code0range.net

Lou Reed, Phillip Glass, Robert Wilson and Mark Morris are all names that have come to symbolize the pinnacles of New York City's modern performing art culture. It may be hard to imagine for many people out of the New York City loop that their ties are particularly strong to the borough of Brooklyn, thanks to the enduring relationships formed over the years with the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and its long-time leader, Harvey Lichtenstein. Before stepping down as executive director in 1999, Lichtenstein helped to nourish these bonds between the world of high culture and the world of Fort Greene Brooklyn. For 32 years, Lichtenstein, a Brooklyn College graduate, was instrumental in transforming the BAM Performing Art Center from an unassuming cultural colony set in the non-gentrified NYC borough, into an established and well-respected cultural experience.

Retired since 1999, Lichtenstein's relationship with BAM has steered into the BAM Local Development Office (BLDO), where he can spend some of his golden years concentrating on his ideas for urban expansion in Brooklyn. He's happy enough to leave the administrating that he once ran so tightly to his successors Karen Brooks Hopkins and Joseph Melillo. After years of such obstinate leadership and intense management, Lichtenstein had no problem stepping down from his post and out of the way of its new administrators. He surprised even his long-time employee, BAM General Manager Alice Bernstein, when he no longer called the office or concerned himself with the day-to-day business of the company. After asking him if he found it difficult to let go of a job he micro-managed for so long, he replied "no", he was just doing his job.

Doing his job at BAM began in 1967, when he joined the then small-time opera house that boasted only a few scheduled performances which were mostly local. The Brooklyn Philharmonic was at its most obscure when it was one of the few local companies that had a regular performance at BAM, and didn't offer any great promise of drawing large and sophisticated city audiences. Lichtenstein's ongoing task was to find a way to draw the artists he deemed important, if not commercially successful. "He was confronted with thousands of obstacles," said BAM General Manager Alice Bernstein; who worked with him until his retirement. She credits Lichtenstein's perseverance as the key to getting the great performances to show at BAM. "Persistence on Lichtenstein's part brought the Royal Shakespeare Company here," Bernstein said.

BAM's goal under Lichtenstein was to make a desirable place for artists and performers outside the downtown area of Manhattan; one that he made viable through his tenacity and through a clever plan of action. The large opera house in Brooklyn that is now BAM could seat up to 2,100 and offered stage space that the overcrowded and overpriced environment of Manhattan theater could not provide to the kind of artists Lichtenstein envisioned at his theater. "Our niche was the scale," said Bernstein, "BAM allowed a certain work to be possible". This turned out to be instrumental in luring the performances that he coveted for BAM. In turn, he was successful in promoting BAM as an epicenter of artistic postmodernism with artists such as Laurie Anderson and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and was spurred on by his Next Wave Series in the 80s.

Under Lichtenstein, BAM gave a showcase to artists who had something out of the mainstream to express; and he gave them the chance for a large audience to receive it. As part of his ongoing work with the BLDO, he continues campaigning for a project that involves adding more to the Fort Greene area than BAM or the clubs that currently bring in a good night crowd, such as the Moon Cafe. As part of this ongoing development, BAM is working with community business owners and residents to help create a distinctive cultural area in Brooklyn. Governor Pataki recently included BAM as a recipient in his proposed budget for the 2001-2002 Cultural Initiative funding plan. The plan would award BAM $1,00,000 for their plans in the Fort Greene area. BAM intends to use the money for turning a Hanson Street building into an affordable office space for small cultural and art organizations.

Aside from his ongoing business ventures on behalf of BAM, one of Lichtenstein's traits well-known among his company and the artistic community is his loyalty to the performers who frequent the center. He also had the ability to sustain relationships while vigorously building new ones, "his loyalty to these artists was remarkable," Bernstein recalled. His passion for the performing arts sprung partly from the time in his youth when he unsuccessfully pursued a dancing career, and subsequently involved himself with the world of New York City. His family helped to instill a sense of artistic imagination in Lichtenstein that permeated his future ideas when helping to create a new piece. "He knew what it was like to try to create something, and could understand what the artist was attempting to do," said Bernstein.

According to Bernstein, Lichtenstein's generosity to new artists sometimes verged on stubbornness During Merce Cunningham's first run of performances at BAM, the 2,100 seat opera house barely filled up with a few hundred audience members - many of which decided to leave the theater during intermission. Lichtenstein stood adamantly by the presentation, which eventually fared better with audiences. This kind of tenacity for cultivating artistic talent extends to Lichtenstein's dream of turning BAM's close-knit Fort Greene Brooklyn neighborhood into an area humming with restaurants, cafes and shops that would attract New York City's most discriminating patrons. Inspired by the popular and bustling performing art centers in Europe, the ambitious administrator set out to import the same ambience to BAM's neighborhood. BAMcafe and its live music performances are evidence of his efforts to capture the European flare and bring it to Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn. As a participant in New York's more unconventional culture, the 73-year-old Harvey Lichtenstein continues to succeed in avoiding a conventional retirement.