|
Presented by The National Arts Journalism
Program
and Columbia University's School of the Arts
Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism
October 29–30, 2001
Summary
| Program | View
the publication
Room
to Breathe: Real Estate, Neighborhoods and Urban Renewal
Monday, Oct. 29, 2001, 10:30 a.m.
Moderator:
Laurie Beckelman, deputy director, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum
Panelists:
Charles Bagli, The New York Times
Susan Chin, assistant commissioner, New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs
Suri Duitch, public policy researcher
Julia C. Levy, execuitve director for external
affairs, Roundabout Theatre Company
Harvey Lichtenstein, chairman, BAM Local Development
Corporation
Paul G. Wolf, principal, Denham Wolf Real Estate
Beckelman: I think that some of the comments you¨ve heard and the
materials you¨ve read get you ready for how much we really are in
a different era. It¨s been an incredible decade or more in the theater.
As New Yorkers, and as people passionate about the arts, we look
at the arts to keep us going, and we keep telling all of our politicians
and real estate developers just how much value we bring to this
city. I see a number of friends in the audience, as well as panelists,
who continue to do that.
What I¨d like to start with • and I¨ve talked to all the panelists
before about this • are observations, not only about Sept. 11, but
where we are as far as the theater is concerned, and as it relates
to the mayor we¨ve had for the last eight years. As I recall from
when I was at The Public Theater, working closely with John Dyson,
there were a great amount of incentives from the public/private
partnerships, there had been incredible leaps made because of the
economy. But we¨re in a different era now, and we¨ll have a new
mayor in a couple of weeks. Where does that leave us?
I¨d like to start with Charles Bagli, who has brought us some of
the breaking news stories, and even the comments of Sandy Weil about
putting a new ballpark downtown.
Bagli: Good morning. I see I¨m listed as an expert in this area.
I¨ve been called many things, and ěexpertî was never one of them.
Before I say anything about that, there was an article in the paper
the other day about how the Yankees playoffs were going to pump
$7 million into the economy. I think an article like this illustrates
a lot of mythology. It may pump money into the coffers of the team
and players, but very little goes into the coffers of the city.
It has very little economic value, except to the team owners.
But the role of the theater and cultural institutions was really
brought home to me, not because I¨m an expert in theater, but more
by what happened on Sept. 11. A few days afterward, I was doing
a story on the impact on hotels. All of a sudden, we had this fantastic
photograph from one of the big hotels, the Plaza, and all the bellmen
are lined up doing nothing. There was no one in the hotels; there
was 20 percent occupancy, in some cases. And nobody was in the theaters.
All of a sudden it really brought home to me that the theater and
cultural institutions, if you throw them under ětourismî as an economic
category, were crucial to the lifeblood of the city. Things like
baseball stadiums are not.
It was a revelation because I think that when you talk about the
economy, you talk about Wall Street, real estate, the media companies.
The poor stepchild is, ěOh yeah, and tourism.î I think in the aftermath
of Sept. 11, we¨ve learned just how important it is. When people
come to New York, they¨re largely coming to meetings, they¨re coming
to the theater, they¨re coming to shop or do whatever. They¨re not
coming to baseball games. In here, it says that this will pump all
the people going to theaters, or restaurants or hotels. Show me
a hotel where someone flew into New York to see these games • unless
they¨re sportswriters, and nobody wants to depend on them. In the
aftermath, there is an opportunity, and also a crushing blow, for
what¨s going on for theater and cultural organizations. It¨s becoming
very clear that downtown as a neighborhood, as a place, has taken
some devastating body blows.
A lot of the companies that were down there have made their decisions.
They¨ve moved to other locations, whether it be midtown or across
the river to Jersey City, or further on into Jersey and Connecticut.
A lot of those jobs will not be coming back. That¨s a sad thing.
On the other hand, it presents an opportunity to look at downtown
and what we need to do there. I think that people refer to it as
the Financial District, which is true • that¨s a portion of what¨s
down there. But it¨s become a residential area as well. My daughter¨s
English teacher lived in Battery Park City, and she¨s not going
back; she¨s already taken another apartment. Those people will be
gone, too, and it will take a while, a couple years perhaps, for
people to feel comfortable going down there. Certainly, no one wants
to overlook a graveyard. When you think about the planning for the
World Trade Center, I think there¨s a growing recognition that it¨s
not going to be a 10-million-square-foot office again. What does
have to go there is something that reflects the new reality of downtown.
I think that¨s a combination of things. It is an office building,
it is residential, it is cultural institutions.
