They Told Me Not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center (42 page)

Then I asked everyone present to look around them at the new Lincoln Center. It was, I argued, the product of their benefaction, their dedication, and their civic mindedness. It was, I contended, their monument.

I
N THE FOLLOWING YEAR
, at the gala held in my honor on May 9, 2013, the very event at which I was introduced to Jimmy Fallon, a record $9.4 million was raised, and one of my very favorite artists offered a concert at Avery Fisher Hall that was aired on public television.

Audra McDonald is in many ways the epitome of what Lincoln Center is about. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School. She has performed on virtually every stage in every venue of our campus. She has won a record six Tony Awards. She is now the host of
Live from
Lincoln Center
, the longest-running program of the performing arts on television. It is produced by Lincoln Center and features presentations staged by the resident artistic organizations on our campus. And she is the first and only artist ever to have been elected to serve on Lincoln Center’s board of directors.
¹

To have her perform on a night in my honor was very special. Surrounded by friends, supporters, and well-wishers, I indulged myself in reflecting on an accomplishment or two.

The remarks that evening were delivered to some thirteen hundred guests by Bruce Crawford, Frank Bennack, Katherine Farley, and David Rubenstein. Outrageously, Rubenstein compared the physical redevelopment of Lincoln Center to God’s creation of the earth, except that while the Lord rested for one day out of seven, I rarely, if ever, had been able to take time off, for any reason. Rubenstein also reflected wryly that God never had to raise money; attend committee, subcommittee, or task force meetings; select architects or contractors; or deal with multiple layers of government.

Rubenstein proposed that I next take on such challenges as Middle East peace or balancing the federal budget. He even suggested that after leaving Lincoln Center I could successfully move on to the highest calling humankind had to offer: private equity.

I was amused, bemused, flattered, and embarrassed all at once.

My remarks focused on two groups: professional and trustee colleagues and generous attendees who had resources to spare.

For the Lincoln Center family of organizations, I distilled down to its essence all that we did together, always aspiring to the highest professional standards. We produced art. We presented it. We studied it. We commissioned it. We toured it. We televised it and digitally transmitted it. We taught it. We offered it more affordably and free of charge more often than ever before in our storied history.

For the benefactors, I reminded them how important they were and how much Lincoln Center depended on their generosity, since they had built and sustained the most prominent and consequential set of performing arts organizations to be found anywhere. I implored them to nurture, preserve, and protect what they had created and never to take that unique achievement for granted.

I closed with Sophocles’s observation that “one must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.” Well, my evening had arrived, and I could say that I had enjoyed many truly splendid days at Lincoln Center.

O
N THE
C
HARLIE
R
OSE
S
HOW
, I was asked whether at the end of a very successful tenure at Lincoln Center I would have done anything differently. At that time I essentially demurred. I won’t now.

I do not have many reservations, and I will not run the risk of burying the lead. Lincoln Center enjoyed a pretty darn good run during my tenure, just shy of thirteen years.

But regrets, I guess I have a few.

I left Lincoln Center with the uneasy feeling that in our zeal to create an encouraging environment for constituent artistic organizations to cooperate on their physical redevelopment and on other business and artistic arrangements, such as celebrating our fiftieth anniversary, we may well have sent an unintended message. Lincoln Center was very generous in the interpretation of what constitutes public space, and therefore, of how much money it would raise. Lincoln Center also absorbed costs for redevelopment services for a period of time well beyond what was originally anticipated. It erred on the side of design excellence, and the cost of materials and quality construction rose accordingly. Lincoln Center also liberally interpreted the purposes for which constituent fund-raising was matchable. The consequence of these expressions of leadership generosity is that Lincoln Center may unintentionally have encouraged an unrealistic and excessive dependence on the parent body.

By indulging the unanimity principle and working around it rather than facing it head-on, we may have reinforced the view that in matters small and large, consequential and otherwise, everyone’s assent was required. The law of unintended consequences was at work.

My wife Elizabeth’s analysis seemed exactly right. In her view, Lincoln Center was hardly a landlord in the classic sense.

First of all, none of our constituents paid rent, except $1 a year.

Second, the conditions of tenancy were determined not by Lincoln Center but jointly between the so-called landlord and the so-called lessee.

As a result, Liz concluded that I wasn’t the president of a real estate concern, but rather the chairman of a co-op board. Lincoln Center was governed like other prestigious cooperative apartments on the Upper West Side, like the San Remo, the Dakota, and the Beresford.

We all had strict criteria for the admission of new members.

We all set high standards for capital improvements.

But when they would be done, how they would be done, who would finance them, and under what terms and conditions resulted in a pile of multilateral and bilateral written agreements. They were extraordinary in their complexity and in the tediousness with which they had to be negotiated and recorded.

Liz concluded her analysis by saying that with the possible exception of the mayor of the city of New York, there was no assignment more dreaded, or tedious, or demanding than being the chair of a co-op board.

In the interest of overcoming passive and active resistance on the part of more than a few constituents to the physical redevelopment of Lincoln Center, had the so-called landlord yielded too much, too often?

A
FTER THE FALL
of Lehman Brothers in 2008, the setback to the American economy was enormous. It was experiencing the most severe downturn since the Great Depression. Few at Lincoln Center, least of all my chair Frank Bennack, were in any mood to solicit gifts for our capital campaign. He and his colleagues thought that doing so was a fool’s errand. I was less certain.

