Rep. Kearns in cosponsoring a House bill to authorize the Center in Foggy Bottom. On June 20, a compromise bill co-sponsored by Senators Fulbright, Clinton P. Anderson (D., N.M.) and Alexander Wiley (R., Wis.) to establish a National Cultural Center 'for the Performing Arts in Foggy Bottom passed the Senate in seconds. The bill provided that funds for the Center be raised by private subscription and that the Center be run by a 30. member board to be set up within the Smithsonian Institution. Approval of the new Foggy Bottom site was quickly gained in both the Senate and the House when the District Commissioners agreed to reimburse the NCPC from Capper-Cramton funds for any money spent in acquiring the one acre not already owned by the Federal Government.

     But the previous stumbling block had been the House and, as an August 9 adjournment date drew close, fears grew that nothing would be done. However, on August 1, Rep. Robert Jones (D., Al.) made a surprise announcement that he was extending the meetings of the House Public Buildings Subcommittee to August 5 so that public hearings could be held on the legislation to authorize a National Cultural Center. Once again, at the last moment, the Center was saved. Added importance was given to this hearing when President Eisenhower sent a letter on August 2, 1958 to Rep. Charles Buckley (D., N. Y.) expressing hope that Congress would complete legislation on the Center before adjournment:

There has long been a need for more adequate facilities in the Nation's Capital for the presentation of the performing arts....

An auditorium and other facilities such as are provided for in pending legislation, established and supported by contributions from the public, would be a center of which the entire Nation could be proud.

I hope that the Congress will complete action on this legislation during this session. 25

     President Eisenhower's support and that of 15 witnesses who testified at the hearings helped. The bill was passed and at his Newport, Rhode Island vacation spot, the President signed it into law on September 4, 1958. A major milestone on the road to the creation of the Kennedy Center had been achieved.

     By November, President Eisenhower had not yet named the Board of Trustees for the National Cultural Center. The Washington Star praised the President for using great care in his selection, for "it is right that the task of choosing the appointive trustees should proceed slowly and painstakingly." 26 But Senator Fulbright, the senior sponsor of the legislation creating the Center, wrote to President Eisenhower on January 14, 1959 to express his concern and that of other Center backers over the delay in naming the trustees. Fulbright reminded the President that under the terms of the law, within five years from the date of enactment--August 22, 1958--the money for the Center, estimated at $ 10 to $25 million, had to be collected. If adequate funds for the Center were not on hand by August 22, 1963, whatever money collected would be turned over to the Smithsonian for any purchases. The White House informed Fulbright that fourteen of the fifteen trustees had been selected, but that the fifteenth still had to be chosen and he had to be someone who could represent the national interests.

     On January 29, 1959, President Eisenhower officially appointed the fifteen citizen members of the board charged with the building, maintaining and administering the long awaited National Cultural Center. 27 They joined the members of Congress appointed by Speaker of the House Rayburn and by Vice President Nixon, and the ex-officio members determined by law. 28 Reaction came swiftly. Richard Coe, the Washington Post drama critic, wrote on January 31, 1959, that "there's not a single person professionally connected with the performing arts in the 15 President Eisenhower has appointed as trustees of the National Cultural Center. This is like naming a covey of pious divines to run a railroad." A Washington Post editorial of the same day agreed with Coe but pointed out, on the other hand, that because the Board was heavily represented with persons of wealth and power, it augured well for the fund-raising chore.

     There was hope, Coe believed, because the Fulbright-Thompson bill provided also for an Advisory Committee of top-flight professionals who were expected to have an unusual amount of influence on the policies for the new Center. Coe urged the nomination of Dowling, Chairman of ANTA and formerly Vice Chairman of the old Auditorium Commission, as chairman of the new advisory group. Coe got his wish and when President Eisenhower appointed the 34 member Advisory Committee in Augusta, Georgia on April 11, 1959, Dowling was named as head. 29 All the committees had been appointed but nothing substantial started on the fund raising aspect of the Center until May 30, 1959, when Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Arthur S. Fleming, Chairman of the Center's Board of Trustees, appointed former Ambassador to Norway, L. Corrin Strong, Chairman of a nation-wide campaign to raise $25 to $30 million.

     By the end of June 1959, Edward Durrell Stone had been appointed the consulting architect for the Center and the estimated cost for it had risen from $25-30 million to $50 million. By July, Stone was able to discuss his plans for the Center and on October 6, 1959, he unveiled his preliminary plans for the Center at a meeting of the President's Music Committee in New York; the more detailed plans were made public on November 22. Enthusiasm and praise greeted the plans. The Washington Post on November 23 called Stone's concept for the Center,

.... little short of breath-taking.... Located on an attractive site on the Potomac, the project would give Washington a cultural palace and center for the performing arts in which the whole country could take pride. It would be not only a delightful center for recreation--symphonic music, opera, the theater, lectures and so forth--but also an international meeting place of great distinction. We surmises that it would lift Washington to a high place among the world capitals that make a specialty of culture.

     But again the price had gone up. First it I was $10 million, then $25, $30, $50, and now the Washington Post quoted a figure of $61 million.

     Would such a high figure hinder the building of the Center? The Washington Post thought not:

The grand design that has been presented, however, will be an inspiration to millions of givers in Washington and across the Nation. Once they visualize what this magnificent modern shrine to culture will mean to the Capital and to the country the people who bring it to fruition are not likely to give it up. The planners and the architect have taken the bold, broad view. They have conceived a cultural center that may well serve the American people for centuries. Now it remains for a prosperous people to lift their sights and demonstrate their faith in the future by endowing this magnificent home of American culture.

     Stone's plans drew the approval of the Fine Arts Commission, the District Commissioners, the National Capital Planning Commission, and the National Park Service. But it was the Washington Star which realized the historical importance of Stone's designs when it wrote on November 23, 1959, that "all in all, the plan is in the best traditions of L'Enfant--an architectural effect which was uppermost in Mr. Stone's mind."

     Now that the idea of a National Cultural Center had been approved by Congress, an architect chosen and his preliminary plans revealed and approved, what remained was to raise enough money to build the Center and to buy the one acre of land needed to complete the new Foggy Bottom site. The fund raising activities for the Center began in Washington when 700 patrons turned out for dinner and an "Evening with the Performing Arts" at the Statler Hilton Hotel on May 25, 1960. Early efforts of the Washington Area Committee of the National Cultural Center received a boost when Phillip M. Talbot, chairman of the committee, announced that L. Corrin Strong had given $335,000, the Hattie M. Strong Foundation $500,000, and Mrs. Jouett Shouse $116,000.

