Lincoln Center Chief Ponders Future

I think this is what one would call in the political realm 'putting the most positive spin possible on a bad situation.'

Terry Ellsworth

For the head of Lincoln Center to basically call this a positive move is nonsense. Without the NYP where are they going to get the funding to renovate Avery Fisher Hall

There are 12 resident companies at Lincoln Center, including the NYC Ballet, The Chamber Music Society, and the Lincoln Center Theatre, spread over five (or six) halls and theatres.

Marc Perman

If you are counting Jazz at Lincoln Center, they have already moved down the street. And the Mostly Mozart Festival is (obviously) a short term resident.

The American Ballet Theater is not a resident company but has a lot of

Very true, though the thought of an opera house at the World Trade Center site is an appealing one. This is part of the larger issue of whether the rebuilding in lower Manhattan will include components, including cultural institutions, that would help transform the neighborhood into a destination beyond the 9 to 5.

Marc Perman

The three largest are the MET, NYP, and NYCO. 2 of them are leaving. The small companies above cannot make up the slack.

And now comes word that the head of the re-development project has quit because he says the Lincoln Center project 'is a mess and badly managed.'

Still want to claim this is all good news?

Terry Ellsworth

I said previously that in the long run this may turn out to be a good thing for Lincoln Center, and I still believe that. From the perspective of an audience member, the NYP will and the NYCO would be leaving acoustically compromised buildings, not the worst scenario.

Marc Perman

The NYCO has said it would like to have a new opera house and would move into one if it were built in or around the site of the World Trade Center.

This opera house is simply being discussed. Getting anything built in NYC is difficult and time consuming. Getting it built on the WTC site may be even more difficult, since there will be even more constituencies then usual to deal with. Lincoln Center will not be losing the NYCO to an as yet not even designed opera house for many years.

Not surprising, since the person who quit is an expert on construction and rehabilitation (he runs a large construction company) and is aware of how much things cost. And the largest remaining project was to redo Avery Fisher Hall to create better acoustics for the NY Phil.

Maybe Bloomberg will hire a guy with matches to do something to Fisher Hall. That's what happens to empty buildings in New York isn't it>

When two of the three most prominent buildings in your complex sound as bad as those two