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Stephen Mo Hanan, Who Played Three Roles in ‘Cats,’ Dies at 78
Stephen Mo Hanan, a vibrant performer who sang arias and other music as a busker in San Francisco before playing Kevin Kline’s lieutenant in the acclaimed 1981 Broadway production of “The Pirates of Penzance” and three felines in the original Broadway cast of “Cats,” died on April 3 at his home in Manhattan. He was 78.
Gary Widlund, his husband and only immediate survivor, said the cause was a heart attack.
At his audition for “Cats,” Mr. Hanan (pronounced HAN-un) told Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer, and Trevor Nunn, the director, that he had spent several years singing and accompanying himself on a concertina at a ferry terminal at the foot of Market Street in San Francisco.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve brought my concertina,” he recalled telling Mr. Nunn in an interview with The Washington Post in 1982. “He said, ‘Give me something in Italian.’ Well, I’ve never had a problem with shyness. I sang ‘Funiculi, Funicula.’”
Mr. Hanan was ultimately cast in three parts: Bustopher Jones, a portly cat, and the dual role of Asparagus, an aging theater cat, who, while reminiscing, transforms (with help from an inflatable costume) into a former role, Growltiger, a tough pirate, and performs a parody of Puccini’s “Turandot.”
In an entry about the second day of rehearsal, he described an assignment from Mr. Nunn: to “pick a cartoon cat we know of, withdraw to ourselves and prepare a vignette of that cat, then return to the circle and each in turn will present.”
He continued: “I choose Fritz the Cat,” the Robert Crumb character, “making a pass at some kitty. Watching the others is a gas — people’s individualities are beginning to emerge.”
He and another cast member, Harry Groener, were both nominated for the Tony Award for best featured actor in a musical. They both lost; the tap dancer Charles (Honi) Coles won for “My One and Only.”
In the years following “Cats,” Mr. Hanan’s many roles included Moonface Martin in “Anything Goes,” at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis; the double role of Voltaire and Dr. Pangloss in “Candide,” at the Huntington Theater in Boston; and another dual role, Mr. Darling and Captain Hook, in “Peter Pan,” on Broadway and on tour. He also portrayed the villainous innkeeper Thenardier in “Les Miserables” in London.
In 1999, Mr. Hanan created a stage role of his own: Al Jolson, the popular vaudevillian who performed in blackface, sang on Broadway and starred in “The Jazz Singer,” the pioneering sound motion picture. “Jolson & Co.,” which Mr. Hanan wrote with Jay Berkow, was staged Off Broadway, at the York Theater Company.
Al Jolson “was pure id,” Mr. Hanan, who bore a physical resemblance to him, told Harvard magazine in 2002, when the show was revived at the Century Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan. “He didn’t censor himself, neither his joy nor his rage. With Jolson you can be completely over the top; you have to be. His personality demands that kind of size.”
“Jolson & Co.” recreates a 1946 radio interview with Barry Gray as a way of looking back on his remarkable life. Mr. Hanan sang many of the songs Mr. Jolson was known for, including “Swanee” and “California, Here I Come.”
Reviewing the show in New York magazine, John Simon praised Mr. Hanan’s performance as “mostly impersonation but, as such, unbeatable.” He added, “On top of the Jolson looks, the incarnator has absorbed all the vocal, facial, and kinetic mannerisms as if he had stolen the man’s very soul.”
Mr. Hanan was born Stephen Hanan Kaplan on Jan. 7, 1947, in Washington. His mother, Lottie (Klein) Kaplan, was a high school English teacher; his father, Jonah Kaplan, was a pharmacist.
While attending Harvard College, Stephen performed in theatrical productions at the Loeb Drama Center and with the Hasty Pudding Club. He acquired the nickname Mo on a trip to Bermuda during college, after a friend, the future Broadway librettist John Weidman, observed that his outfit made him look like “some guy named Mo who cleans cabanas in the Catskills,” Mr. Hanan told the website TheaterMania in 2002.
After graduating in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, he studied for a year at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright fellowship.
Back in New York, he had difficulty landing roles, so in 1971 he moved to San Francisco, where he lived on a commune and spent six years singing for money, mostly at the ferry terminal, which earned him enough to spend winters in Mexico and Guatemala.
Once, outside the stage door at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, he encountered Luciano Pavarotti, who had just performed in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera,” and summoned the nerve to sing for the great tenor.
