DESCRIPTION:
Site
The proposed historic district, comprising Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts,
is located between West 62nd and 66th Streets, bordered by Broadway, and Columbus and
Amsterdam Avenues. Situated along the eastern boundary of Lincoln Square, it is within
New York City’s Upper West Side. The buildings of Lincoln Center occupy
approximately ten of its sixteen acres, while its park, plazas and parking facilities occupy
the remaining six acres. The campus is surrounded by institutional, residential and
commercial structures.
To the south of the center, between West 60th and 62nd Streets, and Columbus and
Amsterdam Avenues, is the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University, consisting of
an open plaza, enclosed by the 4-story Schools of Business, Education and Social Service
(1962), and the 13-story School of Law (1969). Both are modern, glass-curtain-wall
buildings, clad in limestone. Occupying this same block to the west, is a modern,
residential tower, rising in the center of its open lot. To the west of the performing arts
center, located between West 61st and 64th Streets, and Amsterdam and West End
Avenues, is a public housing project called the Amsterdam Houses. This public housing
is comprised of twenty-two 6-story, brick residential units, as well as a health
center/clinic, a nursery school and a playground. On the same lot, occupying the western
portion between West 63rd and 64th Streets, are the former Phipps Houses. These
apartment buildings consist of four, 6-story, brick, H-plan buildings, along West 63rd
Street (1907); and two, 6-story, brick apartment houses containing a central courtyard,
along West 64th Street (1911). Both were promoted as model tenements by builder Henry
Phipps. Further north, between West 64th and 65th Streets at Amsterdam Avenue, is the
mustard-colored, poured-in-place-concrete and glass, Fiorello LaGuardia High School,
designed by the Juilliard School’s associate architect, Eduardo Catalano, and completed
in 1985. Between West 65th and 66th Streets, also on Amsterdam Avenue, is Martin
Luther King, Jr., High School (1975), a darkly-tinted glass box with a self-weathering
steel curtain wall structure situated on an elevated plaza. The northeast corner of the
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school’s plaza contains an enormous, cube-shaped, memorial sculpture by William Tarr,
also composed of self-weathering steel, and featuring quotes in bas-relief from Martin
Luther King, Jr. Directly north of the junior high school, on an elevated superblock
occupying West 66th and 70th Streets, is the 5-story American Red Cross building, a
glass-curtain-wall structure with gray-granite-aggregate cladding and retaining walls.
Outside of the proposed historic district, yet contained within the northwestern
portion of the Lincoln Center campus between West 65th and 66th Streets, are two towers
which are integrated into each other. The privately-owned 3 Lincoln Center, is a 60-story
condominium that rises out of the base of the Lincoln Center-owned Samuel B. and
David Rose Building, a 28-story, mixed-use building. Sheathed in dark glass, 3 Lincoln
Center is located on the southeast corner of West 66th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, and
was completed in 1991. Its base, which occupies the entire westernmost portion of the
lot between West 65th and 66th Streets, references the Roman travertine-and-glass
Juilliard School to the west, through its use of pink buff Valder granite cladding and
square-window fenestration. The Samuel B. and David Rose Building contains
dormitories, administrative, performance and rehearsal spaces, parking facilities, as well
as a branch of the New York Public Library and a firehouse on its ground floor facing
Amsterdam Avenue. This building was designed by Davis, Brody & Associates and
completed in 1992. Sandwiched between these towers to the west, and the Juilliard
School to the east, is the 1-story Romanesque-Revival style, Church of the Good
Shepherd, constructed in 1887 and designed by J.C. Cady & Co., the architect of the
original Metropolitan Opera House.
On the north side of West 66th Street, between Amsterdam Avenue and
Broadway, sequentially heading east, are a series of mixed-use, 1960s residential
apartment houses, built of white, glazed brick, and consisting of 21-, 13- and 10- stories,
respectively. At the eastern end of the block, at the northwest corner of West 66th Street
and Broadway, is a steel-and-glass, 30-story, mixed-use condominium, constructed in the
early 1990s. Directly across the street, on the east side of Broadway, is Lincoln Triangle,
a salmon-colored-brick-and-glass-curtain-wall, residential-entertainment complex,
containing over thirty stories and completed in 1997. In addition to condominiums, this
building houses a multi-plex movie theater, a bookstore and an athletic club.
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Directly west of Lincoln Center are two triangular parks, comprising the Lincoln
Square bowtie. Bordered by West 65th and 66th Streets, Columbus Avenue and
Broadway, is Richard Tucker Park to the north, containing a subway elevator and
staircase for the Interborough Rapid Transit’s 1 and 9 trains, and landscaped with trees,
shrubbery and Belgian block paving. The southern triangle is Dante Park, comprised of a
lawn, bordered by trees, asphalt pavers and benches, with a sculpture of Dante by Ettore
Ximenes (1920) at its southern end. At its northern tip is a three-sided, sculptural, bronze
Movado clock, mounted on a granite pedestal, and designed by Philip Johnson. South of
Dante Park, directly across the street from Lincoln Center is the 14-story, brick-and-glass
Empire Hotel, built in 1923.
