Donald Trump wants a gilded, 250-foot triumphal arch on Memorial Circle in Washington, modelled on the Arc de Triomphe and topped by a winged figure. The plan has now drawn opponents with one of the most famous surnames in American politics: nine Kennedys have joined a lawsuit to block it.
For them the dispute is personal. The cemetery on the far bank of the Potomac is where JFK rests alongside his brothers Bobby and Ted as well as Bobby’s wife Ethel. The family argues that the arch would cut off the view of the graves and the Eternal Flame for anyone crossing the Memorial Bridge, a view the family says it picked on purpose, and would throw a shadow across the plots, above all at dawn, the hour at which relatives traditionally come.
Among those suing are Rory, Kerry and Joseph P. Kennedy II as well as Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, all of them offspring of Robert and Ethel, as well as a grandson of the couple and Edward Kennedy’s son. Represented by the Democracy Defenders Fund, they contend that the federal Interior ministry and its park agency signed off on the project without the authorisation Congress requires. Speaking for the family, two of the siblings framed the case as a defence of “sacred spaces” owned by the public.
Their motion adds them to an existing suit already brought by veterans who served in Vietnam, by the capital’s local government and by the neighbouring state. Late last week federal judge Tanya Chutkan barred any groundbreaking for 14 days, hours after a planning commission had backed the arch by eight votes to four.
Opponents also point to the layout of the site itself. Lincoln’s memorial and Arlington House, the mansion on the hill, were placed to face one another as a gesture of reunion after the Civil War, and the arch would stand squarely between them. With Democrats about to control Congress, Trump’s wider remodelling of the capital is likely to face sharper questions.