     Fund raising began in earnest in September 1960 when the Center engaged the services of the G. A. Brakeley Company. Working with Strong's staff they put together a list of 534 multimillionaires, 2,366 millionaires, 16,605 "other wealthy persons", 3,075 corporations and 2,102 foundations. The Trustees of the Center recognized early in their fund raising efforts that unless the Center could gain national support throughout the whole country, it would flounder. Arthur Fleming, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, wrote to 100 actresses, poets, novelists, actors, historians, directors of art galleries, musicians, composers, directors and businessmen to enlist their aid in establishing the Cultural Center as a national symbol.

     The early attempts to raise money for the Center and for the American public to see it as a National Cultural Center faltered and by the time that John F. Kennedy assumed the Presidency in January 1961 it appeared the Center was hardly alive. Three years after Congress had authorized the Center, the bank balance in the Center's account was $13,425 30 and the planned nation-wide fund drive had not materialized.

President Kennedy and Roger L. Stevens take charge of the National Cultural Center

     The drive toward the successful completion of the Center gained new momentum on March 10, 1961, when President Kennedy sent letters to Vice President Johnson and House Speaker Rayburn urging Congress to enact legislation that would enlarge the proposed Foggy Bottom site. President Eisenhower had urged Congress on January 18 to include three parcels of land not in the original site. President Kennedy now threw his prestige behind the Center:

I want to renew this recommendation,. The National Cultural Center is the most significant cultural undertaking in the history of this city and has enormous importance to the cultural life of the Nation as a whole. There is a real and promising opportunity to establish new horizons, for the performing arts in this city. There have been many public-spirited citizens participating in the work and planning of the Cultural Center, and I believe that the Federal Government should take the small, additional steps in order to provide a suitable. setting and environment for the Center. Moreover, this is an enterprise which has earned the support of membership of both parties in the Congress.

I urge the early enactment of this legislation so that the plans for the National Cultural Center may proceed promptly. This can be an important step in recognizing the vital role of culture in the vigorous development of our country. 31

     During July 1961 the National Cultural Center underwent an Appraisal by the White House. What the investigators were told was that the momentum for the Center had been dissipated by the delay in the fund drive and that the $75 million price tag was too high to gain much public support. In the next two months, President Kennedy appointed replacements to the Board of Trustees whose staff had shrunk from 25 employees to three. 32 President Kennedy began to take a direct personal interest in the completion of the Center.

     September 2, 1961 marks another milestone in the creation of the Kennedy Center. On that date, President Kennedy appointed Roger L. Stevens, millionaire real estate broker and theatrical producer, to be Chairman of the National Cultural Center Board of Trustees with a primary responsibility for the raising of funds. Stevens immediately tackled the problem and on November 14, 1961 he revealed to the 71 member Advisory Committee his plans for a closed circuit television spectacular which he hoped would net between $7 to $10 million.

     To assist Stevens in raising funds for the Center, the White House on February 24, 1962 appointed Mrs. John F. Kennedy Honorary Chairman of the Center. In accepting the assignment, Mrs. Kennedy said in part: "Our Capital should be a symbol of our national interests and accomplishments. It is said that no adequate facilities are available for the performing arts here in Washington so that national recognition can be given to artists and performing groups from all over the, country and the world." 33

     To raise a share of the needed money in, Washington became the task of the Greater Washington Committee for the National Cultural Center. Mrs. Hugh D. Auchincloss, Mrs. Kennedy's mother, was appointed its chairman on March 24, 1962. In her acceptance speech, Mrs. Auchincloss focused on the responsibility of Washingtonians to support the Center because they would be benefiting directly from it. 34

     The Center's fund-raising was given added prestige when President Kennedy announced on April 19, 1962 that Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower had agreed to serve as co-chairman of the Center with Mrs. Kennedy. Mrs. Eisenhower also emphasized the importance of the Center:

My husband and I have long felt the our Nation's Capital should reflect the many outstanding achievements of the American people in every field.

We have such a rich heritage in the arts, and these accomplishments could be better dramatized if we had proper facilities for the performing Arts in our Capital.

I am happy to join in working to achieve the goal which Congress set in establishing the National Cultural Center.

I am certain that the people in every State will support the center as a matter of National pride and because they want to see the Arts continue to grow and flourish in our way of life. 35

     A national delegation of fund raisers from around the country were shown the new plans for the Center in early September. They enthusiastically approved Stone's new plans which reduced the project price of the Center from $75 million to a more realistically attainable $30 million. The Fine Arts Commission approved these new plans on September 19, 1962, and plans went forward for a nationwide close-circuit television spectacular "The American Pageant of the Arts" to be shown on November 29.

     To aid the national campaign for funds for the National Cultural Center, the Senate Committee on the judiciary, under the Chairmanship of Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi, approved a resolution, which was reported by Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, to authorize President Kennedy to designate November 26 through December 2, 1962 as National Cultural Center Week. The resolution drew attention to the "Center's intentions of strengthening cultural organizations everywhere" and emphasized that the Center wanted "the support of cultural and civic organizations at the community level." 36

     Stevens himself laid it on the line to 75 Washington business and community leaders at a lunch at the American Security and Trust building on October 31 when he told them that Washingtonians must turn out for the closed-circuit coast-to-coast spectacular to prove that the District was behind the Center. The goal for Washington was to sell 550 places at $100 apiece to the dinner and show at the Armory, to sell out the $25 a place buffet dinner at the Indian Spring Country Club in Montgomery County, and to fill all the seats at the $1 to $5 showings at American, Georgetown, George Washington, Catholic, Howard and Maryland Universities, and at the $2 and $5 showing at Lowe's Capitol Theater.

     On November 29, 1962, 350,000 people in 75 cities were assured by President Kennedy that America would be known "not as much for our victories in battles or in politics, but for our contributions to the enrichment of the spirit." 37 President Kennedy in Washington was joined on the telecast by President Eisenhower in Augusta, Georgia and stars in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Stevens had hoped that between $7 to $10 million would be raised, but estimates finally placed the figure at a modest $1 million. All local organizations across the country were allowed to keep for local projects fifty per cent of what they raised.

