Famed Lincoln Center sculpture won’t return after $550M renovation

Famed Lincoln Center sculpture won’t return after $550M renovation

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Plus, fans of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel can soon take a bus tour through the show’s Manhattan locations—and more intel in today’s New York Minute news roundup

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The fate of Lincoln Center’s midcentury modern installation

Earlier this week, the Lincoln Center and New York Philharmonic announced that the David Geffen Hall redesign will finally move forward after years of planning and mishaps. But Gothamist reports that there’s one part of the existing music hall that will not be reinstalled following the $550 million renovation: “Orpheus and Apollo,” a chandelier-like structure that hung in the lobby for 50 years.

The installation, designed by Richard Lippold, was commissioned when the concert hall was built in 1962; it features 450 steel wires and weighs five tons. In 2014, it was removed from the hall for “maintenance,” but Lincoln Center officials later said that it would not return after the renovation. This week, Deborah Borda, president of the Philharmonic, confirmed to the Associated Press that the statue will not be reinstalled because of “current safety standards that impact the wiring.”

Preservationists and academics are not happy about this decision. “They didn’t consult the artist’s estate. They didn’t consult the public,” preservationist Theodore Grunewald told Gothamist. “It’s really tragic because of the complexity of the sculpture. Once you take Humpty Dumpty apart, it’s hard to put it together again.”

Stony Brook University art professor Michele Bogart also spoke to Gothamist about the piece’s significance, and the risk that modern art runs of being disposed: “It’s not pretty or pleasing in the way people want to be pleased, and the reaction now is to get rid of it,” she said. “That to me is a problem.”

And in other news…

• Several recent investigations have brought attention to broker and landlord bias, but a NYC project to combat housing discrimination hasn’t made a lot of progress.
• Starting on December 16, fans of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Amazon show can take a bus tour through Manhattan locations featured in the series.
• An exhibit at the New York Transit Museum takes a look back at iconic, vintage subway cars that operated in the city from 1959 to 2003.
• Next week, the City Council will hold a hearing on the Queens sewage spill that forced dozens of residents of the borough from their homes.
• A house where the Beastie Boys partied is for sale on the Lower East Side.
• The New York Times takes a look at the rise and fall of Evgeny A. Freidman, known as “the taxi king,” who recently pleaded guilty to tax fraud and was one of the industry leaders to amount wealth by creating a bubble; which led taxi drivers to face crippling amounts of debt.
• WeWork leasing is stalled at a recently-debuted Brooklyn Navy Yard building.
• Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber eye a $10M Nolita penthouse.
• Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a bill to increase access to Hart Island.
• And, finally, a duck slowed down an N train in Brooklyn yesterday:

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