“I raced to the money note and he, exclaiming ‘Che voce d’oro’ — or ‘What a golden voice’ — beckoned me over amid applause,” Mr. Hanan wrote in an unpublished essay.
After returning to New York again, he landed small parts in New York Shakespeare Festival productions of “All’s Well That Ends Well” and “The Taming of the Shrew” in Central Park in 1978. (Around that time, he dropped his surname and began using his middle name instead, because there was another actor with a similar name.)
In 1980, the director Wilford Leach cast him as Samuel, the second in command to Mr. Kline’s Pirate King, in the Shakespeare in the Park production of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta “The Pirates of Penzance,” which also starred Linda Ronstadt. Mr. Hanan stayed with the show when it moved to Broadway in 1981.
Rex Smith, who played Frederic, the male romantic lead, said in an interview that Mr. Hanan “embodied all that was required to be the Pirate King’s lieutenant, and for that you had to stand and deliver every night — if you’re not going to be keelhauled.”
In 2006, Mr. Hanan moved up in rank to play the Major-General in a Yiddish-language version of “Pirates” (called “Di Yam Gazlonim!”), put on by the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan (now the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan).
Allen Lewis Rickman, the director, of that show recalled that Mr. Hanan did not know Yiddish and had to learn his lines phonetically.
“He was quite a character and very entertaining, one of those people who you know is a real pro,” Mr. Rickman said in an interview. “He had a clownish streak — that was his first instinct — but not in a scene-stealing way.”
Fantasy Wedding Planner!
Taylor & Travis
Wedding details are scarce, but that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate the event of the season. Channel your inner wedding planner and use your Swiftie knowledge to dream up your own fantasy version of how their big day might look. Your selections will be saved below. Share them with friends and see if you agree!
Where would the wedding be held?
Holiday House
An oceanside retreat in Rhode Island
Venue Holiday House
Swift’s mansion was the subject of her track “The Last Great American Dynasty,” which tells the story of its former owner, an oil heiress known for throwing swanky soirees. Swift herself has been known to throw star-studded summer bashes at the seaside compound.
Madison Square Garden
The iconic Manhattan fixture
Venue Madison Square Garden
The perfect choice for a woman who penned the words “Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you” and whose love affair with New York City has been well documented in many a lyric.
Arrowhead Stadium
A Kansas City venue big enough for two celebs who know everyone
Venue Arrowhead Stadium
Both Swift and Kelce have performed here: Kelce on the field and Swift during a stop on her Eras Tour, where Kelce tried and failed to give her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it. He later recounted his disappointment on “New Heights,” the podcast he hosts with his brother, Jason Kelce.
Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn
A rustic, intimate retreat near California’s redwood forest
Venue Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn
Swift loves this area, from recommending it to Vogue in 2016 for a romantic getaway to taking a falconry class there in 2018. This secluded spot in Northern California comes with “Folklore” album energy and just enough rooms for a small guest list.
Who would be the maid of honor?
Abigail Anderson Berard
Childhood bestie
Maid of Honor Abigail Anderson Berard
Yes, that is the Abigail from Swift’s song “Fifteen.” Berard and Swift met in English class on the first day of their freshman year at Hendersonville High School in Tennessee. Swift was also a bridesmaid in Berard’s wedding.
Maid of Honor Karlie Kloss
A wild-card pick. The model and the singer were once thick as thieves, sharing a Vogue cover in 2015 and strutting the Victoria’s Secret runway together, but their relationship seems to have cooled in recent years.
Selena Gomez
Singer, actor, beauty mogul
Maid of Honor Selena Gomez
They have been friends since the days when they were each dating a Jonas brother, and Swift appeared in behind-the-scenes footage of Gomez’s own wedding to Benny Blanco in 2025.
Lena Dunham
Voice of a generation
Maid of Honor Lena Dunham
Swift, clad in a silver pleated dress, was part of the bridal party when the writer and actor married the Peruvian-British musician Luis Felber in 2021.
Maid of Honor Ashley Avignone
A longtime friend who is often seen with Swift at football games and has appeared in the music video for “22.” Avignone is a designer, so maybe Swift will let her choose her own dress.
Pick a surprise musical guest
Ed Sheeran
English singer-songwriter
Musical guest Ed Sheeran
Sheeran and Swift go way back, collaborating on songs like “End Game” and “Everything Has Changed.” Rumor has it you can still hear the screams echoing through London from when he surprised attendees by performing onstage with Swift during a stop on the Eras Tour.