     While the various fund-raising committees in Washington and elsewhere had been concentrating their efforts in making the November 29 telecast a success, groups had been working all through 1962 trying to move the National Cultural Center from its Foggy Bottom site. The attack had started on February 21 when the Washington Building Congress complained that the Foggy Bottom site was "almost inaccessible" and they recommended that the Center be moved to Franklin Park. This suggestion was supported by the Downtown Progress Committee. Talk of moving the Center intensified so that on June 16, Stevens branded such talk as "completely unfounded." He added that President and Mrs. Kennedy were very enthusiastic about the site that Congress had donated.

     But agitation for a move of the Center did not lessen and in June 1962, Rep. William B. Widnall (R., N.J.) introduced legislation to direct the National Capital Planning Commission to find a new location. Widnall suggested using Carter Barron Amphitheater and four downtown theaters-Warner, Keith, Capitol, and the Belasco. Widnall also claimed that the Kennedy Administration was working to move the Center.

     By December, the Downtown Progress Committee was backing down on its demand for a move of the Center and its Vice President, Robert H. Levi, supported the 'Foggy Bottom site: "We have a beautiful site which has received great acceptance and which has been--and is now --The basis for a National-wide campaign for funds. To try to change it now would be a move in the direction of torpedoing this project at a time when it is finally gaining the momentum it deserves." 38 This was to become, for the next eight years, one of the main reasons supporters of Foggy Bottom gave for not moving the Center.

     But the critics of Foggy Bottom were vociferous in their opposition. Their leader over the ensuing years was Wolf Von Eckardt, Architectural Critic of the Washington Post. The headline for his December 16, 1962 attack on the Center and its site read, "Site for Cultural Center Wrapped in Spaghetti Maze." In his article he described a "spaghetti of access ramps" which would just about hide the Center from view. This phrase, "Spaghetti Maze" would haunt the Center for years and be repeated often. Just three days earlier, on the 13th, a Subcommittee of the President's Advisory Committee on Pennsylvania Avenue was discussing the possibility of breaking up the Center into three separate buildings and placing them on Pennsylvania Avenue so that the street could be made the showcase L'Enfant had envisioned. Von Eckardt agreed with the recommendation and the Washington Post on December 27 also supported the proposed move: "At a time when the city is preparing an unprecedented effort to rebuild Pennsylvania Ave., it seems unthinkable to put the Center anywhere else."

     The push to make the November, 1962 telecast a grand success seemed to have absorbed much of the energy of those working for the establishment of the National Cultural Center and, on January 6, 1963, fearing that the Center might be doomed by inactivity, Coe, in the Washington Post, reviewed all the progress made during the past five years and warned that only a few months remained during which the money could be raised: "At all events, September will be here before we know it, and in the meanwhile, the little fleas all will be striving to go there own sweet ways and the big job, started at last, will be undone." But writing in the Washington Post on March 3, Coe recognized that "From the outside, the National Cultural Center would seem to be pretty much of a miserable mess. The only thing that seems to be happening is a mass of non-developments." However, after listing the positive features of the activities, Coe concluded that at least, the project is building on foundations long since laid."

     Stevens had explained to Coe that most of the activity during the early part of 1963 had to be directed toward fund raising and, on April 1, Stevens was able to report to President Kennedy that the Ford Foundation had given the Cultural Center a matching grant of $5 million which the Center would receive when the fund raisers had obtained $15 million. With this support from the Ford Foundation, the Center officials announced that they expected excavations to start in January 1964. The Ford Foundation gift was the boost that the Center needed, for as Ralph E. Becker, Chairman of the General Campaign, said: "The grant confirms the stature of the Center nationally, and there should no longer be any reservation about the Center. It should satisfy the Executive Branch, the Smithsonian and the Congress by confirming their bipartisan faith in the Center." 39

     The international stature of the Center was established on July 3, 1963 when President Kennedy announced, on his arrival from Italy, that the Italian government had offered to give all the marble needed for the construction of the Center. This gift, amounting to more than $1 million, culminated a year and a half of negotiations on the part of Stevens to obtain the gift. Whereas Coe had seemed somewhat dejected in January and March of 1963, now, in July, he was positive that Congress would have to extend its five year limit on the fund raising time established for the Center: "In view of history, traditions and present accomplishment, it is inconceivable that Congress will not overwhelmingly, proudly support the simple, inexpensive gift of time." 40

     Coe was right and, on July 18, 1963, the Senate Public Works Committee sent to the Senate legislation to give the National Cultural Center until September 1966 to raise the necessary $30 million. The Senate bill passed and was sent to the House on July 22. After testimony by Stevens that the Center would request no Federal subsidy for operating expenses and after hearing him report that $10 million had been raised, the bill was approved by a House Public Buildings Subcommittee on July 30, 1963.

     One of the early activities of the Center's fund raisers had been attempts to convince the leaders of business and finance to make contributions to the Center. President Kennedy stepped in to help and he formed the President's Business Committee for the National Cultural Center. At the first meeting of its 60 members at the White House on October 8, 1963, Kennedy told them: "The nations of the world both in and out of the Iron Curtain countries, have their great and beautiful centers for the performing arts, but here in the world's greatest capital we have nothing, and this represents a great cultural gap in our American growth," 41 And two weeks later, on October 26, he reiterated this theme when he spoke after receiving an honorary Doctor of Laws at Amherst College, previous to his dedication of the Robert Frost Memorial Library. This was the last time he would give public support for the Center that would soon bear his name:

I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishments and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.

The National Cultural Center Becomes the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

     Within hours after President Kennedy's assassination, a spontaneous campaign to dedicate the National Cultural Center to the President's memory was proving, in the words of the Washington Post, "irresistible and appealing." On November 26, Senator Fulbright, sponsor of the original 1958 bill which had started the move toward a National Cultural Center, introduced a bill to rename the Center the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Cultural Center and to authorize appropriation of the last $5 million necessary for the construction of it. Fulbright was joined as co-sponsor by Senators Leverett Saltonstall (R., Mass.), Joseph S. Clark (D., Pa.) and Hubert H. Humphrey. The next day the Washington Post enthusiastically endorsed the change:

Of course the National Cultural Center should be newly consecrated to the memory of John F. Kennedy. There could be few more fitting memorials to a President, who enlivened the White House with music, drama and poetry. Mr. Kennedy moreover was the embodiment of life and vivacity; a conventional monument would be false to his own spirit. Far better a place where people gather to hear and see works of beauty than a marble mausoleum which would seem to embalm rather than evoke his memory.

