They Told Me Not To Take That Job

When Reynold Levy became the new president of Lincoln Center in 2002, New York Magazine described the situation he walked in to as “a community in deep distress, riven by conflict.” Ideas for the redevelopment of Lincoln Center’s artistic facilities and public spaces required spending more than $1.2 billion, but there was no clear pathway for how to raise that kind of unprecedented sum. The individual resident organizations that were the key constituents of Lincoln Center—the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Juilliard School, and eight others—could not agree on a common capital plan or fundraising course of action. Instead, intramural rivalries and disputes filled the vacuum.