They Told Me Not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center (31 page)

When Lincoln Center joined forces with Ralph Lauren to hold a fund-raiser that also featured Oprah Winfrey, to benefit both the Ralph Lauren Cancer Center and Lincoln Center, IMG had no choice but to acquiesce. In fact, the firm contributed handsomely to a $7.5 million gate by purchasing a table.

S
OON AFTER IT WAS
announced that Lincoln Center would become the home of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, the fashion designer Ruben Toledo grabbed collaborator/wife Isabel and cornered me at an El Museo del Barrio gala. He wanted to know whether I really had any idea of what I was doing. “We are all crazy, Reynold, really crazy. We are totally self-referential.”

When I pointed out that world-famous sopranos were not exactly selfless creatures, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say “you ain’t seen nothing yet.” Isabel nodded in assent.

Well, they were both right, but not about the identity of the source that would give me the most headaches.

Yes, the other Peter. Gelb.

From the moment the very idea of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week moving to Lincoln Center was mentioned, Gelb vigorously opposed it, and very publicly. He claimed that the name Mercedes-Benz emblazoned on signage would commercialize Lincoln Center (as if we didn’t already enjoy dozens upon dozens of corporate sponsors who were not shy about being visible on our campus). He professed grave concern that the bass level of the sound track that accompanied models as they strode down the runways in the tents would “bleed into” the
opera house and interfere with rehearsals and performances. (At Lincoln Center’s expense, extra sound absorption baffling was installed in the tent adjacent to the Met, and the doors leading to the opera house were treated with special insulation so no noise could possibly penetrate.) He worried that crowds entering the tents would be noisy, maybe even rowdy, and would interfere with the “peaceful enjoyment” of Josie Robertson Plaza. (Who in their right mind would gather in the below-freezing plaza in February waiting to attend either a fashion show or a Met performance, and how could any such assembly in September interfere with Met audiences when the Metropolitan Opera doesn’t even open until after Fashion Week concludes?)

These baseless contentions—
rowdy
crowds?—were easily addressed. Infuriatingly, Peter willfully ignored all of the advantages—financial, reputational, artistic, and civic—Fashion Week and Lincoln Center brought to all concerned parties.

What’s more, Gelb insisted on seeing a copy of the contract that Lincoln Center had negotiated with IMG. Indeed, he actually wished it to be reopened so that the Metropolitan Opera could be made a party to it!

At this point, my even-tempered chairman of the board, Frank Bennack, fully aware that Peter’s legitimate concerns were being satisfied and knowing well, as the chair of the Metropolitan Opera’s audit committee, how much the Met could use its share of funds derived from Fashion Week, told his mildly protesting Met board chair counterpart, Bill Morris, that Peter should back off. Frank did so in a most soft and gentle manner by offering to summarize the contract orally for Mr. Morris, if he wished. To my knowledge, that offer was never accepted, and the issue was not raised again.

As I write in 2014, it is no small irony that the person most concerned about how long Fashion Week would remain at Lincoln Center and about whether Lincoln Center’s contract with IMG for Fashion Week can be extended is none other than Peter Gelb. He acknowledged no contradiction or irony in the 180-degree turnaround. But every time I saw him, he asked how my efforts to elongate Fashion Week’s length of stay were proceeding. All concerns, real or feigned, about commercialism, acoustical bleed, and noisy, loitering campus visitors seemed suddenly to have completely disappeared. Amazing.

I
RECALL AS
a child growing up in Brooklyn turning the pages of my mother’s copies of
Women’s Wear Daily
at nine years of age. In part, I was motivated to do so by sheer curiosity. Why was Mom devouring this newspaper, which arrived daily in our mailbox? But I was also curious because my dad earned a living for years as a presser in the garment industry. Up at 5:00 a.m., he worked from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. every weekday and then boarded the D Train in Manhattan, traveling halfway home, to complete his bachelor’s degree at Brooklyn College.

Weekends were largely devoted to Dad studying. But there were also long walks on the boardwalk, playtime at the beach, and meals out together as a family. We watched the fireworks from the rooftop of our apartment building every Tuesday night, brought to us by Schaefer Beer. We sometimes spent a summer night sleeping across the street in Seaside Park to escape from the stifling heat of an un-air-conditioned apartment with no cross-ventilation, facing only an inner courtyard.

Not infrequently, Dad talked to Mom about the latest style of pea coat, the hottest colors for the coming fall, the pros and cons of the one- or two-piece bathing suit, and the proper length of a hemline.

In our family, window-shopping, as distinct from buying, was a frequent activity. At an early age, I knew that a man’s shirt sleeves should protrude about one and a quarter inches from the suit jacket and that cuffed pant legs should drop ever so gently over the back heel of a shoe. By the time I was twelve, I could recognize the names Hart Schaffner Marx and Hickey Freeman, well before I ever became familiar with Beethoven, or Bach, or Brahms.

In a real sense, then, I grew up in the rag trade. Dad left it for the mutual fund and insurance business, but a sense of fashion and style never left him or Mom.

That Lincoln Center in some modest way helped a struggling garment industry to revive in New York City would have given them an enormous sense of pride. That Diane von Furstenberg, a Hungarian Jewish refugee of wrap dress fame, would know me by my first name could only have been a source of utter astonishment to my parents.