     Fulbright had introduced his bill on November 26 and the next day seven bills were introduced in the House, all of which would rename the Center and provide some funds to finish its construction. Support for the memorial, came in from all around the country but no one. expressed it more eloquently than Charles Bartlett, writing in the Washington Post on November 29, 1963: "The proposal to construct the National Cultural Center in the name of John F. Kennedy is one answer to the hopes that his death may yield some of the aspirations of his life."

     Six days after the bills were introduced in the House, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent to both Houses of Congress, on December 3, his own bill which incorporated his own ideas and the wishes of the Kennedy family. The National Cultural Center would be renamed The John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial Center and would provide Federal funds to match, dollar for dollar, private contributions for both construction and operation of the Center. On December 12, 1963, the full Committees of the House Committee on Public Works and the Senate Committee on Public Works met in a rare joint session to hear testimony. The day before, President Johnson had sent a letter to Rep. Buckley, Chairman of the House Committee on Public Works, expressing his support for the joint resolution to rename the Center in Kennedy's memory:

I should like to take this opportunity to express my wholehearted support for the Joint Resolution (S.J. 136 or H.J. Res 828) presently before the Congress to rename the National Cultural Center in honor of President Kennedy. It seems to me that a center for the performing arts on the beautiful site selected would be one of the most appropriate memorials that a grateful nation could establish to honor a man who had such deep and abiding convictions about the importance of cultural activities in our national life. In this connection, it is my understanding that the Kennedy family would prefer to have the Center named "The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts" in order to indicate more specifically the nature of that memorial to him.

In a speech a month before his death, President Kennedy said, "I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist." He understood that history remembers national societies less for the might of their weapons or for the mass of their wealth than for the quality of the artistic legacy they bequest to mankind. By carrying forward the project of a national cultural center, we can all help strengthen the traditions and standards of the arts in American society. And in doing this we carry forward the spirit and concern of John F. Kennedy.

That the Federal Government should participate in this undertaking by providing funds to match the contributions which have already been made and will be made in the future, by people throughout this Nation and the world is entirely fitting. This action should insure prompt completion of the Center to which President Kennedy gave his full support and which he saw as an embodiment of our Nation's interest in the finest expressions of our cultural activity.

I hope that the Congress will take early action on this resolution. 42

     As part of his testimony, Stevens presented a financial report, dated November 30,1963, and he and Ralph Becker, General Counsel for the Center, testified that the original figure of $30 million did not include approximately $11 million needed for the 1,600 car garage. Both Stevens and Becker agreed that the Center could be built with a $15.5 million dollar grant from the Federal Government.

     President Johnson's bill of December 3 would rename the National Cultural Center the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial Center. The Kennedy family preferred the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The bills introduced carried the old Memorial designation. When asked which he preferred, Stevens replied that he would go along with the wishes of the Kennedy family.

     The next day, Friday, December 13, four identical bills were introduced in the House and on Monday, December 16, hearings were held by the House Committee on Public Works on Rep. Buckley's revisions of the joint resolution. These revisions changed the name of the National Cultural Center to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; set a limit of $15.5 million on Federal matching funds to build the Center; set a limit of $15.4 million the Board of Trustees could issue in revenue bonds to pay for the parking facilities; approved the accepting of gifts to the Center; and designated that the Center "shall be the sole national memorial to the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy within the city of Washington and its environs."

     The weekend of December 14 and 15, the House Public Works Committee had spent in executive session revising this joint sponsored bill and during the hearings on the 16th, Rep. William B. Widnall (R., N. J.) proposed that Congress create a Kennedy Memorial Commission to consider the transformation of the National Cultural Center into the Kennedy Memorial. Widnall introduced in the testimony a detailed analysis of the Center and what he saw as its problems. Widnall doubted that there was a sufficient audience in Washington to support the three proposed theaters in the Center; he repeated Von Eckardt's criticism that it would be "an island in the midst of a spaghetti-maze of arterial highways;" he referred to Patrick Hayes' objections to the site of the Center; he objected to the borrowing of $15.4 for the parking garage because "this astounding proposal would put a first mortgage on a Presidential memorial for the first time in our history;" he did not approve of matching funds for Presidential memorials; he did not believe that the Center would be self-supporting. Rep. Widnall's testimony was well documented and the arguments he represented were to be repeated often during the ensuing years.

     On Tuesday, December 17, the bill was approved by the House Public Works Committee and within hours the Senate Public Works Committee followed suit. But on the 18th, opposition to the appropriation of the money arose in the House Rules Committee which cleared the measure for a floor vote under the agreement that it would not be called up until January. The bill was approved in the Senate on the night of December 18, 1963 by a voice vote.

     On January 8, 1964, the House took up the bill and four and half hours of spirited debate followed. Supporters of the bill had to beat down key amendments which would have stripped the bill of Federal matching funds and loans, set up Congressional review of parking loans and grants, and delayed any further action until a Memorial Commission had been appointed to study and screen all memorial proposals. This was the first important legislation in the House in the new session, and it ran headlong into opposition by Republican members who attacked the bill on economic grounds. But much of the Republican opposition was defused by Rep. James C. Auchincloss (R., N.J.), the ranking Republican member of the House Public Works Committee, whose speech in support drew warm response from. the House. After his speech, Speaker John W. McCormack praised Auchincloss for "one of the finest speeches I have heard in 35 years in the house." 43 Each of the individual amendments was defeated and the bill passed by a voice vote.

     It then went to the Senate with one word different from that which the Senate had approved in December 1963. The House Bill provided that the Kennedy Center be the "sole" memorial to the President in the National Capital area. If the Senate would not accept the word "sole" then the bill would have to go to conference. Not wanting to place any further roadblocks in the path of the completion of the Center, the Senate, by a voice vote, passed the measure on January 10, 1964 and sent it on to President Johnson who signed it into law, with 34 pens, on January 23, 1964 in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Mrs. Kennedy did not attend and Senator Edward M. Kennedy spoke for the family.

     On February 13, 1964, President Johnson asked Congress to appropriate the $15.5 million it authorized for the Center, plus $3.3 million buy more land within and adjoining the Center site in Foggy Bottom; $2.2 million was to be spent to complete the acquisition of Center land as defined within the 1958 act and the other $1.1 million to replace the funds that the National Capital Planning Commission used to buy Center land earlier and to buy two parcels of land outside the tract.

