By EDWARD WYATT and ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: June 15, 2004
When it came time early this month for a final decision on the cultural presence at the World Trade Center site, city and state officials' focus was in large part on what would be best for a cultural site some five miles to the north — at Lincoln Center.
During a meeting at City Hall, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pointed out that New York City Opera, which wanted to move downtown, was an economic linchpin of the city-owned New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. City and state officials who attended the meeting said that Mr. Bloomberg asked, in effect: If you take away my tenant, who is going to pay the rent?
The city's financial concerns took on added weight as it became clear that the political ground had shifted, at least under this particular facet of ground zero decisionmaking. Gov. George E. Pataki, who has taken the lead in most of the big decisions about the trade center site, decided not to weigh in strongly about the cultural buildings, state officials said.
By last Tuesday, when Mr. Pataki met with John C. Whitehead, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and other rebuilding officials, even Mr. Whitehead — who had continued to champion City Opera's move to the trade center site — recognized that he was nearly alone, said a state official who attended the meeting.
That was despite the previously undisclosed lengths that the opera company went to in trying to keep its prospects alive, like revising its plans repeatedly and obtaining designs from top architects for a cantilevered opera house squeezed into the allotted cultural space. (Several city, state and cultural officials spoke about the process on the condition of anonymity, citing the political sensitivity of the discussions.)
The result was a plan announced last week that aims to install the Signature Theater Company and the Joyce Theater in a performing arts building and a Freedom Center museum and the Drawing Center in another building.
The outcome was not always clear, however. Like most efforts at ground zero, it involved last-minute lobbying and a seemingly endless series of designs and plans to determine an appropriate cultural mix for the site of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.
The decision is expected to be approved by the development corporation's board next month. Early in 2002 City Opera officials were already meeting with Mr. Whitehead and others, seeking support for a move downtown. In Mr. Whitehead, a retired Goldman Sachs executive, they found a sympathetic ear.
An opera fan, he came to believe the City Opera was one of the few New York institutions with sufficient weight to anchor the cultural offerings he envisioned for the trade center site. Mr. Whitehead did not respond to a request for an interview.
But roadblocks to the proposal soon surfaced, among them the question of whether the physical requirements of an opera house could be accommodated in the architect Daniel Libeskind's conceptual design for the site.
City Opera said it needed a 2,200-seat theater to make the move a financial success, but planners at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation doubted that such a large hall would fit on the site.
Redevelopment officials also wondered what would fill the auditorium in the 30 weeks per year that City Opera was not performing or rehearsing. Unlike some other cultural institutions, City Opera did not have much experience in programming, the often-difficult art of inviting and scheduling performances by traveling dance and music troupes. That left the prospect of a big theater sitting empty for much of the year.
City officials involved in the process had other concerns, too, including the impact that a new opera house might have on sites like Carnegie Hall, City Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Nearly every cultural institution was already feeling economic strain in the aftermath of 9/11. Lincoln Center, meanwhile, was in danger of being diminished, as well, with the New York Philharmonic floating plans last summer to move to Carnegie Hall.
But City Opera pressed on.
Rejecting proposals from rebuilding officials that they consider other sites away from ground zero, opera officials asked Mr. Libeskind to figure out, conceptually, how to fit an opera house into his ground zero scheme. At the same time, Rafael Viñoly, the New York-based architect, offered his own version of a possible vertical opera house. Mr. Viñoly was one of the creators of a rival ground zero plan that came in second to Mr. Libeskind's.
We wanted to show there was room," said Paul Kellogg, general and artistic director of City Opera.
Both Mr. Viñoly and Mr. Libeskind came up with plans that would allow an opera house to work on the site, using a taller building with a portion of the auditorium cantilevered over the street. Development corporation officials said they thought those proposals ultimately were too costly or provided too little public space for operagoers.
Downtown residents and other cultural institutions also were weighing in, both publicly and behind the scenes.
The heaviest lobbying, however, came from some of the institutions themselves. Mr. Pataki spoke with Edward Norton, the actor, who is on the board of the Signature Theater Company, among others.
Several people involved in the process said that Lincoln Center officials did not personally lobby against City Opera at the mayor's office or the development corporation. But Mr. Bloomberg was familiar enough with the issues; he contributed $15 million toward Lincoln Center's redevelopment plan before becoming mayor, an anonymous gift at the time. He also used to serve on the center's board and remains close to Beverly Sills, the former chairwoman of Lincoln Center who now is chairwoman of the Metropolitan Opera. Through a spokesman, Mr. Bloomberg declined to comment.
Although Ms. Sills made her career at City Opera, she has at times opposed the company's positions on Lincoln Center's redevelopment. And though City Opera has complained about the acoustics in the State Theater, she has said they were fine for her.
"I've always said I hope they stay at Lincoln Center," Ms. Sills said in an interview.
Mr. Bloomberg was also influenced by Kate D. Levin, the commissioner of the city's department of cultural affairs, who knew well the city's financial commitment to Lincoln Center. The city has contributed $7.7 million to the State Theater's capital maintenance during the last 14 years, according to department figures. And having committed $240 million to Lincoln Center's redevelopment project under the Giuliani administration, the city had already made clear that no additional capital funds would be available to the campus.
City Opera, meanwhile, found itself unable to get the mayor's ear. Mr. Kellogg said the opera had requested meetings with Mr. Bloomberg but had been turned down. "Certainly City Opera wishes we'd been given an opportunity to meet with the mayor before a decision was made," he said.
Many of the organizations that submitted proposals for ground zero "sought individual meetings to lobby the mayor but meeting with any of them would have undermined the selection process," said Edward Skyler, the mayor's press secretary.
By the time officials from the development corporation came to brief him on the cultural proposals shortly after Memorial Day, the mayor's mind appeared to be made up. "The mayor said that he was now confident that the hole that City Opera would leave at Lincoln Center was not fillable, the city would be called upon to pay for it, and he didn't want to pay for it," said one person involved in the process.
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