In the 1880s, the titans of American business tired of sitting on the main floor of the city's opera house while the old aristocracy looked down on them from the prized boxes above. Led by William Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan and Jay Gould, they spent a few of their millions to build a grand new opera house uptown at Broadway and West 39th Street.
But the business leaders of the era didn't stop there. The city's part-time symphonic orchestra could manage only a handful of concerts each year, so Vanderbilt, Morgan and Andrew Carnegie underwrote the rival New York Symphony Orchestra, according to the landmark history book, Gotham. Carnegie built a first-class home for the group uptown, at Seventh Avenue and West 57th Street. Carnegie Hall opened in 1891.
The story of New York's major arts organizations has always been a reflection of the wealth and wherewithal of the city's most important businesspeople. The return of the New York Philharmonic to Carnegie Hall shows that the city's most influential businessman, Citigroup chief Sandy Weill, has decided that the future of the arts lies in consolidation and financial husbandry.
The 1880s, the 1950s construction of Lincoln Center and today's difficult times vividly illustrate the business-arts connection.
In the 1880s, no one was richer or more ambitious than J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and their rivals. They built the modern American economy and in their spare time transformed New York's cultural scene.
In the 1950s, no one was more influential than the Rockefellers. Fifty years of efforts to replace the 1880s opera house finally were in tune with post-war prosperity. Robert Moses was about to clear the Lincoln Square area on the West Side, and the Metropolitan Opera agreed to build a new opera house on the site. Then, Carnegie Hall's owners told the Philharmonic that its lease wouldn't be renewed so that the hall could be replaced with an office building.
John D. Rockefeller III wouldn't let the Philharmonic be homeless. He led the effort to create a cultural center for first two, then three, and then the majority of the city's most important performing arts groups. He pledged $12 million to build Lincoln Center, according to the center's historian, Edgar Young. Rockefeller's entities gave more, and he personally raised much of the rest of the $185 million.
Today, the line of influence leads to Sandy Weill and a small group of similarly successful businesspeople. They run the cultural organizations that decided in the late 1990s to spend billions of dollars to create, rebuild or expand their institutions.
Mr. Weill's orchestrated return of the Philharmonic to Carnegie Hall will strengthen the two institutions. It shows that few believe they can raise the $400 million it would take to rebuild the symphony's Lincoln Center home.
Business leaders remain the conductors of culture. Their plans, however, will be played in diminuendo in keeping with the times.