     Part of the land to be purchased outside the original site was a quarter acre on which Marjory Hendricks operated her Water Gate Inn. But what was not commonly known was that on November 18, Hendricks had accepted a bid of $900,000 from seven Washingtonians for her quarter acre and on January 8, the contract was completed with settlement to take place by March 3, 1964.

     The current legislation defined the "statutory site" as 7.7 acres, but modifications in the original designs and land needed for roadways and approaches, and green space around the Center, boosted the total needed to eighteen and one half acres. Of the original 7.7 acres, 5.9 was owned by the government and 1.8 by private citizens. The House Appropriations Subcommittee had authorized the NCPC to buy one half acre-of land in the site for $774.157.50 on January 10, 1963, and had been paid on January 6, 1961 for the lot on which a Blue Bell Waffle and Doughnut Shop was located. At that time, the Center had tried to buy the Water Gate Inn but was rebuffed.

     Within the tract itself there remained only two parcels of land in private hands; about one acre belonged to the Heurich Brewery estate and the other was a 845 square feet lot owned by Adele Ward. To President Johnson's request for the additional $3.3 million, the Center's architect Stone's new plans (dated January 28, 1964) exhibited by Stevens before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on March 4 and they showed that the full eighteen and one half acres would be needed.

     On March 13, 1965, the House Appropriations Committee approved President Johnson's request and, by a voice vote on March 17 the House voted its approval. After a House-Senate conference on June 24 and 26, it was agreed that the Senate would make $1.5 million available immediately. It would match funds raised and spent since Congress first authorized construction in 1958. The House would permit Federal matching only of those private contributions made after July 1, 1964. The Senate also voted to grant $225,000 more than the House had allowed for relocation of businesses displaced by the Center. And on June 29 both the House and the Senate approved the $18.2 million appropriation for the Kennedy Center which was included in the annual appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies.

     The Kennedy Center was given its $18.2 million but the arguments concerning its location were revived. Controversy surrounding the site of the National Cultural Center and now the Kennedy Center had raged on since the first major legislation was passed in 1958. Buoyed by the activity of the House Public Works Committee in early December 1963, the Washington Post concluded on December 16, the day of the hearings for the appropriations, that the Center not only would be built but "the long argument over the Center's location is now ended." What a mistaken opinion that proved to be.

     The Committee of 100 on the Federal City had urged on February 14, 1964 that the Center should be located downtown and that Congress refuse President Johnson's request for the $3.3 million to buy the land in Foggy Bottom The Washington Star disagreed with this Committee on March 2, 1964 and commented that the design of the Center was ideal for the site along the Potomac, that there would not be enough money to buy the high-priced land downtown, and that the Center's fruition was virtually assured. The Star concluded that "this proposal to delay this excellent project to study an impractical alternative is one that should be discarded."

     But it was not discarded. On February 21, 1962, the Washington Building Congress had suggested the Center be moved to Franklin Square and two years later, on March 6, 1964, before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee considering President Johnson's request for the $3.3. million, the Building Congress once again pushed the Franklin Square site. The Fine Arts Commission had also testified before the House Appropriations Committee on February 24 that they opposed Foggy Bottom, although they did not have an alternative site to suggest.

     During the debate on March 17 about the $18.2 million request for the Kennedy Center, Rep. Robert N. Giaimo (D., Conn.) supported the Gross amendment eliminating the money for land purchases and urged that the Center by moved to Pennsylvania Avenue. This was also the choice of Sol Hurok, the New York impresario, who suggested that the theater part of the Center be located on the land occupied by the District Building.

     The area on the Mall designated for the Air Museum was a favorite choice of Von Eckardt who repeated, on March 22, 1964, in the Washington Post the criticisms he leveled at the Center in 1962. This time, though, he no longer thought of three separate buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue but three buildings in three different locations--the concert hall in Foggy Bottom, and the opera house and the theater either on the Mall or on Pennsylvania Avenue. He felt that undue haste in placing the Kennedy Center along the Potomac River "will lead us to commit a folly that would plague us for the next 100 years." On March 26, the Federation of Citizens Associations also threw its support behind the move to shift the Kennedy Center to the Mall.

     Von Eckardt had called the Kennedy Center "a hasty design on a poor site" and finally he and Stone met face to face on WTTG's "Community Dialogue" on March 29, 1964. Von Eckardt challenged Stone and Stone defended the Foggy Bottom site. Further attacks were made on April 15, when the fourteen member Executive Board of the Washington Metropolitan Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) called for a thorough reexamination of the form and site of the Center. The 200 architects attending the monthly meeting approved the statement.

     Similar criticism had been expressed earlier by the Washington Building Congress, the Washington Planning and Housing Association, and the Committee of 100 on the Federal City. All these criticisms were given to Stevens and he appeared with architect Stone, on May 8, 1964, before the National Capital Planning Commission to defend the Center and its site. Afterwards the Commission took a bus and walking tour of the site and then returned for a closed-door debate. After a lengthy discussion, the CPC voted seven to three to reaffirm its support for the Potomac riverside site. It appeared, once again, that the debate about the location of the Kennedy Center was ended and that efforts to change its location would cease.

     But the Washington Metropolitan Chapter of the AIA did not give up and, on May 24, 1964, its president Francis D. Lethbridge, and Roger L. Stevens, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center, engaged in a debate in the Washington Post. Stevens reiterated why he believed the Potomac River location to be the best available: various committees of Congress in 1958 had chosen the site; every agency concerned with the building of the Center, including the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the NCPC, the National Park Service and the District Board of Commissioners, were invited to appear before Congressional committees and each time the suitability of the site was confirmed; "the Center is not, and never will be an urban renewal project built to encourage local business interests;" transportation to the Center was adequate; and that President Johnson wholeheartedly endorsed the location of the Center.

     Speaking for the architects, Lethbridge claimed that it was not too late to change the plans for the Center; "the Center must reach out into the surrounding city just as the city must extend into the Center" and so stimulate business in the area; that serious study should be given to the area currently occupied by the old District Building and the Coast Guard Building; to the area occupied by the Munitions Building between 17th and 21st Streets; to the area on the Mall designated for the Air Museum; to Pennsylvania Avenue from the Archives to the old Patent Building; and to Franklin Park. Lethbridge also recommended that only the opera house be built at this time in Foggy Bottom and that the other theaters be built at a different place later.

     The presentation of these two opposing views should have exhausted the desire to keep the arguments going, but architect Stone had to appear before the Commission once again to answer such criticisms and finally, on June 5, 1964, it gave "final approval" to the preliminary plans and design. This meant that now Stone and his associates could prepare the detailed engineering and architectural plans so that construction could start.