L
EST IT SEEM
that this initiative was totally successful, be assured that there were problems, particularly from the perspective of some of Lincoln Center’s neighbors. These quality-of-life concerns are worth
highlighting. You will find them at the intersection of almost all major public events and occasions. While citywide in their importance, they impose collateral costs on the local community.

How do East Siders feel about the bumper-to-bumper traffic up and down First, Second, and Third Avenues for days on end when the United Nations is in session, particularly during its opening weeks in September, as heads of state from every continent make their way around that small and dense island called Manhattan?

What is the reaction of most New Yorkers to crowded midtown streets cluttered by tourists, whose annual numbers almost doubled during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure?

The new, very tall residential skyscrapers on 57th and 59th Streets that cast shadows on Central Park from apartments often uninhabited by foreign investors drew loud protests from park advocates and preservationists.

This conflict between the interests of the commonweal and the adverse impact on a given local community was at play on the Upper West Side.

In preparation for the arrival of each Fashion Week, which runs about thirty-five days, including load-in and load-out, Lincoln Center urged the City of New York to insist that IMG conduct its business with careful attention to minimizing community disruption. After all, Lincoln Center’s immediate neighbors had just endured more than a billion dollars of redevelopment construction activity. During that six-year period, our staff was exceedingly careful about formulating and communicating plans in ways that took fully into account the concerns of the BID, the Community Board, elected officials, and key co-op and condominium owners. All of these stakeholders had also experienced the construction of an unprecedented number of high-rise residential skyscrapers with attendant escalating motor vehicle traffic and demands on public services—fire, police, sanitation, and schools among them. Just south of 62nd Street, the site of Fashion Week, Fordham University was in the midst of constructing a new law school and dormitories. And developer Lenny Litwin was building a new rental apartment house immediately to the west, on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue.

We warned the city that completely closing off 62nd Street to automobile passage would result in a traffic stranglehold on Amsterdam
Avenue and across 65th Street to the East Side of Manhattan. We implored the city to have IMG erect well-marked and well-lit pedestrian walkways for Lincoln Center patrons, for the students and faculty of Fordham, as well as for tenants to the south and west. We urged that attention be paid to the noise emanating from generators temporarily installed to provide electricity to the tents or emitted by unloading dumpsters after 10:00 p.m. and before 6:00 a.m., or by trucks backing up during the same hours. We outlined the ways and means Fashion Week could manage its operations with far less disruption to the lives of Lincoln Center’s patrons, employees, and neighbors.

City Hall simply would not listen. The prevailing attitude seemed to be that Fashion Week was good for New York City and that it brought considerable business and employment to the neighborhood. According to IMG, each fashion season attracted a total audience of one hundred thousand and generated about $800 million of favorable economic impact. In every community, there are complainers and cranks. So be it. We at Lincoln Center were far more sympathetic. We “lived” on the campus and understood that some of these grievances were legitimate and could be readily and easily addressed.

Not until a lawsuit was threatened and then filed were many of the action recommendations we advanced taken seriously. Mufflers were installed on those generators. Pedestrian walkways suddenly appeared. Vehicular traffic was permitted on a reduced schedule. Crews took care to engage in garbage disposal only during work hours, as did most trucks when in reverse gear. Fashion Week and neighborhood serenity became more compatible when representatives of the city were ordered by their superiors to listen more attentively and to act accordingly.

Maintaining New York City as an economically vibrant world capital and keeping Manhattan a relatively pleasant place to live and work are sometimes conflicting objectives. Most often, reasonable compromises can be reached and accommodations struck. Ultimately, such was the case with Fashion Week. The generation of $800 million of economic impact and the maintenance of a semblance of serenity for its neighbors were both possible. But only if citywide economic imperatives were reconciled with legitimate community concerns.

CHAPTER 9

A Year of Reckoning at the Met

                
A convalescing patient who does not finish their course of treatment takes a grave risk.

                    
—LAWRENCE SUMMERS

T
he figures are staggering.

In a single year, more people come to see a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House than reside in all but nine of America’s cities. The Met stages twenty-three operas annually. To view as many pieces of repertoire in a single season elsewhere would require you to attend the entire seasons of at least four, sometimes five, other leading opera companies around the nation.

The Met’s 2013 annual operating budget stood at about $330 million. No performing or visual arts organization of any kind approaches that figure in America, except for the comparably sized Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met Opera’s operating budget is actually larger than the next eight largest opera companies in America combined. Number two is the San Francisco Opera, and its annual expenditures are only 20 percent of those of the Metropolitan Opera, or $68 million.

The Met’s payroll embraces 3,400 full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees. They include 140 musicians, 80 full-time chorus members, and employees represented by no fewer than sixteen trade unions. To appreciate the complexity of just the unionized workforce, consider its composition by functional category. Orchestra musicians and librarians.
The chorus, principal singers, directors, and stage managers. Ushers and ticket takers. Cleaning staff. Porters, security guards, and office service workers. Call center employees. Building engineers. Box office treasurers. Costume and wardrobe. Camera operators. Wigs, hair, and make up. Scenic artists and designers. Parks crew. Bill poster. Painter.

Both in the sheer number of employees, union and management, and in the intricacy of its organization, the Met Opera’s workforce dwarfs any other performing arts entity in this country.

The Met Opera’s artistic productivity also knows no equal. In Peter Gelb’s first decade at the helm, the Met will have presented sixty-two new productions and introduced seventeen new works to its repertory. The comparable number in Joe Volpe’s last decade as general manager was forty-five new productions and twelve Met premieres.