Musical guest Haim
The trio opened for Swift on the “1989” tour. Plus, lyrically at least, Swift has admitted to being close enough to the sisters to help them commit and cover up a fictitious murder in her song “No Body, No Crime.”
Kendrick Lamar
Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper
Musical guest Kendrick Lamar
The two have hyped each other up plenty in interviews over the years, and the rapper appeared on two Swift tracks, the original “Bad Blood (Remix)” and Taylor’s rerecorded version a few years later.
Stevie Nicks
Legendary singer-songwriter
Musical guest Stevie Nicks
She’s Stevie Nicks. Need we say more? (The two have been close since a joint performance at the Grammy Awards in 2010, and Swift name-dropped Nicks on her song “Clara Bow.”)
boygenius
Indie-rock super group
Musical guest boygenius
The three-member band has been on hiatus since 2024, but if anybody can get them back onstage (for one night only!), it’s Swift.
What’s on the dinner menu?
Chicken Tenders
A nostalgic comfort-food favorite
Main Course Chicken Tenders
With seemingly ranch. IYKYK.
Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que
Accompanied with wet wipes
Main Course Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que
The gas station-turned-barbecue joint is a favorite of Kelce and his teammates.
Cacio e Pepe
A taste of Italy
Main Course Cacio e Pepe
Swift has been repeatedly spotted at Via Carota, even as recently as this spring. The Italian hot spot in Manhattan is known for the signature pasta dish, made with Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper.
Mustard-Roasted Fish
An understated crowd-pleaser with coastal charm
Main Course Mustard-Roasted Fish
What’s a wedding without fish? Plus, Ina Garten herself cooked this recipe with Swift back in 2014. (Paired with whiskey sours.)
How would Swift wear her hair?
Down
Long, wavy and streaming down her back
Hairstyle Down
Very “runnin’ with my dress unbuttoned, screamin’, ‘But, Daddy, I love him’” vibes, to quote a song from Swift’s album “The Tortured Poets Department.”
A Platinum Bob
Something unexpected
Hairstyle A Platinum Bob
The return of Bleachella.
An Up-Do
Just a classic look
Hairstyle An Up-Do
Knotted and pinned to the nape of her neck, complete with Swift’s signature bangs — a red carpet staple for Swift.
Hairstyle A Braid
“Evermore” cover art inspired.
Who would she choose to design her wedding look?
Ralph Lauren
An American icon for an iconic American wedding
Designer Ralph Lauren
Both Swift and Kelce were wearing the brand in their engagement announcement photos.
Vivienne Westwood
Romantic draping and a cinched corset
Designer Vivienne Westwood
Swift has already worn one white gown by the designer, who made her a custom taffeta gown for the Eras Tour. Maybe she’ll just rewear it. Secondhand is very in for bridal these days!
Stella McCartney
Stylish and sustainably made
Designer Stella McCartney
Swift has sung about the British designer and, during her “Lover” era, collaborated with McCartney in 2019 on the “Stella x Taylor Swift” capsule collection inspired by the album.
Oscar de la Renta
Feminine and embellished
Designer Oscar de la Renta
From the stage to the red carpet, Swift is an Oscar de la Renta gal. She made the whole place shimmer in a sequined T-shirt dress by the designer during the Eras Tour and wore a blingy mini to the MTV Video Music Awards in 2022.
What about the wedding favors?
Custom Matchbooks
Inexpensive and easy for guests to tuck into a pocket or purse
Wedding Favor Custom Matchbooks
Perfect if you’ve got a picture to burn, a little reference to the inflammatory track off Swift’s debut album.
Personalized Golf Balls
If you don’t golf, these have excellent regifting potential
Wedding Favor Personalized Golf Balls
“Taylor and Travis Fore-ever!” Fitting for Kelce, an amateur golfer who is known to frequent the links in his off-season.
Blue Crew-Neck Sweatshirts
A cozy option
Wedding Favor Blue Crew-Neck Sweatshirts
The “it” item of the Eras Tour is back and better than ever with a new custom design specifically for the wedding.
Sourdough Bread
A gift that will surely not be tossed out in the hotel room trash when guests check out
Wedding Favor Sourdough Bread
The loaves will be made by Swift, a hobby baker, herself. She’ll carefully score each ball of dough with a knife so the top of the final loaf reads “TNT.” Plus a jar of starter for anybody looking to bake their own.