Ground is Broken for the John Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

     At last, on December 2, 1964, at noon, President Johnson turned the first spadeful of dirt on the site of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. President Johnson used no ordinary spade. The gold-bladed spade had been used for both the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the Arlington Memorial Theater, and for hundreds of tree plantings from March 18, 1898 when President William McKinley first used it to plant a scarlet oak on the front lawn of the White House. Kept in a vault by the National Capital Parks when not in use, it has a polished wooden handle decorated with a bow of red, white and blue ribbons. Small silver markers attached to the handle recall the more important occasions on which it has been used.

     At the groundbreaking ceremony, President Johnson remarked that "if it fulfills our hopes, this Center will be, at once, a symbol and a reflection and a hope. It will symbolize our belief that the world of creation and thought are at the core of all civilization." After paying tribute to Shakespeare, Johnson continued:

The leaders that he wrote about live far more vividly in his words than in the almost forgotten facts of their own rule.

Our Civilization, too, will largely survive in the works of our creation. There is a quality in art which speaks across the gulf dividing man from man and nation from nation, and century from century. That quality confirms the faith that our common hopes may be more enduring than our conflicting hostilities. Even now men of affairs are struggling to catch up with the insights of great art. The stakes may well be the survival of civilization. The personal preferences of men in government are not important -- except to themselves.

However, it is important to know that the opportunities we give to the arts is a measure of the quality of our civilization. It is important to be aware that artistic activity can enrich the life of our people, which really is the central object of Government. It is important that our material prosperity liberate and not confine the creative spirit.

     In closing, President Johnson paid tribute to President Kennedy:

Pericies said, "If Athens shall appear great to you, consider then that her glories were purchased by valiant men, and by men who learned their duty."

As this Center comes to reflect and advance the greatness of America, consider then those glories were purchased by a valiant leader who never swerved from duty -- John Kennedy. And in his name I dedicate this site." 44

     Besides President Johnson, Senator-elect Robert F. Kennedy (D., N.Y.) and Stevens spoke, Sir John Gielgud read President Kennedy's favorite passages from Shakespeare's Henry V, and Jason Robards, Jr. read from a speech President Kennedy once gave on the place of art in America.

     By all accounts, December 2, 1964 was an historic date for Washington and as such perspectives were needed and gratitude was due. This Coe of the Washington Post provided on the morning of the groundbreaking. He pointed out that when veterans returned home after World War II, it was readily apparent that "the Capital of the United States lacked fitting homes for the performing arts." Coe paid tribute to the thousands who had worked during the years since the Cultural Center was authorized and he singled out Vice President-elect Humphrey, Senator Fulbright and Representative Thompson who "worked with awesomely proud patience, to create an act for the National Cultural Center." Praise was given Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, but Coe recognized early in (the history of the Kennedy Center the vast debt owed Stevens and L. Corrin Strong, the Center's first fund raiser:

The hardest job of all has been in raising the funds. On this thankless task Roger Stevens has spent several years of exhausting travail and travel. He has made speeches all over the country. He has knocked heads together in private and he has been attacked for his troubles by all manner of persons, some knowledgeable, others benighted. It accurately can be said that all of those who have worked for this, today's ground-breaking wouldn't have happened without Stevens. He didn't ask for the job. It was wished on him and he's wrestled with it.

The same could also be said of L. Corrin Strong, who started the fundraising job. Without saying anything about it, Strong quietly financed these tricky early years with close to a million dollars of his own money. Without Strong, the bill might have remained a scrap of paper.

One could already write a book about what might or might not happen to the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts. But today is a time to be grateful to those who have done what many thought was impossible. Stevens and his associates have activated a dream.

     However, given though the groundbreaking ceremony had taken place, actual excavation on the site was not scheduled until the summer of 1965.

     Once the groundbreaking ceremony had been accomplished it would seem that no one would want to try to move the Center to another site. But on February 3, 1965, Widnall proposed that the Kennedy Center be moved to Pennsylvania Avenue. Encouraged by Widnall's suggestion, critics of the Kennedy Center site renewed their opposition and waged a year long battle that did not end until construction of the Center's building actually started in December, 1965.

     Not only were the Kennedy Center Trustees faced with defending the Foggy Bottom site and acquiring the needed land, they also were also faced with a June 30, 1965 deadline by which time they had to have raised their $15.5 million from private sources. Things were looking up when, on April 4, the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation gave the Center $500,000. By counting the value of the gifts from Germany ($250,000), Norway ($210,000), and Denmark ($135,000) it appeared by June that the goal would be reached. Consequently, after a three hour meeting on May 17, 1965, the Kennedy Center's Board of Trustees approved Stone's final plans.

     But by June 11, 1965, the Center was again in financial peril when Stevens announced that the Center was short $1 million, not the previously announced $600,000. This difference of $400,000 arose when the value of the foreign gifts were converted into American money. The gifts themselves were to arrive after the June 30 deadline, but diplomatic notes from each country attesting to the value of the gifts were accepted by the State Department. When Japan announced its gift of the red silk curtain for the Opera House, another $140,000 was added to the fund on June 28. On June 29, with only a few hours to go before the crucial deadline, Italy officially presented its gift of $1,168,000 worth of marble. Not only was this one of the largest gifts the Center ever received, it put the Center over its $15.5 million goal by $1,012,314,09. 45 Included in the $15.5 million figure was the $5 million from the Ford Foundation.

     The controversy over the Kennedy Center's site remained relatively quiet during these early months of 1965, except for another attack by, Von Eckardt in the Washington Post, on April 18, in which he again alluded to "a messy spaghetti of freeways...." But when the General Accounting Office certified that the matching funds had been raised, 46 opposition quickly flared up. On August 10, the American Institute of Architects disclosed that it had "received information that serious consideration is being given to the possibility of relocating" the Center. But Daniel P. Moynihan, on leave as Assistant Secretary of Labor to be the Vice Chairman of the President's temporary Pennsylvania Avenue Commission, said that as far as he knew, the present site of the Kennedy Center was fixed and settled. 47 The next day, August 11, Stevens immediately labeled the AIA's rumors as "nonsense"; Edward T. Foote, Assistant to the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Avenue Commission, also considered the Potomac site final; and Charles A. Horsky, Adviser to the President for National Capital Affairs, said that absolutely no discussions on changing the Kennedy Center site had taken place at the White House.