Lincoln Center is separated from the east side of Broadway by thirteen lanes of
traffic that includes a landscaped median dividing the north-south lanes of Broadway.
Occupying the east side of this boulevard are a series of low- and high- rise commercial
and residential buildings. At the northeast corner of West 65th Street and Columbus
Avenue is the New York City headquarters of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, an
institutional building which references Lincoln Center through its use of travertine
cladding and paving, and outdoor arcade. Between West 64th and 65th Streets on the
southeast corner of Broadway, is a 5-story steel-and-glass commercial building. The
northeast corner of West 64th Street is in transition. Having contained the 1907 Goelet
Building, the building is currently being demolished for a mixed-use tower. Between
West 63rd and 64th Streets, also on the east side of Broadway, is the 7-story, mixed-use 1
Lincoln Plaza, completed in 1971. This building, also incorporating an arcade and
travertine cladding on its ground floor, is a mixed-use commercial building.
Master Plan
Lincoln Center incorporates principles of the City Beautiful Movement,
characterized by symmetry and procession through an axial design. Oriented toward
Central Park to the west, the centerpiece of the complex is Josie Robertson Plaza with the
Metropolitan Opera House as its focal point. The opera house is flanked by two
dissimilarly-designed but identically-massed buildings, the New York State Theater on
its left and Avery Fisher Hall on its right. All three of these structures are formalist
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buildings, as characterized by their modern, curtain-wall structures which are encased in
neo-classical, temple-like forms. Consistent with a formalist aesthetic that integrates
historicized elements into a minimalist context, the opera house, symphony hall and
dance theater are clad in Roman travertine marble with expansive, glass curtain walls.
The trio of buildings also feature colonnaded fronts with identically-scaled outdoor
porticoes. Beneath these porticoes, the Metropolitan Opera House has a glass-enclosed
arcade, while the New York State Theater and Avery Fisher Hall have outdoor arcades.
Comprising a plan that is evocative of the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, they
surround Josie Robertson Plaza, comprised of a series of concentric rings and radiating
spokes of travertine paving interspersed with black aggregate. In the center of this design
is Revson Fountain, enclosed by a low, circular wall composed of polished Canadian
black granite.
Directly west of Josie Robertson Plaza, in front of the Metropolitan Opera House,
is a large, sloping forecourt, paved in pink marble granite, with a pair of pink marble
granite blocks on its north and south ends, which delineate the main plaza from the
center’s other outdoor spaces. Directly in front of the opera house, are a series of metaland-glass poster stands. To the east of Josie Robertson Plaza, at the front of the complex,
is a concrete, pedestrian trajectory, which extends from West 62nd to West 65th Street.
Along the east façade of the New York State Theater, this trajectory contains a
subterranean stage artists’ entrance at the southern portion that is parallel to the theater.
This entrance is bordered by three low-rise walls which are clad in travertine.
Immediately north of the below-grade entrance at ground-level, is a travertine staircase
leading up to the theater. Intersecting the trajectory at Josie Robertson Plaza, are two
triangular-shaped, dark metal canopies which connect the New York State Theater and
Avery Fisher Hall arcades to a two-lane, service road, which fronts the trajectory. In
front of the east façade of Avery Fisher Hall at the trajectory’s northern end, is another
travertine staircase leading up to the hall, with a series of metal-and-glass poster stands to
the north and south of it. The southbound service road is accessible from West 65th
Street, Broadway and Columbus Avenue from the north, and connects to Columbus
Avenue, West 62nd and 63rd Streets, at its southern end. Abutting the two-lane service
road to the east, is a long, concrete, pedestrian traffic island, parallel to Columbus
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Avenue, and stretching from West 63rd to West 65th Street. The eastern border of this
area, which is at sidewalk level with Columbus Avenue, is paved in concrete. Branching
out from its center, the island contains a grand staircase flanked by two pedestals with
metal flagpoles, two smaller staircases and two long, narrow planters—all of which are
clad in travertine. In addition to trees and shrubbery, each planter also contains pairs of
light poles and four banner poles, equipped to fly three banners each. At its northern and
southern tips, the traffic island houses three low-rise walls which are clad in beigecolored brick. These walls border stairs leading down to the center’s subterranean
parking garage, its concourse and the West 66th Street stop of the Interborough Rapid
Transit subway line, located below-grade at Broadway.