We play with the idea that maybe the Guggenheim Museum shouldn¨t
go over on the East River, but maybe go to this site. Having all
those things again reflects the new reality. That¨s the opportunity,
in planning what happens downtown. Politicians could put cultural
institutions • not just theater, but everything • into the mix,
so that it will become an attractive area again. But on the other
side of it, I think there¨s going to be a lot of new construction
in the city. A lot of things that have happened have a lot to do
with rising real estate. Even right now, with the Brodsky [Organization]
project, there¨ll be seven new theaters over there on 42nd Street
near Dyer Avenue.
Beckelman: They¨re also very small theaters.
Bagli: Yes, they¨re off-Broadway theaters. What makes that project
possible is that the far west side of Manhattan has become attractive
for residential developing. He¨s already under construction; I think
it¨s full speed ahead. At Eighth Avenue and 47th Street, where there¨s
a stealth project • I¨m not sure that that¨s going forward, at least
until it becomes clear exactly what¨s happening with the residential
and commercial markets.
Forty-Second Street, now 19 years in the planning, what really picked
it up off the ground again was the surging real estate market. This
couldn¨t have happened unless there was already a public plan to
make that happen. Although it seems that there¨s a delicate balance.
There are several examples of this sort of coercive approach failing.
I¨ll give you an example.
In 1998, Union Life Insurance wanted to move out of their home in
Union Square to an empty parking lot at Seventh Avenue and 50th
Street. So they were negotiating with the developer, and everything
was going along swimmingly, they negotiated with an economic development
corporation, everything¨s about to be signed when, lo and behold,
another faction of the Giuliani administration says, ěOh, that¨s
a bad idea. Let's put a musical theater in the base of the building.î
Everybody went, ěGulp.î That really changes the economics of the
project, because the theater would have to be three stories high,
and that really increases the cost. Needless to say, the whole project
fell apart and Union Life Insurance went downtown. I think they're
staying downtown now. That project fell apart.
Duitch: Looking at the real estate market for arts groups, most
of the research that I've done has focused on small and medium-sized
groups. In general, it doesn't seem like things are likely to get
much better for small and medium-sized groups, which really lost
out over the last 10 years as the market skyrocketed. Particularly
in arts ěhot zonesî • as my colleagues and I have called them in
the research we've done on real estate • we saw increases of 200
percent, 300 percent: not in real estate square-footage prices,
not just in Manhattan, but also Long Island City, and DUMBO and
downtown Brooklyn. The skyrocketing real estate was not limited
to Manhattan and, in some cases, it was worse where arts groups
had already made their homes. Post-Sept. 11, the access to space
and the prices of space don't seem likely to get better in the very
short term. They're certainly not going to go back to where they
were. Access to capital, as some people have just said, capital
projects (the ones I've heard about) have frozen • whether it's
questions about private funders and their commitments going forward,
or questions about the commitments that the Giuliani administration
had made to various capital projects over several years. There are
a lot of really grim things in the scenario. It was grim before
Sept. 11, for small and medium-sized arts groups, and it's still
grim.
But I also think there are some real opportunities. Ginny Louloudes
was talking about putting community facilities in every single building
that goes up in downtown Manhattan, which I think is a really great
idea. There's no question that that¨s the way downtown Manhattan
was moving already, going from being a business district to being
a much more well-rounded community. Battery Park, as a community,
was maturing. Arts institutions, cultural institutions, were growing
in the area. I think arts and culture has to be an integral part
of the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan • for community reasons, for
economic reasons, and because it's part of the healing process.
In terms of making policy in the next administration, we can make
very good arguments that building arts and culture into the rebuilding
of Lower Manhattan and New York City in general is something that
needs to be done over the next 10 years.
Beckelman: But I think the city is going to be under a tremendous
amount of pressure. We know that there have already been cutbacks,
related to the operating budget, from the city freezes. Susan, this
is more addressed to you: There are going to be pressures, dealing
specifically with victims and with redeveloping real estate, to
continue to revitalize the financial community. Regarding new policies,
what can be changed? Because in the past, the policy of every city
administration I can think of has always been for maintaining and
retaining large corporations. Paul, you may want to address this
also because of the work that you've done for not-for-profits. We're
not looking at the Lincoln Center model, or even the 42nd Street,
because I think that I have major problems with both of them, but
this is an opportunity. What pressures are you under, and what do
you think, in a new administration? Are there monies going to be
available, as Suri is hoping there'll be, in continuing to get the
arts as part of this new redevelopment?
