The gift will help the New York cultural landmark expand activities such as hosting food banks, serving as a polling station for elections and more.
on “patriotic philanthropy”; he’s made contributions to the National Archives, the Library of Congress and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
"Before Covid, 63% of the audiences and the performers in the space were people of color, so it was welcoming artists from all around New York and around the world. And then Covid came along," says Henry Timms, the Lincoln Center’s president and CEO."We've done things in civic engagement that we've really never done before.
Some of these new initiatives—two weeks ago, the atrium held a food drive as well as a naturalization ceremony for 200 people from 46 countries—mark a departure from the center’s century-old focus on the arts. The space that now houses the atrium first opened in 1905 as the Colonial Music Hall, a Victorian-style vaudeville venue that hosted the likes of Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin.