Story thread · 3 reports / 3 sources

Defiant tour guide spills details on declining Kennedy Center: 'Now it's a black hole'

rawstory.com · 15dShare

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, once one of Washington's busiest cultural landmarks, has been hollowed out to a scale that even longtime staff and volunteers describe as unrecognizable. The center has lost roughly 90 percent of its employees and 100 percent of its paying audience since President Donald Trump overhauled its leadership and programming in his second term, but amid it all, 87-year-old volunteer Sandy Weiswasser continues showing up weekly to guide the center's dwindling visitors, treating the ritual as an act of witness, reported The New York Times . “This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” Weiswasser told the newspaper. “Now it’s a black hole.” The volunteer tour guide program, which once numbered 140 guides offering tours in 10 languages to as many as 400,000 visitors a year, has shrunk dramatically. On a recent Monday shift, only five guides showed up — and just three people took a tour. “I don’t count success by the number of pe

First report: Trump Gutted the Kennedy Center. A Tour Guide Wants You to See It Anyway. — nytimes.com, 15d