As is always the case, some saw opportunity in crisis and created or embellished a fortune. Others were not adversely affected, and even for those who were struggling, keeping in touch was important, because when their businesses bounced back, Lincoln Center did not wish to be forgotten or placed on some backburner. I know that I annoyed Bennack and some others by continuing to press for meetings and failing to take no for an answer. In retrospect, perhaps I should have “harassed” my superiors somewhat more frequently, or at least more persuasively. As was the case with almost all nonprofits, our capital campaign was at a virtual standstill for almost eighteen months. And in any such effort, the passage of time is almost always an enemy, never an ally.

I
N AN OTHERWISE
highly laudatory and extensive
New York Times
piece on July 14, 2006, about my performance as Lincoln Center’s president, Robin Pogrebin opened her story this way:

Understandably, perhaps, some concert goers were not pleased by the sight of a man floating in a glass tank, smack dab in the heart of Lincoln Center Plaza, as crowds and television cameras looked on for a full week in May.

By 2012, I was prepared to admit that I agreed with her. So eager had I been to demonstrate Lincoln Center’s accessibility to a wider public, to turn it inside out, and especially to invite in those who normally would not consider themselves welcome, that I had succumbed to the blandishments of David Blaine, who offered to set a record for living in an aquarium, underwater, at Lincoln Center.

The spectacle drew a television audience of millions, on ABC, nationwide, in prime time. My chair, Frank Bennack, had approved. Nonetheless, if I had to do it over again, I would decline. As my close colleague Bernard Gersten, the executive producer of Lincoln Center Theater, observed, Blaine’s presence created a carnival-like atmosphere. His tricks are not to be confused with the values that an institution like Lincoln Center should symbolize and project. Lesson learned. If New Yorkers want water, they can go to the beach.

A
ND THEN THERE
was the one that got away.

During my term in office, Lincoln Center completed one of the most admired physical transformations in New York City. The success of this bold renovation—architecturally, civically, acoustically—is demonstrable. A once-imposing design now encourages exploration and engagement; a once-failing infrastructure is now robust; formerly inhospitable public spaces are now inviting, lively, and green; dated venues and facilities now welcome the most established and avant-garde artists with ease; serpentine and forbidding passages are now bright and easily navigable; and a shunned and walled-off cityscape is wholly embraced.

Public space expansion and modernization, like the creation of the David Rubenstein Atrium, have been accompanied by the development of new artistic facilities, all extremely well received.

As a result, Lincoln Center can be found where cultural experience meets social discourse, where artistic programming meets dining and relaxation, where event-driven attendance meets a destination in and of itself.

In short, the new Lincoln Center is one of New York City’s best calling cards. Ask anyone.

The singular exception is Avery Fisher Hall. Ask anyone.

Avery Fisher Hall was the first venue to open its doors at Lincoln Center; home to the acclaimed New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bern stein, and Gustav Mahler; home to countless world-class musicians, composers, and conductors; home to classical music lovers from around the corner and across the globe; and home to Beverly Sills, whose first Lincoln Center performance was on its stage.

The history of Avery Fisher Hall and the memories it holds for generations of audiences are to be admired. But physically, Avery Fisher Hall’s best days are long gone. The artist and patron experience is woeful. The stage is inflexible. The seating plan is archaic. The acoustics can be improved. Physical access is forbidding. The backstage facilities offer “amenities” basically unchanged since the 1960s.

The building is simply worn down, well past its useful life. While this reality was widely known, we could not bring the renovation of the auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall to a successful conclusion.

On reflection, the failed attempt to get this done was the single most frustrating and baffling exercise of my tenure.

Lincoln Center tried everything.

We offered an extremely generous fund-raising division of labor to the New York Philharmonic. In essence, Lincoln Center expressed a willingness to raise no less than 75 percent of the total bill for a new auditorium. To clear away a potential obstacle, we also reached an understanding with the Fisher family that the existing building would continue to be named Avery Fisher Hall. However, Lincoln Center is free to acknowledge a major capital pledge by naming the auditorium inside the building for someone else, not unlike the Isaac Stern Auditorium in Carnegie Hall. Such a lead mega-gift could help launch a fund-raising campaign in fine fashion.

We worked at length, together with the New York Philharmonic, on reaching a common understanding of the objectives for a brand-new,
twenty-first-century venue in the existing structure. We shaped consensus on the major changes in the auditorium configuration required to realize them.

Lincoln Center commissioned a new stage installation for use by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. It incorporated some of the design intent of the planned eventual overhaul of that 2,750-seat space. It worked. Well regarded for intimacy, immediacy, and sound quality, the portable stage, its location, and its lighting were applauded by musicians and audiences. Critics wondered why the New York Philharmonic would not wish to adapt something resembling it as part of an enduring, year-round solution.

We supported in every way we knew how the successors to Paul Guenther as board chair and Zarin Metha as executive director, Gary Parr and Matthew Van Biesen, respectively. We encouraged everyone at Lincoln Center to treat the New York Philharmonic’s round-trip to and from Carnegie Hall as a caper. It was time to let bygones be bygones.

The relationship between Lincoln Center and its constituents is governed by a negotiated agreement. The existing document had not much changed since it was originally drafted in 1966. It had expired many times. At the Philharmonic’s request, we granted many extensions. These delays troubled us. In order to jointly occupy a new venue, complicated issues like pricing, scheduling, the process for reserving dates, and many other details of a hall’s operation needed regulation. A new century and a new auditorium necessitated a new agreement.

The best that we could do was sign a carefully negotiated document that took both parties up to but not including operations for when the replacement venue actually reopened. That task was set aside for another day.