What would be the dress code?
“Enchanted” White Tie
A storybook-inspired aesthetic
Dress Code “Enchanted” White Tie
Big, romantic ball gowns and tuxedos with tails. No exceptions!
Just Your Basic Black Tie
Traditional, yet fashion forward
Dress Code Just Your Basic Black Tie
“The ties were black, the lies were white,” as the Swift lyric goes.
“Cowboy Like Me” Cocktail
Rodeo, but make it formal
Dress Code “Cowboy Like Me” Cocktail
Western-themed attire for all. Think bolo ties and boots, a nod to Swift’s country music roots.
“So High School” Prom
A joyful parade of sequins, vintage tulle and boutonnieres
Dress Code “So High School” Prom
A theme-y option for a little millennial whimsy! Draw inspiration from a song rumored to be about Swift and Kelce’s romance, and don your finest ’50s-style prom fits. It’s also a nod to their engagement announcement, where Swift and Kelce referred to themselves as an English teacher and a gym teacher.
A Vodka Diet Coke
Make it a double
Signature Drink A Vodka Diet Coke
Basic, but a favorite of Swift’s.
An Old Fashioned
Extra cherries, please
Signature Drink An Old Fashioned
Because “nothin’ good starts in a getaway car”— an allusion to her song “Getaway Car,” where the cocktail was a memorable mention in the lyrics.
A Big Yeti
Imagine how fun it will be to order this from the bartender
Signature Drink A Big Yeti
This is Kelce’s drink on the menu at 1587 Prime, the steakhouse he owns with his teammate Patrick Mahomes. It is made with Bourbon, Rye with nocino (an Italian walnut liqueur), Demerara sugar, and bitters.
Domaine de Terres Blanches Sancerre
A classic glass of crisp white
Signature Drink Domaine de Terres Blanches Sancerre
There was a run on this particular bottle of white wine after Swift was seen sipping it in a clip in “The End of an Era,” a documentary about her most recent tour. (It’s OK if you want to ask the bartender to put an ice cube in it, Swift would!)
What role would Swift’s three cats — Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson and Benjamin Button — play in the wedding?
(Swift’s cats not pictured)
Flower Felines
Four paws and flower crowns required
Cat Role Flower Felines
The trio will walk down the aisle, each escorted on a leash by the actor the cat was named for: Ellen Pompeo, Mariska Hargitay and Brad Pitt.
Cardboard Cutouts of Their Heads
The photo booth gets a very furry update
Cat Role Cardboard Cutouts of Their Heads
Purrrrrfect props for when the dance floor gets wild.
Cocktail Napkins
Purple with silver lettering
Cat Role Cocktail Napkins
Little embossed cat faces everywhere.
Guests
They’ll have the salmon, please
Cat Role Guests
The cats are obviously just invited. Weird that you even had to ask.
Who would you choose as best man?
Jason Kelce
Retired professional football player
Best Man Jason Kelce
He’s the brother of the groom.
Jason Kelce
Retired professional football player
Best Man Jason Kelce
It would only be fair since Travis was Jason’s best man back in 2018.
Jason Kelce
Retired professional football player
Best Man Jason Kelce
No, really, it has to be Jason.
Jason Kelce
Retired professional football player
Best Man Jason Kelce
It’s going to be Jason Kelce.
Milk Bar Birthday Cake
The ultimate rainbow cake
Dessert Milk Bar Birthday Cake
Swift is a longtime fan of this flavor, an elevated take on Funfetti by the pastry chef Christina Tosi. It was on the menu at her 34th birthday, and back in 2016, she told Vogue it was the best birthday cake she’d ever eaten.
Homemade Chai Sugar Cookies
A classic sugar cookie with a twist
Dessert Homemade Chai Sugar Cookies
Baked with Swift’s own recipe from her Tumblr days.
Red Velvet Cake
A southern classic
Dessert Red Velvet Cake
A recreation of the wedding dessert featured in Swift’s music video “I Bet You Think About Me.” (A bit of a chaotic choice given the song’s subject material, but still delicious!)
Doughnut Wall
Who doesn’t love a glazed doughnut?
Dessert Doughnut Wall
Specifically made of plain, glazed offerings from LaMar’s doughnuts in Kansas City, which Kelce and his brother taste-tested and rated a 10-out-of-10 on their podcast.