     The following day, August 12, Widnall called on President Johnson to set up a blue ribbon Memorial Commission to reconsider the site of the Kennedy Center. Widnall's opinion that the erection of the Center along side the Potomac would be "a cultural disaster" was echoed by Nicholas Saterlee, President of the Washington Chapter of the AIA, who claimed that constructing the Center on its current site "would be a mistake bordering on the tragic." 48

     Widnall was not about to give up his campaign to move the Center, and on August 19, 1965, he introduced a bill to relocate the Center on Pennsylvania Avenue. As expected, Saterlee supported the bill while Stevens objected to it. But Widnall's bill met the opposition of Rep. George H. Fallon (D., Md.), Chairman of the House Public Works Committee, who said on August 23 that it was simply too late to reopen the question of the location of the Center because construction would begin in just a matter of weeks. Fallon's committee had held the hearings which provided the $15.5 million in Federal funds for the Center and he defended the Potomac River site: "In addition to the Congress, three Presidents have approved the present site. Our hearings were extensive and gave all interested parties ample opportunity to air their views on every aspect of the cultural center location. Hundreds of individuals or organizations, in addition to foreign governments, have or will contribute to the Center and made their commitments on the basis of the present site, thereby giving tacit approval." 49 The Washington Star on August 25 agreed with Fallon and expressed the hope that "his decision, which is eminently sound, will officially end this fruitless controversy once and for all."

     But the controversy did not subside and when the proponents of the Pennsylvania Avenue location tried to enlist the aid of Senator Kennedy, he tersely replied that "The Kennedy family has agreed with the decisions connected with the formation and development of the Cultural Center. The Kennedy family is abiding by those-decisions." 50

     The clergy became involved in the fight when the Right Rev. Paul Moore, Jr., Suffragan Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Washington, wrote to Rep. Widnall on September 14, that the culturally deprived of Washington would not be able to get to the Potomac River site of the Kennedy Center.

     The campaign to move the Center picked up steam on September 16 when Rep. Charles McC. Mathias, Jr. (R., Md.) introduced a resolution in the House asking the National Capital Planning Commission to undertake an immediate study of the Kennedy Center site and to impose a 90 day moratorium on any construction. Five days later, 78 prominent Washingtonians sent a petition to, the Kennedy Center's Trustees asking for a 60 day moratorium on pre-construction work about to begin, "to enable a review committee, appointed for the purpose, to hear, study and make recommendations concerning all questions relating to the location of the Center." 51 Stevens again had to defend the site from this latest attack and he did so by holding a press conference on a grassy strip between Rock Creek Parkway and the Potomac on September 29. No better evidence of Stevens' determination to finish what he had started with the Kennedy Center can be found than this simple statement he made to assembled guests and reporters: "We are going ahead. I won't stop until I produce a building for you." 52

     The next day, September 30, Senators Clark, Fulbright and Saltonstall threw their support behind the Foggy Bottom site, and Clark repeated what was commonly accepted as the strongest reason for not moving the Kennedy Center: "It is obvious that changing plans now would delay completion of the Center for at least five years and perhaps 20." 53

     But the proponents for the change were not to be silenced and on October 15, 144 prominent citizens signed "A Petition Relating to the Location" of the Center and took out a half page ad in the Washington Post to publicize their stand. The petition asked for a 60 day moratorium for a Review Committee "to hear, study, and make recommendations concerning all questions relating to the location of the Center." Stevens had to reply and he sent them a 14 page memorandum on October 20 answering their criticisms. The Washington Post, on November 3, 1965, expressed what must have been on the minds of thousands:

All good arguments, like all good things, must some day come to an end. That moment, we think, has arrived for the argument over where the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ought to be located. It has been a good argument. But it ought to stop now. To prolong it any further will earn for Washington the dubious distinction of having amended the ancient wisdom that "nothing is ever settled until it is settled right." There are at great many things that; in this city, are never settled at all -- right or wrong. And the location of the Center is in a fair way of becoming one of them.

Many people --including this newspaper -- had misgivings about the site. Many, including this newspaper, would like to have seen the matter more fully debated in advance of the decision. But if there was a moment to pick another site, it is past. And those who would have chosen a different center at a different place have lost their opportunity to influence a decision. The community must now go ahead and surmount whatever difficulties of construction and operation attend the chosen location. Most of them would have been present at any alternative site. All of them will be magnified by prolonging further an argument that no longer has any constructive end. It is time to decide whether we want a debate or a center.

     The issue finally came to an end on December 4, 1965 when Edward Weisl, Jr., Assistant Attorney General for Land and Natural Resources replied to a formal inquiry from John R. Immer on behalf of the D.C. Federation of Citizens Associations. In a letter to Attorney General Nicholas deB Katzenbach, Immer pointed out that the Kennedy Center enabling law prescribed certain boundaries for the structure but that present plans to extend those boundaries to include a portion of Rock Creek Parkway and a wedge of New Hampshire Avenue were illegal. Speaking for the Justice Department, Weisl replied that there was nothing illegal in moving Rock Creek Parkway closer to the Potomac River and taking a triangle of land outside the original boundaries. A week later, on December 11, the Justice and Interior Departments both released opinions which held that the last minute objections to the Potomac River site were invalid. Also released were a series of letters between Attorney General Katzenbach and Interior Secretary Udall, and the thirteen page text of the legal opinion by Frank J. Barry, Interior Department Solicitor, who said that "I have no hesitancy in concluding that the objections currently raised to the legal validity of the state that has been raised are without merit." 54 That same day, December 11,1965, the large scale excavation finally got started, more than a year after the ground-breaking ceremonies.