Chin: In terms of the redevelopment, there's a New York City Rebuilds
task force, and there's a cultural and historical resources component
to that. I think it's going to be critical that the arts and cultural
communities are represented there. Right now, they're just trying
to reach out to those who should be at the table, which is not saying
that everybody there is necessarily speaking for our community.
When we began in the Giuliani administration, the cultural affairs
department had $62 million for capital construction, and it leveraged
about $120 million in private support. In the eight years, that
support has grown tremendously to about $660 million in city funds,
which leveraged about $1.5 billion in private support. I have to
say that public/private partnership models, even as much as we hate
to hear the ěthree Ps,î are going to be really critical to the next
administration, to making folks understand the importance of the
arts. If I look back at the ¨92 Port Authority study done by the
Alliance for the Arts and the Port Authority, while other industries
were entrenching the arts, arts communities continued to be a steady
contributor to our economy.
I understand that it's a different time, but at the same time, I
think we need to take that longer-term vision of how long some of
these projects take to develop, and it's 10 to 20 years beyond the
political horizon. You need to make the case for these totally new
elected officials that are going to come into office. At least 35
of the 51 City Council members, four of the five borough presidents,
the new mayor. There's an opportunity there, and I think politicians
are better at reacting than acting, so our community needs to be
prepared to have that kind of argument at the ready for these folks,
to show, not just what the economic impact is, but also that the
cultural community serves as a social generator, as a destination,
as a place for intellectual and creative expression and the architecturally
distinguished. Our city is so geared toward architecture, and our
built environment, and things that we are grounded in and take pride
in, and. as a place of cultural and ethical expression. How do you
find quantifiable data for the social indicators? How do you find
quantifiable data that's going to persuade these elected officials
who are looking for votes? I mean, who is looking for support from
their constituency to say, ěYes, I agree, you should put more money
into arts and culture, and capital facilities is a means of doing
that.î
Wolf: Can I just do a follow-up on the discussion of being prepared?
The community should be prepared as a whole, but also individually.
Each of the theater companies has a responsibility to get their
own house in order, so when the opportunities do present themselves
again, they are in solid shape to address them. I just want to give
a positive anecdote, because there are a number of grim details.
Yesterday, I got a phone call from a small nonprofit theater company
that's been established for many years, that does quite well. They
have a 140-seat house and the call was, essentially, ěOur landlord
wants to double our rent. We've been very successful, and now is
the time for us to plan for a new space.î
Lichtenstein: Are they the ones who called me?
Wolf: Essentially, there is this optimism that can't be put down.
That ěwe're 140 seats today, and we want to be 250 seats tomorrow.
And I want to get there, and today, six or seven weeks after the
11th, I still have that optimism.î I said, ěFor you to be able to
do that, it's not the kind of situation where you say, ěOK, I want
to be 250 seats tomorrow. It'll take a year, and I'll get there.î
There's tremendous planning and • I can't stress enough, I tell
this to everybody I talk to • the more you plan, the better off
you'll be when the opportunity presents itself. Do the self-analysis,
make sure what your capabilities are. See if you can actually raise
the money that you anticipate to build this project.
Essentially, take the time now. There is going to be a brief hiatus
now, and some of the competition for public funds, the public sector,
is going to have to wait a little bit before they can respond. I
think there will be a hiatus at this point for the competition among
the small nonprofit theaters to get public dollars. I think the
public sector is going to have to wait a little while before they
can sort everything out. Take advantage of this time. The small
companies should bolster their own finances as best they can. Truly
do the self-analysis to see what is appropriate, what can I handle
when the time comes.
Two months ago, the idea of finding a space for performance for
theater with the appropriate-height ceiling, with the appropriate
column spacing, in a reasonable neighborhood, close to public transportation,
at anything near a reasonable rent was the Holy Grail. Two months
later, it still is. There's not a change in that. Take advantage
of this time to be prepared. I think that the market is what it
was before.
On a positive side, what I see coming down the pike is on the rental
side for offices, and possibly for rehearsal spaces. The market
softening that we saw before the 11th, I think, will continue, eventually.
As things sort themselves out, I think we will see a decrease in
asking rents on office space.
Beckelman: Are you talking about in this borough, or in all boroughs?
Wolf: I believe it will ultimately be in all boroughs, but certainly
in Manhattan. We¨re seeing it already. There are spaces now, west
of Eighth Avenue, which three years ago might have been in the high
teens, two years ago might have been in the $30-a-square-foot range.
