Lincoln Center Opens Its First Hall, Sound and All

On September 23, 1962, Philharmonic Hall opened as the first completed building at Lincoln Center, the performing arts complex rising on the Upper West Side blocks once known as San Juan Hill. Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic for a white tie gala broadcast live on CBS, built around a brand new commission: Aaron Copland's Connotations for Orchestra, written specifically to mark the occasion. Architect Max Abramovitz designed the hall, and the acoustics firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman planned its sound, but a late campaign by the New York Herald Tribune to add more seats forced a redesign that undercut much of that acoustical work. The hall sounded off almost from the first night, and critics argued about it for years before the room was rebuilt more than once, first as Avery Fisher Hall and now as David Geffen Hall.