     While the controversy over the location of the Kennedy Center raged on, the Trustees were going about their business acquiring the land necessary to complete the full 18 and one-half acres. The Center had good luck when, on June 23, 1965, Christian Heurich, Jr. and his two sisters, Mrs. Anita H. Eckles and Mrs. Karla H. K. Harrison, generously gave to the Center the last large parcel of land in private hands. The acre of ground, valued at $150,000, lies directly under the Opera House as it stands today. Earlier the District had purchased part of the Heurich Brewery site for the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge approach but had not included this one acre. When bulldozers arrived to demolish the Washington Diner which stood in the middle of the Heurich land, Luke Vandergrift, the Diner's owner, refused to budge until he received his relocation money. The dispute was finally resolved and the land was cleared. Legal problems had also arisen over the land on which the Water Gate Inn was located when Hendricks, its owner, filed a suit on September 21 to question the legality of the government's September I condemnation suit which allowed her $450,000 for the quarter acre. She had been offered previously $900,000 by private investors. Eventually, Hendricks and the justice Department agreed on the price of $650,000 for her land. With the money in hand, the land purchased, and final legal approval given to the site, it would appear that nothing more would stand in the way of finally beginning the construction of the Kennedy Center. On January 12, 1966, the District Commissioners approved the closing of New Hampshire Avenue between F Street and the Rock Creek Parkway on January 31, and the legal transfer of an acre of land from the Department of Interior to the Kennedy Center. But Rep. Widnall had not yet given up. He and Immer filed briefs opposing the closing of New Hampshire Avenue. They based their briefs on a 1932 law which permits disputes over street closings to go to the court. Such a tactic, if successful, could delay for a year or more the construction of the Kennedy Center. However, the law provides that only "interested parties" can file objections and it was not immediately determinable if any of the objectors met the legal requirements of "interested parties."

     The Watergate Town Project had also protested because the closing of New Hampshire Avenue would cut off access to its residents, but an agreement by the National Park Service that it would provide an access ramp from New Hampshire Avenue to Rock Creek Parkway eliminated their objections. By February 4, 1966, the Corporation Counsel had considered the written objections of two dozen who filed and told the District Commissioners that none of the objectors had a legal stake in the matter. The District Commissioners decided, on February 4, 1966, to go ahead with the closing without waiting for a court ruling. Was the controversy over the Kennedy Center site now truly ended? Not quite, for Joseph Watterson, formerly editor of the journal of the AIA and a consultant to Interior Secretary Udall, tried to revive the criticisms of the Kennedy Center on June 4. His method was slightly more ingenious than most. His forum was a cruise on the Potomac River of a boatload of Washington Gallery of Modern Art members. Nothing resulted from this criticism of the Kennedy Center and finally, in June 1966, invitations to bid on the general contract were issued. 55

Construction Begins on the Kennedy Center, January 1967

     By January 1967 the entire site had been cleared and the first caissons were being placed to bedrock. 56 almost as soon as the actual construction of the Center began, Stevens announced, on February 22, 1967, that an additional $5 million and an additional year beyond the estimates he had given in the summer of 1966 would be required to build the Center. In September 1967 the steel superstructure was started and, on September 20, architect Stone appeared before the new Fine Arts Commission to tell them that the new Watergate project was crowding the Center and he requested the Commission to buy the still un-used portion of land and to reduce by half the allowable height of the proposed new Watergate building. The Commission turned him down in a 5 to 1 vote and a new controversy was born.

     A week later, on September 26, the dispute was taken up by the District Commissioners, the Zoning Commission and Rep. Peter H.B. Frelinghuysen (R., N.J.) , but it was not solved. The Washington Post entered the controversy on October 13, 1967 when it attacked the "unattractive arrogance on the part of the Kennedy center Trustees--as though their project had a life of its own apart from the life of the city it is serve--in asking the completion of the Watergate suddenly be forbidden now that it is almost two-thirds built."

     The Watergate project had been undertaken under Article 675 of the District's zoning regulations, approved in July 1956, and three of the four stages had been built, with the fourth stage subject to possible height adjustment by the Board of Zoning Adjustment. Stevens reacted to the criticism of the Kennedy Center Trustees and replied on November 7, restating the Center's position and pointing out that since 1965 the Center had tried to get the issue settled and that the Watergate developers had no legal right to build above 90 feet even though they had proceeded to do so.

     The controversy escalated and, early in 1968, Interior Secretary Udall undertook to act as mediator between the two factions. On April 22, 1969, the Kennedy Center prevailed when the developers of the Watergate project agreed to leave more open space between their fifth and last building and the Center, and to use the new building for offices rather than apartments. by agreeing to rotate the last building away from the Center, some 380 feet were opened up between the two structures. The agreement also allowed the Center to use the parking under the new Watergate building.

     But the matter was not settled. On June 26, 150 residents of the Watergate complex, including Senator Morse and attorney Thomas Corcoran, confronted the Watergate developers and directors of the Center at a meeting with the District Zoning Commission. But the original agreement remained intact.

     In September 1967, the steel superstructure was started and, on January 29, 1968, an eleven foot-long steel replica of a bass viol was hoisted to the southwest corner of the Concert Hall to "top out" the completion of the first major segment of construction. On September 30, 1968, before 500 guests, the Navy Band and the Sea chanters dressed in composite 1812 Navy uniforms, the orange and black Greek masks of Comedy (Thalia) and Tragedy (Melpomene) were hoisted 109 feet to the top steel girder of the Kennedy Center. The last steel girder had been placed on August 13 and celebrated with a beer party by the steel workers. Just, one year after construction had begun the topping out ceremony had taken place. The exuberance of the topping out ceremony was somewhat blunted when Stevens told newsmen that plans would be announced for a $15 million fund raising campaign to start immediately to meet the increased construction costs of the Center. Stevens mentioned, on October 3, 1968, that some of the money would probably come from Congress. And so it would.

     On May 26, 1969, Stevens, Becker and William A. Schmidt, Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, General Services Administration, testified before the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds of the Committee on Public Works of the House. Chairman Kenneth J. Gray (D., Ill.) had introduced an amendment to the Kennedy Center Act to increase the appropriations from $15.5 million to $23 million and to authorize the issuance of up to $20,400,000 worth of revenue funds to finance the parking facilities. Stevens testified that the estimated cost of completion of the Center would be $66,200,000, up $15,500,000 from the 1964 estimated figure. As Contracting Officer for the Kennedy Center construction, Schmidt testified that the carpenters' strike, inflation, and underestimating the amount of steel needed, had caused the price of the building to go up An extra $600,000 was needed for additional soundproofing because the National Airport would be having jet flights over the Center.

     Under the leadership of Rep. Gray, the House voted on July 8, 1969, by 210 to 162, to appropriate $7.5 million more in matching money and to authorize an additional $5 million in bonding authority for parking facilities. The attack in the three and a half hour bitter debate was led by Rep. Frank Bow (R., Ohio), who after calling the Kennedy Center "a national disgrace" and a 'beautiful morgue" collapsed on the House floor. Also arguing against the appropriation was House Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R., Mich.) who announced that he was planning to have the General Accounting Office and the Justice Department