Today, you can come in the mid to high $20s. I think you're seeing
that reasonability among some of the landlords, particularly the
ones who have been hurt so badly by the dot-com pullouts, or the
ones that are suffering from the manufacturing losses, particularly
in the garment sector. That is the only potential silver lining,
but it's still the separation of the performance space from the
administration and from the rehearsal space that, I think, will
continue to be an issue.
One last point I want to make is on the cost of construction right
now. We also saw signs of a softening before the 11th. Prices had
been very high before, but they were starting to come down. I think
there will be a lot of new construction in Manhattan and in all
the boroughs. I think that shortly, we're going to see that rise
again in construction costs, so that when you find your space to
build, it will be more expensive than you anticipated.
Beckelman: Harvey, you have been in the middle of this battle and
revitalization for a very long time. Now that it's not only Sept.
11th, but you have also • the way other museums and places have
used great famous architects to help revitalize and draw attention
• where are we now that it's after September 11th, the economy is
down, corporate America is pulling back their sponsorships. And
we're in a new age.
Lichtenstein: You know, Laurie, I'm a pretty slow study, and my
take on what's happened there is that we know what's happened. And
it was shocking and it was terribly distressing, but I don't think
we know what it means yet. I remember listening to the whole stock-market
boom in the ¨90s, where every day someone would justify when the
market would go way down and then they'd have the opposite thing
the next day when it went way up. And the idea of really predicting
what's going to happen is not my area. Essentially, my feeling is
to continue to do what you think is important, to really put all
your efforts behind it and make it work.
I'm now engaged in what amounts to my fourth career, and it's really
very humbling, getting into real estate and really trying to build
a cultural district and what that entails and all that's happening
in New York generally, the trends that have been going on for a
number of years. There are a couple of things that strike me as
being very important and that more and more get reinforced in my
work. One, I really believe in being site-specific; that you¨re
really dealing with a place, and it's that place you're dealing
with, and trying to graft other ideas on there can be very dangerous
if they don't take. Some might work, but you really have to deal
with that place.
The second thing that I really believe in is process, meaning •
I really believe in the Rashomon logic that there are five takes
on everything that happens, and from different points of view. I
think the process has to do with being open to understanding all
the different areas, and I'm finding out a lot of that the hard
way, in terms of what I'm doing in the Fort Greene community. What's
in the center of all that, and the center of being site-specific,
and the center of dealing with process, is really having a vision
and an idea • which is not immutable, which may change in the process
of doing it, but of which there is a core that you really believe
in and that you really hold on to. In a sense, that's what we're
trying to do with the cultural district. We know what the forces
have been over the past number of years in the real estate market.
I think that the organization that Paul was talking about came over
to see me last week, when they found out that their rent is going
to be doubling. They are in a not-very-great location on the Lower
East Side, and they feel they can't deal with it. They are thinking
of coming to Brooklyn. The push, the squeeze in the real estate
market, has been very real. I believe also in taking risks and doing
things that are not conventional. I applaud Ginny Louloudes, who
was on the panel before, for taking over a building about five or
six blocks away from BAM and turning it into A.R.T./New York • turning
it over and taking a place for small theater companies to have office
space and shared facilities, and encouraging us to take another
building in that area and do the same thing on a broader basis with
the arts. I applaud Mark Morris for, a number of years ago, deciding
that he wanted to settle his company in Brooklyn, right across from
BAM, and taking that opportunity to build a building.
A lot of groups I talk to about coming to Brooklyn are really pressured
by real estate, have real problems about trying to exist in the
market in Manhattan, but are scared of making the jump to Brooklyn,
for one reason or another. And I just feel gone, though my whole
period at BAM, for 32 years, where I day-in and day-out faced the
problem of getting an audience to Brooklyn, getting artists to work
in Brooklyn. And now BAM is established from a $600,000 institution,
when I took over, to between $20 to $25 million today and working
extremely well. And there is still that fear of pushing out • but
what is happening in the city is very important.
The idea is that artists are living in Brooklyn, are moving to Brooklyn
• Williamsburg, Greenpoint, DUMBO, Park Slope, Fort Greene, and
all around the area are visual artists, dancers, writers and filmmakers.
There¨s been an extraordinary migration of artists to Brooklyn.
The fact that Long Island City is developing an arts community,
the fact that Harlem is growing, the fact that the city is spreading
beyond the core of Manhattan, the fact that central Manhattan and
lower Manhattan are very important aspects of the development of
New York • these things are very important for New York, and I think
that will continue.