Which side would Andrea Swift, mother of the bride, wear her signature side ponytail for the occasion?
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My Fantasy Picks for
Taylor & Travis’s Wedding
The back rooms of the La Brea Tar Pits are, at the moment, a maze of packing crates tagged with handwritten sticky notes that say things like “bison skulls” or “camel hip.”
Every bone, down to the last dire wolf rib, must be carefully sheathed in a custom foam shell. Sloth jaws and sabertooth fangs and a truly astonishing amount of ancient vertebrae — all of it will be swaddled, catalogued and crated for the next two years.
On July 6, the La Brea Tar Pits will close its doors for a massive renovation. When it reopens in summer 2028, the remodeled Hancock Park museum will be the centerpiece of the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research, a scientific hub dedicated to an era of natural history better preserved here than anywhere else on Earth.
The new grounds, which will largely hew to the current building’s footprint, will better show off the museum’s collection and explain how much the ecosystem preserved in the pits can tell us about where our current one is heading.
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1. Bins of labeled fossils. 2. A detail of a Columbian mammoth being restored inside the Fossil Lab.
But first, somebody has to pack it all up — all 3.5 million fossils, each fragile and irreplaceable, like a house move out of a nightmare.
The same bounty that makes the Tar Pits the best place on Earth to study its slice of the late Pleistocene epoch also makes for a move of truly mammoth proportions.
Moving the museum to a different part of Los Angeles is out of the question. Nature chose its location some 60,000 years ago, when crude petroleum that formed millions of years earlier began seeping to the surface.
For the next 49,000 years, the sticky pits captured virtually everything that fell or walked onto them, from grains of pollen borne by the wind to hapless ancient camels and Columbian mammoths.
The result is a near-complete record of virtually everything that lived in the place now called Los Angeles in the late Pleistocene.
Workers prepare fossils to be packaged and moved.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Fossilized dire wolf skulls are displayed before being packed away.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“No city anywhere has anything that’s comparable,” said Regan Dunn, a paleobotanist and curator at the La Brea Tar Pits. “You have this trap, basically, that was just sitting here and collecting all of Los Angeles life for the last 60,000 years.”
It’s an era of natural history with striking parallels to our own — climate change, extinction, devastating fires, a wobbling balance between humans and the rest of the natural world.
In 2023, Dunn and fellow curator Emily Lindsey drew on the collection for a research study documenting how the collapse of biodiversity in the Ice Age coincided with the arrival of humans and the fires they struggled to contain.
“The story [at the Tar Pits] is critical to our understanding not just of Los Angeles, but of what’s happening in the world,” said Lori Bettison-Varga, president of the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County. “The story of extinction and resilience related to climate and ecological change … is just so relevant.”
It’s not a story visitors can easily follow at the current museum, staff said.
Senior Preparator Laura Tewksbury, left, restores part of a fossilized mammoth hip, alongside Judith Sydner-Gordon, right, inside the Fossil Lab — an active paleontology lab within the museum.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The building, formally known as the George C. Page Museum, opened in 1977, when both the collection and scientists’ understanding of it were significantly smaller.
Some early misconceptions are still reflected in the exhibits. The half-submerged mammoth sculpture in the museum’s iconic outdoor Lake Pit gives the common but inaccurate impression that the tar worked like quicksand, sucking its victims fatally downward. In reality, just a few inches of the sticky stuff was enough to snare a heavy animal in place until it either died of exposure or fell prey to predators, who then became trapped themselves.
Exhibits covering bugs and plants, now understood to be a crucial part of the Ice Age ecosystem, are currently limited to two small wall displays last updated in the 1980s. The saber-toothed cat that appears mirage-like through a window, an optical illusion known as a Pepper’s Ghost, doesn’t reflect modern knowledge of the animal’s anatomy. (The illusion takes up a ton of space, and likely won’t be part of the remodeled museum, Dunn said.)
Early in the planning process, the museum surveyed local community members and museumgoers about which features should carry over to the new design.
The grassy hills around the building that slope at the ideal angle for children to roll down like logs — those had to stay. So did the tar pulls, an interactive exhibit where visitors test their strength against levers submerged in buckets of asphalt.
The outdoor mammoth family sculptures were also nonnegotiable. They will remain in the next iteration, with some landscape alterations to make the scene more scientifically accurate, Bettison-Varga said.
