Lincoln Center has always existed to me as a vaguely defined area near my friend's apartment on the Upper West Side. As a kid walking by I was interested in which movies were playing at the Loews Theater or what was on sale at Tower Records, completely unaware that live music and dance performances were taking place right across the street at one of the city's premier cultural arts venue. It wasn't until I saw
Center Stage, a movie about ballet set in the fictional American Ballet Academy at Lincoln Center, that I focused my attention on the entire complex, wondering to myself, "Where exactly did they film that movie?"
Anyone who has passed by Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School in the past year, regardless of an interest in architecture, would have to be oblivious not to notice the changes on 65
th Street and Broadway. Most obvious is an expansion to the block between 65
th and 66
th Streets that extends Alice Tully Hall's lobby to Broadway. An all-new curtainwall allows one to see Tully's entrance and lobby as well as the rehearsal and circulation spaces of the Juilliard School above. That passers-by can see ballerinas keeping their muscles warm between performances, or "peek behind the curtain" as FXFOWLE's Sylvia Smith, Partner-in-Charge of the renovations, put it, creates an intimacy between the viewer and the performer previously available only by private tour, or in my case, by watching actress Amanda Schull as Jody Sawyer make her way through the Academy.
by Jessica Pleasants