More happenings at Lincoln Center. In the last year (its 50th, F.Y.I.) or so the campus has refurbished and rebranded the New York State Theatre as the David H. Koch Theatre, welcomed the fashion community by hosting the C.F.D.A. Awards and securing the upcoming Mercedes-Benz Fashion Weeks (hiring former Vogue eventster Stephanie Winston Wolkoff to make things spiffy along the way), and by taking on a major upgrade of Alice Tully Hall.
I came last year to take a look at the Tully redo after reading Paul Goldberger’s rave in The New Yorker and fell in love with the completely sexy new glass facade and sunken stairway designed by Diller, Scofidio & Renfro.
On Tuesday the final piece fell into place with the ribbon cutting on the WNET.org Studios at Lincoln Center, in what was formerly the Julliard bookstore. (The school, still upstairs, sent trumpeters to welcome their new neighbor. I love trumpeters, don’t you?) The two-story space houses two separate studios—both available for corporate hosts—totaling 5,000 square feet.
While the Today show has its Rockefeller tourists, and Good Morning America its Times Square denizens (and CBS has whoever happens to be wandering by 59th and Fifth), doesn’t it make perfect sense that our PBS stations look out upon the cultural menu served daily that is Lincoln Center? It does to me.
The studio’s main purpose will be to house one new show and a few existing series. Filmed on the ground floor, Need to Know is a new national weekly taped broadcast bowing May 7 at 8:30 p.m. (right after Washington Week, the best politics show on television), hosted by broadcast journalist Alison Stewart and Newsweek editor Jon Meacham. I met executive producer Shelley Lewis, who promised that the new show would differ from other news in that it would feature mostly original reporting, as opposed to analysis and aggregating. As a news junkie, I was interested to know more, but Ms. Lewis is a super busy type and was thus desperate to get back to her desk, but not before plugging the sister web effort that can be found the week before at pbs.org/needtoknow.
SundayArts with Philippe de Montebello and Paula Zahn (who was on hand to check out her new digs) and Live From Lincoln Center (duh!) will use the new studio, too. It will also be the home of the annual pledge drive. (When was the last time you called in and pledged, by the way? I realized it had been some time.) They also plan to have some sort of on-site fund-raising capability, although how exactly that will work no one seemed sure yet.
In fact, there’s a lot yet to be thought through. Who shoots on what floor? How will they tie in with Lincoln Center programming on their many high-tech screens, including a 103-incher on a moving boom that serves as an in-studio visual during telecasts, then swivels to face the street for an outdoor projection? WNET.org president and C.E.O. Neal Shapiro lets on that they only broke ground 18 months ago, so they’re happy to be this far along. I sneak back and look at a tiny but comfy-looking greenroom and see technical people fiddling with massive bundles of colored wires. One explains that the studio will be robot programmed via optic fiber from the other Thirteen studios at 450 West 33rd Street. Cameras, lights, and sound will all be run from there, while the on-air talent and executive producers will reside at Lincoln Center. It all seems breathlessly exciting and dauntingly technical; I’d love to be a fly on the wall during their first broadcast.
Like other major broadcasters, WNET.org sister stations Thirteen and WLIW hope that their new transparent studio will generate buzz and viewership. But this studio has the unique benefit of sitting right on top of what amounts to one of their main content sources, with much more targeted foot traffic.
So the studios will also serve as fund-raising venues themselves. Starting today and running through April 21, the studio will host nightly events for sponsors, donors, and even regular members. (Disclosure: My sister Kerry Kruckel Gibbs works in fund-raising for WNET, and BizBash C.E.O. David Adler serves on the station’s education committee.)
It’s a perfect setting to have a cocktail before the opera or ballet. The glass goes from floor to ceiling, with the same rich wood paneling from Alice Tully Hall. The architecture was done by Bradley Zizmore of the a+1 design corporation with set designer Seth Easter. It’s all sleek and modern and nifty, and the people whizzing by are right on top of you. They even have tiny little producer workspaces along the glassed-in stairs. I can’t imagine being able to concentrate with all the passersby, but I’m going to love watching them try.
In addition, dear readers, the studios are open to outside organizations for a charitable donation in lieu of a rental fee. Of course I asked how much, but no one’s gotten that far. What is clear is that event planners, caterers, sponsors, and others who want in on a chic little glass box overlooking Lincoln Center should contact Hilary Vlachos, executive director, community relations, at [email protected].