Fossil Lab Manager Stephany Potze restores a rib from a dire wolf pup.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The new layout will make better use of the building’s interior, Bettison-Varga said, with more space for exhibits, storage, research and educational programs.
The lush greenery in the leafy inner courtyard will be replaced with plants more closely related to those of the late Pleistocene, such as cypress and toyon. All of the current mounted Ice Age mammal skeletons will return, along with four new ones: a baby bison, a baby dire wolf, a giant ground sloth constructed of real fossils (the one currently on display is a plaster cast) and Zed, the most complete Columbian mammoth ever found, whose giant remains have been undergoing conservation at the museum for nearly 20 years. He will be displayed as he most likely died — in combat with another male.
A corps of volunteers and employees are working nonstop to pack up the collections, which will be relocated to other NHM properties during the renovation, Dunn said.
On a recent afternoon, volunteers bustled around the museum wheeling carts of jaws and vertebrae carefully organized by species. Visitors peered into the Fish Bowl, the glass-walled lab where white-coated preparators carefully clean fossils. A piece of Zed’s pelvis and ribs sat on a center table.
Volunteer preparator Ricky Whitman restores part of a Columbian mammoth neck vertebrae.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Excavations at the active pits and conservation of fossils will continue during the closure, albeit in different conditions than many fossil handlers are used to.
The museum is working on mobile programming as an alternative for the roughly 34,000 schoolchildren who visit each year on field trips, virtually all of whom spend part of their visit pressed against the glass of the Fish Bowl watching scientists at work. Some of them press questions scribbled on pieces of paper or typed in their phone against the glass, and the preparators answer them with notes of their own. (An expanded Fish Bowl-type lab will be part of the new design, too.)
It’s going to be weird cleaning fossils without anybody watching, volunteer preparators said.
“There are a lot of kids, neighborhood kids, that I get to see as they grow up. It’s a lot of fun,” said Senior Preparator Laura Tewksbury.
Workers refill the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Friday, after a weeks-long project to resurface and repaint the basin.
Rahmat Gul/AP
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Rahmat Gul/AP
WASHINGTON — Water is flowing back into the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, after a controversial painting job kept it closed for weeks. And to many onlookers, it doesn’t look much different.
“The pool gets completed at 4 o’clock and the water will start to flow in … and it’s going to be beautiful,” President Trump told reporters in the Oval office on Wednesday.
The next day, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum shared a video of water bubbling up through a grate on the freshly-darkened pool floor. Trump had the pool’s surface darkened to a shade he calls “American flag blue.” For the last century, he’s said, the pool was “just gray … the color of concrete and stone.”
By Friday morning, the 2,028 foot-long shallow pool had collected a stripe of water down the middle, just wide enough to reflect the Washington Monument across from it. The refilling continued under the bright sun, as one worker stood in the middle of the pool, with his pants rolled up above his knees, wielding a hose.
As the temperature neared 90 degrees, tourists, cyclists and joggers paused at the top of the nearby steps to snap photos and observe the process. Many welcomed the return of the water — and the ducks that play in it — but said they couldn’t immediately tell a difference in the color.
“The more water it fills, the more similar it looks [to before],” said Luisa Córdoba, a D.C. resident and avid runner who says she’s been coming to check on the pool every day since work started. “I’m just happy it’s not that bright blue that we saw the first days, which was so alarming … if it stays like this, it’s fine.”
Early renderings — as well as preliminary coats of paint when the project started in late April — had critics worried the historic landmark would end up looking more like a swimming pool. But Friday’s observers didn’t find that to be the case.
“I’m colorblind, so it doesn’t look blue — yet,” said Terry Barzanti, a Maryland resident who works nearby.
“I’m not colorblind and it doesn’t look blue,” laughed his coworker Edgar Sadsad, who found it more grey.
Other passersby described it as closer to black, and said the difference might be more noticeable once the pool is fully refilled. Even so, Sadsad and Barzanti were among those who praised the project, saying the pool already looked cleaner and more appealing.
Trump has for months complained about the state of the pool, saying he made it a priority after an unnamed friend visiting from Germany called it “filthy” and “not representative of the country,” according to the president.
The pool, which first opened in 1923, last underwent major renovations between 2010 and 2012. But it has continued to suffer from broken pipes and water leaks that merit costly refills, according to the Department of the Interior.
