David Geffen gets naming rights to Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center

I guess they ran out of the money that Avery Fisher gave them. What a joke! Give us your money. We will put your name on anything.

 

If I ever attend an event there, I'll try to get one of these to wear.

 

I'd rather it be named "David Geffen Hall" than "Sleep Country Amphitheater" like one of the venues around these parts. Who wants to go see a show in a venue named after a mattress?

 

Terrible isn't it. Why can't they choose a nice simple name - like Carnegie Hall.

 

Must be nice to be one of the point-one-percenters. But I can think of much more societally useful things to do with a hundred million dollars.

Clearly a first-world problem.

 

Until they want to renovate/raise money again, then maybe they'll pay Geffen a few mil to take his name off in favor of another name!

 

David Geffen is no dumba$$. If he paid 100 million then he's gonna flip it for 200 million.

 

Well , he's also donated $300 million to the UCLA medical school.

 

How about a bit of selfless philanthropy for a change?
Make the donation for the good of the institution and the community. (That IS why you're doing it, right, David?)
And ask for nothing in return.

Ha! That'll never happen.

 

Who cares if a donor wants his name immortalized in marble. It got him to give. When you go to the Met at Lincoln Center, almost every seat has a little plaque with the name of someone who donated $10,000.

Schools, museums and cultural institutions compete for donations, and naming rights are how they get someone like David Geffen to increase a $20mm donation to $100mm, or get him to give money to them instead of someone else. It might encourage the donor to leave them a really big pile of money when he dies, since the building is named after the donor and part of his legacy.

Yale University was named after some rich guy who donate nine bales of goods, 417 books and a portrait of King George I to the school. The school named itself after him in hopes that he would donate more.

You know where the New York City Ballet performs? It's the building directly across from Avery Fisher Hall: David H. Koch Theater. Of the Koch brothers.

 

It's hubris, ego. There are far beter things to spend $100 mil on.

 

Like what? SHM-SACDs? Power Cables?

 

Well I'll ignore the sarcasm for now and just mention Homes for those who have lost theirs due to losing their jobs, helping schools, the homeless, (yes, UCLA is admirable but public schools could use funds, too)

Just my opinion but, heck, if you want to spent it on SACD's go for it. Me, I give quite a bit to various charities throughout the year including shelters for battered and abused children and women...

 

And Mr Geffen also contributes to a variety of charities and organizations as well.

But should the ex-Avery Fisher Hall not be renovated? Should Avery Fisher never have made his donation? Should it never have been built in the first place?

 

Yes but nothing in the amount of the Avery Fisher Hall. I take issue with an environment that looks to restoring a building when poverty continues to claim more and more of the middle class and people continue to beg on street corners for enough money for food for their kids. In the current environment I feel there should be other priorities.

We're not going to see eye to eye on this so let's leave it at that shall we? If someone disagrees with you let's also to make it personal.

 

Concert halls and other cultural institutions are important, and the fact that there are other important things doesn't change that.

 

This having something named after you just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. In the words of Charles Bukowski: "Immortality is a stupid invention of the living." Who gives a damn if you're remembered after you're dead? Talk about the ultimate egocentric act. Oooohhh, dey're gonna miss me when I'm goooooonne.

 

In four decades, or less, who will know what a David Geffin means. I wish DG luck in what I understand is a cracker box.

 

True but sometimes you have to ask to or for whom? The attendees that go these places if they represent everyone that would probably be true but if it is unaffordable for most folks and the wealthy primarily attend, it could be a different Matter entirely. I always ask the question about who benefits most?

Anyhow, there's a variety of opinions here. I'm not going to argue mine is any more valid than those who feel otherwise but it is important to consider all these things.

Ultimate it is Geffen's money and his decision but it also demonstrates a myopic view of the world IMHO.

 

He's so vain, he probably thinks this hall is about him.

 

Philharmonic Hall, as originally conceived after much research and planning in the early 1960's, was smaller than subsequently built - other persons besides the accousticians and architects thought it would turn out to be too small for the NY public - so they demanded that it be enlarged and received exactly what several architects said they would - a hall that was now too large to reflect accoustic sound well, which led to a lot of complaining about the deadness and dryness of the hall from members of the classical music public in the 1960's.
In the 1970's Avery Fisher's donation allowed for some sonic improvements. But the truth is that conductors ever since have continued to "tinker" with things in the interior in the hopes of getting them better. In the end, for better or worse, it was and remains an imperfect hall - not terrible, not impossible to record in, by no means an uncomfortable venue to watch classical music being performed, but not perfect.

Now David Geffen has donated an astronomical sum of money toward what I and (apparently) others here feel is an extremely expensive refurbishment for this concert hall. No doubt, the NYPhil sees this as something that is long overdue - almost all of the great orchestral concert halls built during the 1950s and 1960s are being updated. London's Royal Festival Hall's refurbishment in 2007, however, cost a mere $111M pounds (only $169M in today's US dollars) and that included significant changes to the interior as well as the total refurbishment of the 7,700 rank pipe organ there - a feature Avery Fisher Hall lacks.

Put me on the side of those who think that $500 million could help NY in many better ways. There's really nothing so grossly unenjoyable about Avery Fisher Hall to warrant such excess. If Geffen was really sincere and a true fan of the art, he'd rename the hall what it was originally intended - Philharmonic Hall - so chosen because it is the performing venue of the NY Phil, not of David Geffen.

 

It's such an ugly trend.
I still refuse to call Irvine Meadows "Verizon Amphitheater".

 

Understand this place is, or will be history.

 

I recall a lot of money was spent renovating Lincoln Center only a few years ago.

 

And now Comiskey Park is US Cellular Field. The Corporation Is All. All Is The Corporation.