What effect the downtown tragedy will have, I really don't have
any idea. I think that real estate is still going to be very tight,
and it's going to be very pressured on the arts organizations. And
I think we are going to have to be much more serious about how we
function. And I hope that the kind of money economy that developed
in the ¨90s in the city is one aspect that will be affected. When
everybody was watching the market go up like crazy and everybody
was thinking of nothing else but investing and money, and Wall Street
changes • I hope that whole atmosphere, that whole feeling, changes,
and that we really get focused on community and the arts and on
• as Herbert Muschamp says • getting some serious architecture in
New York.
Beckelman: What you've been very successful at, in good times and
bad times, is creating a public/private partnership. You also have
one of the most ambitious public programs going on today. Can you
talk a little bit about where you think you are in just the future
of the project, because it's housing • it's a big real estate program.
It¨s much larger than anything else that I can think of that exists
today in the city.
Lichtenstein: We've worked with various different architects and
planners. We started with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and David
Rockwell. We've just finished our master plan at this point, which
is very conceptual and was developed by Rem Koolhaas and the office
of Metropolitan Architecture and Diller and Scofidio, downtown.
Now we're taking that to the community and various workshops over
the next few months to really talk about that. Paul is on one of
the panels, giving a real-estate series Nov. 13 and 14 at Long Island
University for arts groups, about the whole process of thinking
about space, and really thinking about coming into the cultural
district. We're doing a series of workshops that Paul's involved
with as well.
The city has been extraordinary in a way that I never would have
expected. We went to see the mayor last December, I believe, under
the auspices of the deputy mayor, Tony Coles, who we went to see
and who really responded to our project conceptually. And he said,
ěYou're not gonna get any money from the city or from the mayor
unless he really buys into it, so let me see if we can arrange a
meeting.î Which he did. We had a meeting in December with the mayor,
and he took an hour while we did a PowerPoint presentation of our
plan. Myself and Rick Scofidio and Jeanne Lutfy, who works with
me, and the mayor kept saying during the course of that presentation,
ěHow much is this gonna cost?î And we kept saying, ěLet's get to
the end of the presentation.î We finally got to the end of the presentation
and a figure came up; I think at that point it was around $650 million.
Half of that money is for housing • we're talking about middle-income
housing, subsidized housing and artists housing. We're talking about
something around 700 units, as many subsidized units as possible.
Some might be market-rate. That also includes infrastructure and
public space. And half of it maybe, or a little less than half,
is cultural. And there's public space and so on, and half of it
is residential.
The mayor then said something that made me practically drop my teeth:
ěHere's what I can do to help you.î And I just fainted away. He
proceeded to say, ěThis is what I'm doing with Lincoln Center. This
is what I'm doing with MOMA. This is what I'm doing with the Guggenheim.
It comes to 10 or 15 percent of the cost of the total project, and
usually, it¨s a matching thing. However,î he said, ěyou¨re not MOMA
or Lincoln Center. I don¨t think you have the capacity to raise
all that money up front to match it. Maybe what we could do is jump-start
it and give you the money up-front. And I jumped out of my seat
and said, ěYeah, yeah.î And he said, ěNo, don¨t say anything; think
about it.î So I said, ěI¨ve thought about it,î and he said, ěNo,
no, no.î He said, ěCome back.î And the following month we went back,
having thought about it. We asked for $50 million. Now, Tony Coles
indicated that we would be lucky to get 25 or 35. He gave us $50
million.
So we have $50 million. We¨ve also collected about $35 million from
other sources, almost all of it from the city, through the good
graces of the city council of the borough president of Brooklyn.
So we now have about $85 million. We want to do the infrastructure,
in order to subsidize the cultural activity, so that the cultural
groups will own their spaces and have long-term leases at reasonable
rents. So this is the basis of what we¨re doing, and in order to
do that and build the infrastructure, we figure the housing money
will come through HPD and other sources. We need to raise about
$100 to $110 or $115 to $120 million, so we¨re about two-thirds
of the way.
What¨s gonna happen, we don¨t know. All we know is that we¨re pushing
ahead with the project. We¨ve met community opposition because,
in fact, the communication has been bad, for the most part. We¨re
in the process of rectifying that and dealing with these workshops
that we¨re setting up with the community, and the real estate workshops
for the arts community. We¨re gonna do a real estate workshop for
the merchants community in and around Fort Greene as well. We have
an important vision of making a district that will be a mixed-use
arts district, which will have housing, which will have artist organizations
large and small, new ones and more established ones, young ones
(where we are focusing on groups in Brooklyn that want to come in
there), the dance groups and the theater groups. Give them a priority.