Trump has said this project sealed crevices in the stone to prevent leaks, and removed 12 truckloads of garbage from the pool, though it’s not clear that it addressed the broken pipes.
“It’ll last for 50 to 100 years before you have to do anything with it,” he said.
The reflecting pool, at the base of the Lincoln Memorial, previously reflected blue in certain conditions such as this day in November 2025.
Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
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Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
Questions remain about the project’s funding
The resurfacing took significantly longer than Trump’s initial estimate.
He said in late April that the project would be done in a week or two, though the Department of the Interior told NPR it would take closer to a month.
In mid-May, the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation sued the administration to stop work on the pool, saying it had bypassed federally required historic preservation reviews. A judge heard arguments later that month, but hadn’t made a decision by the time the administration informed the court on Wednesday that work had been completed.
The project also appears to cost more than Trump said it would.
He gave the price tag as $2 million, which he said, without specifics, was significantly less than he had been quoted previously. But Interior Department records obtained by The New York Times show the administration plans to pay $13.1 million to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the Virginia firm that Trump picked for the project.
“It’s kind of sad where our tax dollars are going. I mean, it was fine before, by my knowledge,” said Samantha Sorokin of Arlington, Va., who was taking her parents on a tour.
It’s not clear how much of the money is coming from taxpayers. A large sign affixed to the construction site fence, on National Park Service letterhead, informed visitors that “these improvements are being completed using your fee dollars.”
(The Washington Post reported this week that the Trump administration is diverting at least $90 million from national park entry fees to fund its July 4th fireworks display and other D.C. beautification projects.)
When asked for comment about the cost and where the money is coming from, the Department of the Interior — the park service’s parent agency — told NPR that it has “many funding sources available to spend on deferred maintenance.”
“Unlike Barack Obama who spent millions upon millions in taxpayer-funded Great Recession recovery aid that should have gone to struggling families, the Trump administration is looking at different funding mechanisms which include endowment funds and revenue brought in from the sale of park passes,” the unnamed spokesperson wrote over email.
The two-year renovation of the reflecting pool that ended in 2012 was funded by $34 million from an Obama-era economic stimulus package.
A sign outside the reflecting pool informs visitors that their national park fees helped fund the project.
Rachel Treisman/NPR
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Rachel Treisman/NPR
Trump’s campaign to spruce up D.C.
Trump is hoping to make many changes to D.C., ranging from massive undertakings like his proposed triumphal arch (which got preliminary approval from a second federal agency this week) to smaller changes like installing new statues and restoring park fountains.
“We have many monuments and fountains all over Washington, and we’re just about completed with all of them,” he said Wednesday.
The Interior Department referred NPR to a White House post on X listing those accomplishments, which include “500 instances of graffiti removed,” “134 rat-resistant trash cans installed” and “250 truckloads of debris from ponds removed.”
Much of that work is being carried out by National Guard troops deployed to D.C., whose numbers are set to double ahead of the country’s 250th birthday celebrations on and around July 4th. That’s also the deadline — or at least impetus — for many of Trump’s renovation projects.
Maria Sorokin, who was visiting her daughter from Pennsylvania, is skeptical that the 250th anniversary warrants major changes like the reflecting pool resurfacing.
“It is a special anniversary and it should be spruced up, but I’m not sure if this was necessary,” she said, looking at the pool slowly refilling. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
But some area residents, like Barzanti, embrace the cleanup and beautification efforts.
“We walk down here for lunch breaks,” he said. “People come from all over the world to see our nation’s capital. So we should show it off, we should take care of it.”
Some changes are going over better than others.
Several locals at the reflecting pool, including Córdoba, mentioned that they were thrilled to see the fountains at Meridian Hill Park — a popular spot about 1.5 miles north of the White House — flowing with water for the first time in seven years.
Maryellen Thornton, who lives near the park, says the fountain restoration has been “amazing for the community,” describing the picnic blanket-packed grass “like nirvana.” It’s also one of the reasons she and her husband Brad Thornton came to see the reflecting pool.
“We’re just fascinated with how fabulous it is to have all of these water features being restored in the district,” she said. “It just brings so much happiness to everybody.”
Brad is also excited to see the return of water to the fountain outside Union Station, Washington’s major transport hub, and hopes the newly filled reflecting pool will build on that momentum.
“A little bit of spraying water goes a long way,” he said. “It shouldn’t be about politics. It’s just about enjoying it. We’re in the city. We need some green space.”
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