On West 62nd Street, two secondary entrance stairways to Lincoln Center Plaza
South and Damrosch Park are located to the west of two vehicular ramps leading to the
parking areas underneath the campus. Beyond these stairways to the west, is a mediumheight, travertine-clad retaining wall, bordering Damrosch Park and housing trees and
shrubbery. The Amsterdam Avenue façade of Lincoln Center consists of the rear facades
of the bandshell, the opera house, the performing arts library and the Vivian Beaumont
Theater. This facade also contains several points of entry, such as loading docks for the
opera house and library, a library entrance and a staircase leading up to a path along the
north façade of the Vivian Beaumont Theater. On the street-level, south side of West 65th
Street, heading west, a travertine-clad wall is punctuated by glass entrances to the
center’s administrative offices, a loading dock and a parking garage entrance. Beyond
the garage entrance is a an elevator, leading to Lincoln Center Plaza North and Milstein
Plaza; a staircase leading up to Lincoln Center Plaza North; and a canopied travertine
staircase, connected to the north façade of Avery Fisher Hall.
On the north side of West 65th Street, there is an entrance to the Juilliard School
and a tunnel created by the Milstein Plaza overpass, connecting the Juilliard School to
Lincoln Center Plaza North. Directly in front of the Juilliard School on Broadway is a
triangular plaza known as Alice Tully Plaza, containing low-rise, square planters, made
of stone aggregate, and metal-and-glass poster stands. Alice Tully Plaza is defined by the
north-south façade of the school, West 65th Street and the southeasterly Broadway
trajectory. At the northwest corner of West 65th Street and Broadway, lying parallel to
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the school, there is a pink marble granite stairway with travertine-clad cheekwalls. Also
on this corner, oriented west, are metal-and-glass-enclosed escalators, running to and
from Milstein Plaza. Along the West 66th Street façade of the school, there is an entrance
and a loading dock.
Bordered by the New York State Theater to the east and the Metropolitan Opera
House to the north, are Lincoln Center Plaza South and Damrosch Park. Separated from
the New York State Theater by a paved trajectory along the building’s western façade,
Lincoln Center Plaza South is defined by a configuration of low, travertine-clad planters
that run parallel to this trajectory as well as parallel to the front half of the Metropolitan
Opera House’s south façade. Between Lincoln Center Plaza South and Damrosch Park
are a rectangular configuration of trees, planted at plaza level, and a series of low-rise,
polished-black-granite benches configured at right angles around them. Damrosch Park
itself is comprised of an open, paved, audience area and a modern, onion-shaped,
bandshell, known as the Guggenheim Bandshell. The bandshell and audience area are
surrounded on their northern, southern and western perimters by more trees.
Referencing Plaza South’s configuration of planters is Lincoln Center Plaza
North, bordered by the Metropolitan Opera House to the south; the performing arts
library known as the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center and Vivian Beaumont
Theater to the west; a travertine-clad wall with a dedication plaque, West 65th Street, the
Milstein Plaza overpass, and the Juilliard School to the north; and Avery Fisher Hall to
the west. In addition to the planters in Plaza North, which run parallel to the
Metropolitan’s north façade and Avery Fisher’s west façade, are two sculptures. One is a
stabile by Alexander Calder, located directly in front of the library’s entrance, and the
other is an enormous bronze cast by Henry Moore, placed prominently over a reflecting
pool. Like their counterparts surrounding the main plaza, the library, theater and school
are also clad in travertine. However, unlike the library and theater, which are primarily
distinguished by glass curtain walls in the context of an International Style, the
Expressionistic Juilliard School is predominantly characterized by travertine and concrete
with punched windows that evokes Brutalist forms. Its adjacent Milstein Plaza is a large
area enclosed by travertine-clad terrace walls and paved in pink marble granite. Milstein
Plaza also contains a kinetic steel sculpture by Jaacob Agam in the region of its
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southeastern corner, and a series of pink marble granite benches along its southern wall,
and medium-sized wooden planters along its eastern and western walls.
Parking and Concourse Levels
Lincoln Center’s subterranean parking and concourse areas are configured around
its buildings’ basements, its underground offices and its mechanical systems. Consisting
of 721 spaces, the parking areas are located in two main areas on two separate levels,
directly below Josie Robertson Plaza and Damrosch Park, respectively. Both parking
levels are paved and finished in concrete, with metal ceiling tiles and flourescent lighting
fixtures. Foundational piers throughout the area separate its individual parking spaces.
The concourse and lower concourse level parking areas are accessible via entrances on
West 62nd Street and West 65th Street. The lower concourse level also has a road that
connects the north part of the garage to the south. Underneath the lower concourse level
of the garage driveway off West 65th Street is the central mechanical plant. The
administrative offices for Lincoln Center, Inc. occupy the central portion of the lower
concourse level and the main concourse abutting West 65th Street.
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