We¨re also working with groups like WNYC to come in. The Brooklyn
Public Library wants to build a visual arts library with a 24-hour
cybercafę and several theaters. There are a lot of things on our
plate now, and we¨re working with other dance companies in Brooklyn
to make this happen. It can be terrific, and architecture and design
is very important, as indicated by the people we¨ve been using in
terms of the planning. That¨s the ambition, and we¨ll see how it
works out.
Beckelman: Julia, you¨ve have had some very similar experiences
and some different ones, too, so maybe you could talk a little about
what you¨ve been doing.
Levy: Real estate has defined Roundabout, just as the art has defined
who we are and what we do. I certainly have no grand solutions about
how to solve all the issues that we are all going to face post-Sept.
11th. What I can say is that we have all lived through many different
economic environments. We have been through the ¨70s; we have been
through the almost-bankruptcy of New York; we have been through
the crash of ¨89; and we have been through the boom years. During
all that, we have found opportunities in those areas, whether it
was a good time or a bad time, and I do believe those opportunities
will exist moving forward.
I think this organization that both of you have spoken to • this
140-seat Lower East Side theater company that just began thinking
about their real estate issues a year from now • they should have
been looking five, four years ago, seeing what was happening in
the economy. Real estate, I think, defines our industry; where we¨re
located, the sizeČ At Roundabout specifically, I think we¨ve built
more theaters • we have that distinction • and probably been evicted
from more theaters than any other not-for-profit in this city.
We started downtown in Chelsea in a 26th Street theater in the basement
of a supermarket, a 150-seat theater. We were evicted from that
one. Then we were on 23rd Street and renovated a movie theater into
a theater. We were evicted from that one as well, because of fire-code
violations. We then built • and this was in 1983 when were in bankruptcy,
so there was no funding coming into Roundabout, no government funding,
no foundation or corporate funding, just a little bit of individual
funding • but we still were able to build the Union Square Theater.
I¨m pleased to say that two of the seven theaters remain theaters
today. We were able to build that one in the mid-1980s, at a time
when there was money flowing from every avenue into the not-for-profit
arts community. Roundabout did not benefit from that, and we did
not benefit from that for many years to come. It was this foresight
that we had to always be looking at real estate, and knowing that
we would only be stable having a permanent home, [that kept us solvent].
It was about two or three years before our lease ended on the Union
Square Theater that we started looking for a new home. It was at
that point that, finally, Charlie Moss,the person who ended up being
our landlord • who ended up being the man that evicted us seven
years later • finally picked up the phone and said, ěYes you can
have our space.î We moved to 45th Street and Broadway. That was
a seminal moment in the history of the theater. There were two,
maybe: when we came out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and when we moved
to 45th Street. Because now, we were actually part of a theater
community. We were now Broadway. We had Tony eligibility, so that
opened up that community to us. We also had this confluence of theater
around us, and we were benefiting in a way that we¨d never been
able to before.
When we moved to 45th Street, actually Times Square, our board was
very much against it. They didn¨t want us to move. Times Square
was not what it is today. Our house staff used to joke about looking
out the window onto Broadway and watching all the pickpockets and
the tourists being taken. We didn¨t know how we were going to get
home at night • that¨s how difficult the area was. Also, prior to
that, Union Square was not the Union Square it is today. As we were
leaving, Union Square Cafę had just opened up. You didn¨t walk through
the park because of the drug dealers and everything that was going
on. We were very much a part of it.
I think this speaks to, and should speak to, the city and all the
public entities that are interested in building arts communities,
or displaying what an arts community or a single institution can
try to do to an area. In each of those areas, the reason for our
eviction was because of the reason we got the theaters to begin
with • these were areas where they couldn¨t fill housing. They couldn¨t
fill these spaces. The real estate was not optimal real estate;
at that time it had very little value. So, we were able to move
in and take these spaces through creative financing and really hard
work in funding, because, again, there wasn¨t that public funding
when we built the Union Square Theater.
There¨s a great story about our current architect, Bob Ashdown.
At the time, I think, it was a million-dollar renovation to create
the Union Square Theater, and we couldn¨t afford the carpeting.
