Lincoln Center benefits and hard hats may sound like an unlikely combination, but at the cultural center’s April 30 “Good Night, Alice” event—a fund-raising sendoff for Alice Tully Hall, which is now undergoing an 18-month renovation—the night’s omnipresent theme of construction made it happen. The evening’s program included a concert by Laurie Anderson, Wynton Marsalis, and others at Alice Tully Hall, as well as dinner and dancing in a tent in Damrosch Park and a fireworks display.Artful and fun interpretations of the building motif abounded, including flasks filled with dirty martinis and cosmopolitans at cocktail hour, personalized hard hats acting as placeholders, an appetizer course served in a silver lunch box (filled with elements that guests could use to build their own dish), and a replica of a crane with a piano suspended from it anchoring the tent-covered dinner space.
A barbecue-themed buffet dinner, served from a silver mobile food station similar to those found at construction sites, continued the night’s casual theme. Guests sampled dishes including carved cowboy steaks, Kobe-beef hot dogs, and spicy corn bread triangles on blue tin plates.
As a parting gift, the more than 700 attendees took home Lincoln Center tote bags carrying their hard hats and lunch boxes, along with a Thermos and a cookie imprinted with a rendering of the renovated Alice Tully Hall. The evening was Lincoln Center’s most successful event ever, raising more than $5 million toward the center’s $900 million redevelopment plan, which includes not only the Alice Tully Hall renovation but also changes to the Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater and elsewhere.
—Jane L. Levere
Photos: Courtesy of Stephanie Berger (performance), Philip Greenberg (all others)
A barbecue-themed buffet dinner, served from a silver mobile food station similar to those found at construction sites, continued the night’s casual theme. Guests sampled dishes including carved cowboy steaks, Kobe-beef hot dogs, and spicy corn bread triangles on blue tin plates.
As a parting gift, the more than 700 attendees took home Lincoln Center tote bags carrying their hard hats and lunch boxes, along with a Thermos and a cookie imprinted with a rendering of the renovated Alice Tully Hall. The evening was Lincoln Center’s most successful event ever, raising more than $5 million toward the center’s $900 million redevelopment plan, which includes not only the Alice Tully Hall renovation but also changes to the Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater and elsewhere.
—Jane L. Levere
Photos: Courtesy of Stephanie Berger (performance), Philip Greenberg (all others)
Tabletops adorned with silver hats, trucks, and lunch boxes set the scene inside the dinner tent.
Photo: Philip Greenberg
Tabletops adorned with silver hats, trucks, and lunch boxes set the scene inside the dinner tent.
On tables, smaller versions of the model piano hanging from the crane in the center of the tent echoed the imposing structure.
Servers wore silver hard hats, white shirts, and blue jeans and poured coffee during dessert from large Thermos bottles into blue tin mugs.
Inside the silver lunch boxes, guests found lobster and chop-chop salad, minted pea soup, crunchy won tons, and Asian sesame dressing in smaller plastic boxes to mix and match.
Beneath the tables’ centerpieces of miniature construction vehicles were copies of the blueprints for Alice Tully Hall’s renovations.
Dessert came in the form of a build-your-own sundae, with ingredients such as sprinkles, sauces, and nuts.
Draped throughout the dinner tent in Damrosch Park was orange netting that referenced the construction theme.
Lincoln Center chairman Frank A. Bennack Jr. and Mayor Michael Bloomberg signaled the beginning of a Grucci fireworks display by pushing a plunger.
Calloway Brooks and the Cab Jivers performed from multilevel, silver-toned scaffolding.
Philip Glass also performed during the concert.
