It’s a funny business, fund raising. And the naming game is right at the top of schemes that arts organizations employ to get the wealthiest people to give huge gifts. I’ve always, at a basic level, distrusted this kind of philanthropy. (I may have blogged about this before.) But, it seems to be a great tool, tried and true for securing big money, and David H. Koch’s new gift to soon-to-be-formerly-known-as-The State Theater is a much needed subsidy. But I wonder if there isn’t something ultimately fatal about naming a venue to the highest bidder.

DON’T GET ME WRONG. The magnitude of Mr. Koch’s gift is truly astounding. But leasing the name of a venue–whether it be an opera house, hospital wing or sports arena–has the potential to inhibit cultivating a community relationship with an organization.

Because that’s exactly what’s happening. Mr. Koch (unfortunately pronounced “coke,” which most people will mistake for the soda company) has a 50-year lease on the building in accordance with his gift. Then his family has first right of refusal at the expiration of the fifty-year window, or, they can let some other billionaire (or corporation, who knows?) swoop in and re-name the theater…again.

This isn’t only happening in the arts. Sporting arenas are named after conglomerates like Staples and Disney. Madison Square Garden has the “WaMu Theater.” Tier 1 tennis tournaments, which used to be named only after the city they took place in, are now named after corporations; Pacific Life, Stella Artois, Mercedes-Benz, ad nauseum.

But corporate relationships are subject to the whims of business drama. A new CEO can entirely change the directions of a company’s philanthropic giving. As can new leadership at an arts organization cause certain individual and corporate money to disappear.

My concern is that a venue, especially a theater, is something we expect and hope a community builds a deep and lasting relationship with; one that endures for more than fifty years. And by allowing the identity of a theater to be subject to the liability of economic fluctuation, arts organizations are putting themselves at risk of inhibiting the way a community identifies with their products.

The corporate world is used to this. Companies merge all the time, wiping out one name, or sometimes both, and then mounting fierce ad campaigns to rewire the public’s association with the service. Cingular/AT&T, and Sprint/Nextel, both met serious challenges in changing the public’s awareness of their new corporate identities. And corporations can be downright belligerent in their attitudes toward the consumers who generally desire stability.

I understand that an individual philanthropist is more likely to build a more dedicated relationship with its organization, one that may carry on from one generation of The Riches to the next. But still, for those individuals who patronize an arts organization for the work they present, and not because of the donors it courts, a lasting name will probably keep them engaged with the organization.

As long as I have lived in New York, the venue that has housed the New York City Opera and The New York City Ballet has simply been “The State Theater.” Will I start calling it the “Coke” theater? Maybe. And now, maybe I’ll have a story to tell the grand children…”I remember when it was The State Theater…” But I don’t see how my saying the name Koch for the next fifty years will make David H. Koch feel any better about his philanthropy.

And maybe The State Theater, out of all the venues in New York, will benefit from an identity change. Perhaps distancing itself from its history of fiery battles between the ballet and opera camps may pave the way for more constructive relationships between the two groups in the coming years, especially with new leadership imminent at the City Opera.

But I still feel like being forced to give up one’s name is one of the most dehumanizing things a person can endure, and I think it always saddens people when a venue changes its name. (Or a city, like St. Petersburg. Could you imagine if New York City sold its name and suddenly it was “Kraft City” for fifty years, then “Lehman Brothers City” for the next fifty? How would people know where we are?!?!)

At any rate, Mr. Koch’s gift is certainly a blessing for Lincoln Center, which, in a very real way is a blessing for those who will patronize the art Lincoln Center produces.

There is something special about The State Theater. With its gloriously tacky patina of giant-sized rhinestones. The lack of the center aisle. That crazy-looking centerpiece/chandelier that, if you’re sitting in the orchestra and look straight up appears to be a vortex that will suck you up into some other dimension. Somehow it seemed fitting that a building so awkward in so many ways was named after “the state.” Now Mr. Koch will be associated with all those idiosyncrasies. Perhaps he’s the one getting more than he’s bargained for.

July 11, 2008
Categories: Classical Music, Dance, Lincoln Center, NY Times, NYC Ballet, NYC Opera, Opera, The Venues, Uptown . . Author: countercritic

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