It was $75,000. He said to Todd Haimes, the artistic director, ěI¨ll
pay for it, and you pay me back when you can.î These are the kinds
of people we were also lucky enough to deal with. But both of the
evictionsČ well, not evictions. We lost our lease at Union Square;
they were going to give us a year-to-year lease. How can you run
a subscription theater not knowing where you¨re gonna be the following
year? Then at 45th Street, it was a very clear eviction. We had
a demolition clause in our contract. We signed it, knowingly, on
good advice from board members in the real estate industry, never
thinking that what would happen to Times Square would happen. In
1996, after we built the Laura Pels, our off-Broadway theater next
door to our Mainstage Theatre, we were evicted.
As a community, we have to be aware of what¨s going on around us.
We can¨t live in this cocoon and think that because we¨re producing
theater in our spaces, we¨re safe. We saw what was happening around
us. We saw the Bertelsmann building go in. We saw the theaters coming
back to life. We saw what Gretchen Dykstra was doing at the Business
Improvement District and the revitalization that was happening in
Times Square. And it was at that point that we started to talk to
everyone we knew who had anything to do with theater or real estate
about the fact that we needed a new home.
Luckily enough, Rebecca Robertson told us there was one theater
remaining on 42nd Street, The Manhattan Theatre Club. Everyone had
looked at it and, for whatever reason, it wasn¨t right for them
or right for 42nd Street, and we were perfect for it. It was a 750-seat
space. I think you can create your own luck, you can create opportunities,
and it was the fact that we were there looking for a space, because
we knew we would be evicted. We had no idea when we were approached
about this theater, or invited to take it on • we weren¨t approached,
we begged. They let us have it. We didn¨t know how we were going
to raise the money for it. We didn¨t know about capital funding,
or that the city would provide capital funding. We moved forward
on the project. Contrary to what Mr. Eisenberg said earlier, Roundabout
does not receive a lot of public funding. We get $11,000 from the
City of New York. So if that would help the theater community, we
would give that back, because it would probably help a few theaters
out there. So we were moving forward without understanding, with
the belief that there wouldn¨t be anything but our own sweat to
raise the money.
What is important about the 42nd Street theater is that it was the
first time that we were invited to join a redevelopment project.
What we realized was that this was bigger than just Roundabout.
It was great to be a part of something that was critical; it was
the greatest redevelopment project and continues to be the greatest
in the country, perhaps. This is something that took a long time
to get off the ground.
I remember my first day at Roundabout in ¨89. We didn¨t think this
project was ever going to happen. This was probably one opportunity
that we didn¨t take advantage of. It wasn¨t the right time. There
was no way in the world we could afford to renovate a space. Twelve
years later, it became the perfect solution to us. Once we learned
that there was Susan Chin and the funding available, we were able
to make a case for that, because we were part of something the city
and state believed in. We were able to use that money to leverage
private dollars. Actually, the city money became critical to the
success of the project. But it wasn¨t something we knew about.
What I have learned from that, which informs our future, is our
future does involve more real estate. We do have a lease for the
American Place Theatre. We don¨t take over the lease until 2002,
so we¨ve got a year of planning. But we are thinking about what
that¨s going to mean to us. The reason we¨re taking that on is because
we currently have a year-to-year lease at the Gramercy Theatre.
What we¨ve found is that by not being part of a community, ticket
sales at that theater are horrendous. They¨re 50 percent of what
they were when we were at midtown, on 45th Street, because there
is no real theater community on 23rd Street. So we¨re looking at
theater communities and looking at a way we can take advantage of
what¨s happening musically down there, as well as the future vibrancy
on 23rd Street.
In looking at theater communities, we can take advantage of what¨s
happening downtown to create a community for some of the smaller
off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway theaters, dance companies, museums
• and put music down there as well. That will be critical to the
future and the vibrancy of these organizations, because they will
feed off one another. It will become a destination. When we have
a theater like 23rd Street, it¨s not a destination, and we have
lost out dramatically on that. We are still looking for musical-theater
help. That is something we will continue to do, because now that
is part of our programming, and it makes financial sense.
Looking at the creative ways that you can finance projects is also
going to be critical to moving forward, because we don¨t know what
the funding community is going to be. We don¨t know how much private
support there is going to be. We can all count on individual support.
I would encourage people to start talking about that positively.
My great concern is everything we¨ve been reading in the paper about
the public sector and individuals, foundations and, to a degree,
big corporations not supporting the institutions they were supporting
before Sept. 11th • the human-service organizations, the cultural
institutions. I¨m afraid we¨ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are people out there who are supporting us, who will continue
to, who have called us over and over to assure us over the past
six weeks that the funding will be there. Maybe it¨s not going to
be this additional funding that some of us have received over the
past three or four years. We won¨t be getting these phone calls
saying, ěHey, I have a little extra money to give.î I do believe
there will be funding out there if there is encouragement on part
of the press. Every day, I see another article saying that people
will not be supporting the cultural community and it will be a disaster.
