Lincoln Center, New York City

For years I listened to radio announcers introduce programs that were “Live! From Lincoln Center!” with three exclamation points in their voices.

I never got it. What was Lincoln Center? A building? Is the “Met” at Lincoln Center? (Is the “Met” an art museum or an opera company, for that matter?) Is the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center or is it at Avery Fisher Hall?

It was all very confusing–a large and shape-shifting kind of concept.

Last Saturday, I went to find out. I met Jim, an amiable Lincoln Center tour guide, along with two older women from Washington D.C. and a honeymooning couple from London. After hearing about Lincoln Center for so many years, it was about time I learned what the place was all about.

amiable Jim and the honeymooning Brits

For starters, Lincoln Center is the largest center for the performing arts in the world. (I guess that merits three exclamation points!!!) So not only is Avery Fisher Hall located at Lincoln Center, but so are a whole bunch of other venues. (Twenty-nine, to be precise). And, yes, the New York Philharmonic performs here–at Avery Fisher Hall. (FYI: The “Met” refers to both the art museum and the opera, so THAT’S confusing.)

Eleven performing arts organizations, from the Metropolitan Opera to Jazz at Lincoln Center, call the place home. Some organizations, like the Juilliard and the School of American Ballet, are, well, schools.

But within all the organizations and venues there are overlaps and name changes and redundancy and development. The center is still growing with theaters being added, renovated, and expanded. So that’s confusing, too.

John D. Rockefeller III was the financial muscleman and leading visionary behind the project. He wasn’t above twisting arms and hitting up Marshall Plan countries, whose economies the U.S. had helped rebuild after WWII, for donations. So the earliest buildings are full of Carrara marble and travertine stone from those countries.

However, Mr. Rockefeller didn’t build his vision on vacant land. Had you stood on the corner of Columbus Ave and 62nd Street in 1955, you’d be looking at the tenements where West Side Story was filmed. Seventeen blocks of buildings were torn down and 7,000 families relocated for the betterment of society. Today, those gritty roots have utterly disappeared beneath upscale shops and restaurants and the coming and going of divas, actors, musicians, as well as the common and curious like me.

this is what the neighborhood used to look like

Rockefeller’s vision wasn’t completely patrician, however. From its inception, Lincoln Center was meant to be a place for all of us–where the 99 percent rub shoulders with the upper crust. So if you dig a little and pay attention, you can find $20 orchestra seats at the Opera House. You can attend the Target Free Thursday performances at the David Rubenstein Atrium. (I plan to catch the Harlem Gospel Choir there next Saturday. I’ll let you know how it goes.) You can buy deeply discounted day-of-performance tickets for many of the shows. Often, performances by the Juilliard School are free.

(I couldn’t, however, find ANY affordable tickets to the play War Horse despite all my digging. What gives, Mr. Rockefeller?)

So let me help you get oriented, in case, you time-travel or something and end up here.  (BTW: As near as I can tell, no one knows whom the center is named after, but it’s probably not Abe.)

the central court and fountain

If you stand at the central plaza, you will be facing the huge, 4,000-seat Metropolitan Opera House, where the grand and glorious Met performs.

Avery Fisher Hall is to your right. This was the first building at Lincoln Center, and it opened in 1962. For many years, all the musicians and conductors were white men, until the blind auditions were introduced. In this case, the musician who is auditioning performs from behind a curtain, so the judges have no clue as to race or gender. Behold! the philharmonic instantly became much more diverse. Apparently, other genders and races can cut the musical mustard just as well as men. Who knew? No one has figured out how to blind-audition conductors, however, so they are still stubbornly white bread.

the auditorium--Avery Fisher Hall

David H. Koch Theater is to your left–the second building to open in 1964. It was called the New York State Theater until arch-conservative David Koch donated $100 million to the cause. That’s enough to get your name on a building–for a while, anyway.

This was my favorite venue. It was designed to look like a jewelry box, so lighting is in sparkly clusters and the interior “promenade” has railings that look like the galleries in New Orleans.

overlooking the nudes in David H. Koch Theater

Art was commissioned to fill specific spaces in the promenade. These include huge nudes carved from a single vein of Carrera marble: Circus Women and Two Nudes. The sculptures were placed before the fourth wall of the building was completed, so when the powers-that-be ordered that they be removed and cast into outer darkness for lewdness in a public place, the fourth wall was already constructed, and those prominent posteriors were there forever.

And for all you Project Runway fans, Fashion Week now happens at Lincoln Center. Is any further proof needed that the place is indeed the center of the universe? Good-by Bryant Park. We hardly knew ye. I’ll be lurking around the tents that are already going up for the event. I hope not to make an idiot of myself. Not even for you guys.

the barre for dance practice--Juilliard School