President’s Letter: December 2023

Monthly observations and insights from MAS President Elizabeth Goldstein

I found myself in the Lincoln Square area with some time to kill, after seeing an exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum. It was a gray afternoon with a decent chill in the air. If it had been a little warmer or a little less gray, my go-to activity would have been a walk. I used to work nearby, and it is always interesting to explore a place I used to know well but don’t frequent much anymore.

The new Geffen Hall lobby came to mind, and I thought it might be interesting to see what that is really like. As I am sure you remember, the Geffen Hall won a MASterworks award this year. And one of the more striking differences in the redesign was the transformation of the lobby from a ticket hall into a public gathering place. In fact, if you are in the lobby during a performance, you can even “see” the performance streaming live from the auditorium without a ticket. The goal was to democratize the hallowed halls. There are dozens of comfortable seats arranged in ways that encourage groups of one to four to rest a bit.

I was not there during a performance, but the lobby was full of people anyway. There were teenage girls – dancers, I suspect – waiting to go to the Nutcracker across the way. I spotted older women with library books settled in to read. One woman next to us was studying a thick music score. A group of friends were enjoying a holiday catch-up behind me. I overheard a man on his cell phone, engaged in a lively discussion in a language I couldn’t place. I imagined that it might be a holiday call with friends or relatives far away. It was a nice cross-section of New York – not a particularly well-heeled crowd. But on the other hand, it wasn’t like a library, either. Geffen Hall is, after all, not fully a public space.