It will in fact become a disaster. I encourage those who write about
this: Start telling the stories about people who are supporting
us, and why they¨re supporting us.
Lichtenstein: I just want to comment on one thing: You¨re talking
about community and districts. One thing, I think, that has importance
is the idea of cultural districts, official cultural districts,
designated by the city and state, that will have certain incentives
that will support the cultural activity within that district, whether
they¨re tax incentives, whether they¨re incentives for developers
to put space in for cultural activity in that district. We¨ve talked
to both city and state people, and they¨re very interested in the
idea. In fact, we¨ve talked to the governor about it and he immediately
started talking about Utica and I said, ěWait a second. It does
have implications with what¨s going on in Long Island City and other
areas of the city. It could affect a number of different places
within the city as well as the state. It could be an important way
to support developing cultural communities within different areas.î
Beckelman: One thing I¨m curious about is that, regarding the city
• more the city than the state • incentives have become available.
I think it¨s more critical now than before, as far as coordination
amongst agencies. Years ago, when I was in the New York Landmarks
Conservancy, we put forward a $100 million redevelopment of the
Federal Archive building. In order for us to get the property from
the federal government, we had to get a certain percentage ěfor
the community.î It took almost 10 years to get the developer to
do what he should have been doing right from the beginning. The
same way as when the police building was being redeveloped. That
space, on the lower level • on the lower two levels • is still not
being used. It¨s not necessarily the developer¨s fault on that particular
one, but I can go on and on.
Susan, I wanted to know if you would comment on how we can strengthen
that public/private partnership to move projects to the forefront.
I¨m tired of making excuses, and I¨ve done this for most of my life
when I¨ve been in the not-for-profit world • trying to persuade
the government, or the real estate community, as to why this is
good business sense, when for all of us here, it does make sense.
It¨s proven time and time again. Since you¨ve been in the middle
of this and you have this enormous capital budget, how can we strengthen
it? How can this be in the forefront next to building baseball fields?
Right now, for example, we¨re at the top of the American list for
the Olympics.
Chin: We really need to have legitimizing support that comes from
the mayor and the city council and elected officials. How do you
get out there as a community to make the argument for cutting through
a lot of red tape? In the 13 years that I¨ve been in city government,
having survived three administrations and hopefully a fourth, it¨s
by having the people downtown buy into the arts community and not
say that it is an ěeconomic engine,î that they really believe it,
and that they¨ll find innovative ways to make this happen. To not
take 10 years to find the mechanism for something to happen. It¨s
similar to the type of investments that were made in Berlin after
the Wall came down, or in Barcelona in 1992 for the Olympics. Those
were strategic investments; those things came from the top. We need
to be in touch. I know that you¨re thinking about survival, but
at the same time, how do you band together to form a very strong
constituency? It¨s not just the companies. It¨s the audiences that
come, it¨s the children that attend. How do you build this groundswell
to convince the politicians that this needs to happen? And looking
at different mechanisms, can you put in front of them case studies
like Harvey¨s talking about? In terms of cultural districts, tax
incentives? Look at Providence. The mayor had created this incentive
for property owners who converted their industrial buildings to
live/work spaces for artists. They are also [provisions] for artists
to be free of paying sales tax. Those are the kinds of innovative
mechanisms that we need to be looking out for.
Wolf: I do want to point out that there have been some changes in
the past few years that have had a direct impact on nonprofit theater
companies on the city level. It was only a few years ago when city
capital dollars would only go into a project where the property
was owned by the city. That changed, and I think Roundabout was
one of the first beneficiaries of this, being able to get capital
dollars and getting property that was leased property. This opens
up an opportunity for theaters that can¨t purchase. They can now
get capital dollars to improve their site.
I also want to mention Senator Schumer¨s commission, the group of
35 that was brought together to explore opportunities for encouraging
development. Although the report does mention culture more as a
footnote, it does stress the importance of supporting a community
by supporting the cultural aspect of it. I think the report is intended
to influence the new administration. I would encourage people to
actually see the report online. There are some very strong recommendations.
There are things that will benefit overall development. The difficult
part is, I don¨t think the report goes far enough on this. There
are great incentives out there for nonprofit organizations.
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